What should we do today?

Today we had no plans so we kind-of took it easy this morning- breakfast in the restaurant, letting Rylie play in the playroom, and calling home.  Nick sounded better.  Alex said "Hi Mom" and then "Bye" and Julie's mom sounded pretty sick!

We kept looking out the window and the rain was getting worse by the minute.  But we needed to get out!  We've walked around Shamian Island a lot and wanted a change of scenery.  So we decided to try to walk back to the Pedestrian Street our guide had shown us.  As you can see below, we made it to Pizza Hut (through the medicinal street, past the scorpions, snakes, and roosters, and down a few more streets that all look the same- but we remembered the way).  We did not see one other foreigner all day and I'm pretty sure no one spoke English.

 

We managed to order some delicious pan pizzas.  Ryan had pepperoni and Julie had Hawaiian.  Rylie loved both of them!  We also ordered a weird little sampler platter.  After lunch, we walked all around the indoor shopping area and then decided to head back.  We didn't want to get stuck on the backstreets of Guangzhou after dark.  We'd never find our way back!  Also, we were getting lots of stares and people taking our pictures so we were ready to be back to Shamian Island.  We did check the sausage line.  Once again, the people were lined up down the street to buy sausage.  And we smelled this sausage at Wal-mart.  Terrible!

Back on Shamian Island, we took a few more pictures with the statues.  We love the history and architecture of Shamian Island. 

We decided to go visit Judy's shop since it is very close to our hotel and we had not been there yet.  We ended up talking to Judy for a very long time.  Rylie had fallen asleep and took her nap in the stroller most of the time.  Judy is a Christian and told us how God has changed her life since she became a Christian.  She told us she use to be very angry but then Steve (I think) from Texas came and told her all about Jesus and about the Bible.  She became a Christian and reads the Bible all the time now.  She is from a different province about 10 hours away and comes here to work.  She only gets to see her eight year old daughter 2-3 times a year.  And her family is not Christian and it is difficult for her. 

Judy had Chinese/ English children's books and made Ryan read the whole thing to her.  She was very impressed with his Chinese.  We bought another Chinese outfit for Rylie but not the one below.  We also bought a very cool weapon for both the boys but I won't say what it is here in case they see this.  We will wait and surprise them!

Here is Rylie modeling one of the Chinese outfits we bought for her.  It is a little tight around her tummy, lol.  But she was very happy to wear her dress and get her picture taken. 

We were hungry tonight but didn't want to spend more money or leave the hotel in the dark and rain so we are eating all of our leftover snacks- granola bars, nuts, and crackers with peanut butter.  Rylie is eating noodles and playing with stickers.  She had the first pretty major meltdown this afternoon- nothing compared to what Nick went through.  We don't think we did anything to upset her but she started crying uncontrollably.  We tried to comfort her as best we could and also let her cry a little.  We know as much as we miss home and our kids, she has to be missing everything she has left behind.  It breaks our hearts.