Why We Love Guangzhou, Mother's Day, and Larry's Birthday

Some Guangzhou facts:

• Capital city of Guangdong Province
• Just south of the Tropic of Cancer, it is hot and humid!
• Our guide said 18 million people here in an area half the size of Hong Kong (which has half as many people).  For you non-mathy types, that is 4x as many people per square unit of space.
• The Pearl River runs through it

To me, it feels very alive, but without strangling the life out of you (like Zhengzhou feels).  It very much feels like an Asian version of New York City.


Mother's Day and Larry's Birthday:

The family picture Abigail drew, complete
with Joseph Li (in orange) and
some flowers along the bottom.

Before we left, Larry had Abigail make a picture of our family for Mother's Day.  I was pleased with this, as Larry has never helped Abigail do anything like that for me, although I help her do so for every holiday for him.  And, the picture has made the whole trip with us, which is also impressive.

Larry with his mango-gel type cake.

Larry hates his birthday and doesn't like people making a big deal out of it, but CCAI (our agency) decided to order a cake to our room and while touring around the city today, our guides made everyone sing "Happy Birthday" to him in both English and Chinese.















What we did today:
We went to the Six Banyan Tree Temple, a few minutes by bus from our hotel.  Even Wikipedia describes it as an international adoption hot-spot in its entry.  What is cool about it to me is that it is more than 7 times older than our country.  Most of China's history is like that:  it was established and well  millenia before America. 

Pretty soon Abigail will be carrying me!

At the entrance to the 3 Buddhas, with
our Buddha-bellied boy

Under the 6th Banyan tree with my kids on Mother's Day.

After that, we went to the Chen House, which is a Museum of Folk Arts and Crafts.  There were plenty of super old "bonsai" trees and embroidery that looks like oil paintings.

I tried to grow bonsai trees in my 20's.
Like everything else I ever tried to grow (miniature roses,
gardens, even annuals) they all ended up dead and my
Green-Thumbed Sister In Law Steph got the pots.

Little man is livin' large.
Seeing this is very difficult on Abigail.
She views that as her exclusive seat.

See:  Looks like a painting, right?

But up close, you can see that it is embroidery

Joseph was showing off his new Squeaky Shoes to
Chloe, who couldn't understand why her shoes did
not squeak.

At dusk at the Pearl River.
Again, I am not sure why Abigail isn't carrying me!

 c