Guagnzhou Day 2!

Yes.... she smiles! Only took us a week to get a picture..... sheesh! Today (Sunday) we got to do a little site seeing around Guangzhou. The highlight was a visit to the "Six Banyan Tree" Buddhist temple. 1000 year old monastery for Buddhist monks and a sacred place for the locals to pray. I will post pictures on Flickr from our trip as well.



To the right you will see the central sanctuary with the 3 Buddha's. They represent the past, present and future. Our guide asked one of the monks to perform a blessing ceremony for the babies which just thrilled us! Such a great opportunity to incorporate some of her culture into ours. We took our shoes off to enter the central area and kneeled down in front of the Buddhas. The Monk burned incense and chanted for the babies to live full and happy lives and to thank us for making room in our hearts for them. He sprinkled some sort of sacred water across us and chanted some more..... I loved it all. I was suppose to have my eyes closed but I couldn't stop from staring the whole time. Leah was transfixed.





So we come out of the blessing... and Lauren catches this great shot. Look closely.... cellphone in one hand and car keys in the other. How perfect is that?? You just gotta love a 21st century monk!






We also went to see the "Chen House". Very famous Guangzhou family had it built a couple hundred years ago. It is completely decorated in very ornate carvings across the whole building and above all the doors. Took 10 craftsman over 7 years to finish. They use it now for exhibitions and such....really beautiful.






There are two Lions that guard the entrance to the Chen ( Pronounced CHUN) House and I told Alex that kissing the lions brings you good luck ! Man, I love my little boy...... I wonder what I can get him to kiss next.



Lauren found this totem at the Buddhist Temple.... " May Peace Prevail on Earth." This is a universal theme and Lauren says they have the same totem in the gardens at Jesuit. Very cool.

There is one other item that has been fascinating to me that I have been watching for the past couple of days and I'm just having difficulty in figuring it out. Here at the White Swan this week is an Amish family. There is 9 of them.... 3 adults and 6 kids ranging from about 6 to 14. And they have adopted a beautiful baby. I see them all over town and they are wearing their traditional clothing. I can't really explain my fascination.... I mean I know so little of their culture. But adopting a baby from China? And I thought the culture was sort of a subsistence type thing with not a lot of worldly wealth. It would be very expensive to bring 9 people over here for 2 weeks! Oh well.... I will keep monitoring the situation.

Tomorrow is our first Consulate appointment and then we are heading out to the Pearl markets and shopping! Hard to believe that we will only have 3 nights left in China. (3 nights is equal to 3 years in teenager vocabulary..... )