The Great Asian Race: Day 8

Day 8 started out with a long train ride to Guang-Zhou China.  Well, it wasn't that long, but long enough.  It took us 2 hours to cross the border and get into China.  Once we had crossed the border it was very evident!  There were a lot of Chinese guards standing at every train stop.  When we got to our stop, it was crazy!  China was definitely a lot dirtier that Hong Kong was (well, where we were anyway), and lots of people trying to vye for our attention.  We got a taxi, which was very cheap!!  And made our way to our hotel.  Our hotel was on a small island within the actual city that the British use to occupy, so that was interesting.  It was one of the nicer hotels I have stayed in, but the cheapest one of the trip!!  $60 for a 4 star hotel!!!  China was cheaper for everything.  This picture is a picture out our window.  It is of the kids at recess at a school.  They don't have much room, but they are making the most of it by playing tag back and forth!!

After we had our stuff settled into our room we decided to get out and explore since we only had a day and a half here.  We were both hungry, so we ducked into a little noodle shop for some ramen noodles.  I know I know, I can have ramen noodles here in the states, but these were very authentic, and they made us some great pork dumplings to go in them.  Delicious!  They were also excited to have some foreigners in their shop, especially one that spoke their language!

Next we went to the Chen Family Temple.  The temple was basically a museum for anyone who has ever had the last name Chen.  It was pretty sweet with all the detailed carving and all of the cool art.

The front of the building.

Some of the detailing on the top of the building.  All the carvings tell a story about the Chen family history.

These huge things are the doors into the Temple.  The paintings of the warriors are supposed to protect it.  They are so big!!!

These are what the walls looked like inside.  They were squares that were carved, and yes, each one telling a part of the history.  So amazing!
This is a building within the Temple.  It had a lot of the art in it.
There was a lot of clay art like this, this was one of my favorites.
I don't know why I thought this was funny, but it is a huge planter in the middle of the courtyard with like two tiny goldfish in it!  So funny!
This is one of the ivory carved art pieces.  It is carved out of one piece of ivory.  Very beautiful.  If you have anything ivory it was illegal to go back to Hong kong.  Just some trivia for ya'll.

The next two are pictures of the stained glass windows they had.  They were Chris's favorite part in the museum.

After leaving the Chen family Temple we wandered around the "park" area for a bit people watching.  I loved watching all of the children playing.  It was amazing that even though they didn't seem to have much everyone was very happy.  

Like I said, not much of a park as much as cement, so these kids are making do with what they have....the statues are their jungle gym.

I love this picture of this little boy.  I don't know what he is trying to do to the statue, but I think smother it with that plastic bag!!
This is the park area.  Everyone is having fun playing badminton, hacky sack and soccer...all on cement.

Next we went to the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial.  Sun Yat-Sen is the father of communism (I think)  so There is a pretty big memorial to him here, and there are others in China, and one in Taiwan I believe.
Chris contemplating the area, watching the kids play and just taking it all in.

This is a side view of the actual Memorial building.  Whoops we somehow came in the back way.

I love these next few pictures of the kids playing around the Memorial. I think they are playing war.


This is one of my favorite pictures that I took.  How classic does that look!  Kids and guns!!!
But at least they all know they are still friends.
The front of the Memorial.
The VERY front with the garden, statue and Memorial all there.
The statue of Sun Yat-Sen
This is ramdom, but there was a fire truck in the tree when I went to use the restroom.  Weird.  And by the way, it is really hard to use the restroom in China, all of the toilets are squatters in the ground!!!  It is like camping all of the time!!!  My quads were getting a workout!

Next we ventured down a modern Chinese street where all the young kids hang out.  I was decorated very cool!  Lots of lights!!  We found a very nice restaurant where I was starting to get a little bit better at the chopsticks.

So this is what quenched my thirst for about two weeks.  I had to get 7 up because I was not going to drink the water.  When you went into the restaurant they always brought you water....just like here....except it was boiling water.....and I was supposed to drink that.  Maybe if they had cocoa for me to put in it, but since they never did 7 up it was.
This guy was just wearing a rooster outfit in the middle of the street.  Weird.

To top off our night in China, we ended on a great note!!  Chris took me to a Chinese spa where we had massages for 2 1/2 hours!!!  It was amazing!!  They even massaged my eyelids!!  The foot massage part was the best because my feet hurt so much from so much walking in the last week.  The grand total of a 2 1/2 hour massage in China  *drumroll*  $20, including a $3 tip which the girls were very excited about because people don't generally tip there.  The perfect ending to quite a fun day!

Great Asian Race Day 9 to be continued....

The Great Asian Race: Day 7

Today we are headed to the country of Macau.  Macau was first settled by the Portuegese, and therefore that is the officail language of Macau.  Very interesting...It has a lot of the Portuegese influence in their architecture, which I really liked, and it is also vying to become the next Las Vegas.  It has a lot of the new casinos like Vegas, the Venetian, MGM Grand, the Wynn and a few more.  We started off the day by getting our tickets to Macau, we were going to travel by Hydrofoil Ferry, which is a VERY FAST ferry.  We got our tickets and were waiting around for our departure time.  At 15 minutes before we left we entered through the door and discovered that there were A TON of people waiting to get through customs to get on their alloted ferry to Macau.  We realized we had made a big mistake by waiting outside, and when our ferry took off....we were still in line.  As soon as we got through customs we raced over to the next ferry that was about to leave and begged them to let us (all 9 of us!) on the next ferry.  We were talking so fast and had raced in front of so many people that I think they didn't enough english to reply so they just let us on.  Phew!!!

This is Paul and Susan and Emily after our mad rush to get onto the Hydrofoil.  The seats on this ferry were very nice, which was good because the ferry ride to Macau was an hour long, and I get very sea sick on boats!!

Once in Macau, we took a bus to the Central part of Macau where they had decorated for Christmas.
This is the town square, I like this picture because I kept the building it's yellow color and everything else is black and white.  Kind of fun.
Chris and I in the town square.

A church in the town square.
Yep, this is Chris coming out of McDonalds.  It was a very big deal that he eat at a McDonalds here.  Chris has eaten at McDonalds in every country that he has ever been to.  Which is a lot!!  His last passport he had to get extra pages in because he ran out of room!!!

This is a view of the next street that we walked down.  So many people.  I wanted to get a good picture of it, so I got on Chris's shoulders to get a better view.  While I was up there some Asian girls started pointing and laughing at me and taking pictures.  I guess they don't do that there?

There were a lot of shops selling this pork jerky.  They were giving out samples and I have to admit, it was really good!

We went to a Portuegese restaurant for lunch and this pig in a santa house was outside the door.  We thought it was pretty funny.  It is like a rocking horse, but is a rocking pig!!

Catholic church that is still used today.  

The next two pictures are residential areas.

This is a picture of the Portuegese Consulate.

The next few are pictures at a fort that is high up on a hill in Macau to protect it from invaders back in the 1600's.

A casino from the fort.
The entrance into the fort.

Standing by one of the many cannons in the fort.  This one is pointed at the casino!

We thought it was a crazy picture to have all of the residents in their their tiny house backed up all the way to these huge casinos!!

The next pictures are of St. Pauls church.  In the 1600's it was all burned down by a fire in the kitchen, all except for the front of it, which is still the only part of it they have kept.  Very interesting.
This is from the fort.

From the front....
Chris in front of the church.

Am I in Vegas....no wait.....
Nope, still in Macau!!!

Well, we could not get tickets back to Hong Kong...so.....we had to buy first class tickets on the Hydrofoil.  We were pretty excited.
Chris and Paul are waiting in the First Class lounge for the boat, it wasn't as nice as we thought it would be.  And then we got in the boat.  It wasn't as nice as our boat there, so first class wasn't as nice as economy.  Oh well, at least we got a sandwich with the crusts cut off and some jello!!!

The Great Asian Race day 8 to be continued.......