Sunday in Guangzhou

It's Sunday evening here in China; it's warm on Shamian Island and a bit humid.  Today we visited The Six Banyan Buddhist Temple, offered incense, and prayed for the health of our children.  After our tour, we opted to strike out on our own and crossed the river from Shamian Island to the streets across the Pearl River lined with shops. This was an immersion into the "real" China on a Sunday afternoon crowded with shoppers.  The first street was lined with shop after shop of dried herbs, animals, fungi, roots, and many things that we didn't recognize.  The locals stared at us with curiosity, wondering why we would be there with two Chinese children in tow.  The next street offered displays of snakes, frogs, eels, turtles, scorpions, and all other sorts of other treats waiting for a favorite recipe.  Next we entered an area filled with pet supplies and pets of all sorts, including kittens, puppies, birds, and hundreds of different fish.  That was actually hard to see, as the animals were not seemingly well. Finally we entered an area reserved for live and dried animals, from chickens and pigeons to muscles, turtles, skins, organs, bones and feet. At the end of the last street we suddenly encountered a pedestrian street crammed with shoppers and an endless line of retail shops.  Overwhelmed with this mass of people, we retreated into a Holiday Inn (of all places) and had lunch.  We then made our way back to the island winding through streets clogged with families enjoying the Sunday afternoon free time; cards games, repairing "ancient" bicycles, and snacking from white Styrofoam containers. Tonight Anna joined Mommy and Lily in reading books for the first time.  She even amazed us by joining Lily in counting to ten in English.  And what was really wonderful is that Anna went to sleep without crying for the first time.  We were offered so much wonderful advice after last night's blog post, and tonight some of that advice worked like a charm!  Both girls are snug and asleep and Mommy and Daddy have some time to ourselves. John and Lily are both feeling better and we owe it to the Chinese medicines from the White Swan clinic and the wonderful Wong family from the bay area who shared their US meds with John. How can we thank you?! Tomorrow we go back to the medical clinic to read Anna's TB test. We are hoping for good news. Thanks to all of you for keeping us in your thoughts. Eric, we love you and miss you very much.