We began our market day with a walk in the beautiful garden behind our hotel. I had walked there alone with Lily when trying to console her or get her to sleep, but the boys hadn’t been down yet. There was an unbelievable number of koi in the ponds, so many that on one of my walks I was standing on a low bridge, enjoying the breeze when they noticed my shadow and swarmed toward me… The water was rolling like something from a horror movie! It actually made me dizzy to watch it. Very strange. Anyway, I knew the boys would like feeding them, so after breakfast we took some crackers out to throw.
Boys feeding some of the fish
Grayson trying to convince Lily to feed the crackers to the fish rather than herself
I couldn’t convince her either.
Quite possibly my favorite picture of Little Miss from our trip!
Then we were off to the markets. The pearl, jade, and silk market we went to basically looked like a big mall (minus the air conditioning. Did I mention it was hot?). Our guide showed us the reputable sellers for each item, and they showed us the different grades of pearls and jade. Lots of people bought pearls much cheaper other places, but I have heard too many stories of people coming home with fakies! We ended up buying pearls for Lily for her wedding day, because her home town of Hepu is famous for its pearls. During the Ming dynasty, the emperors would only wear the perfectly round pearls from Hepu! So, we thought it would be a fitting gift for that special day in her future.
The lady at the market stringing Lily’s pearls
Next up was the Chen family temple. This was a really cool place built by all the very large clan of Chen family members throughout the world (variations of this include Jackie Chan and people of Lily’s former name Qin… I think… unless I misunderstood our guide). This was another fun shopping stop, where the boys got their “chops” (jade signature stamps, hand carved).
Grant outside the temple
Inside the temple courtyard
carving the chops
After our shopping trip and afternoon naps, the group we were with was going to a Thai restaurant in the mall that has a good shop front design like those seen at https://www.shopfrontdesign.co.uk/. Also, being an introvert at heart, I needed some time with just my little family to kind of recharge. We ended up striking out on our own, and I am so glad we did! We had such a fun adventure, it ended up being one of my favorite nights of all. We took off walking, looking for some Chinese food that was authentic, but also air-conditioned and not scary. Jeff has a crazy good sense of direction, so I never worry about being lost when I am with him. We struck out with Jeff in the lead and me with Lily in the Ergo bringing up the rear. The streets there are nuts. Not just the traffic, which is definitely crazy, but there is no rhyme or rhythm to them. They meander and the buildings all around are so tall, you can’t look around for landmarks to get you back where you started. I would NEVER have made it anywhere without Jeff! We walked up and down, left and right, farther from the commercial, Westerized area we had been in. We passed lines of kids on their way home from martial arts classes; we passed cars with suspicious looking Nikes being sold out of the trunk. I am fairly sure we passed an orphanage, judging by the cartoon characters painted on the outside and the bars on the windows. After walking at least a couple of miles, we gave up and back-tracked. We ended up in the mall across the street from our hotel, on the top floor, in a great little restaurant where we were the only non-Chinese patrons. None of the staff spoke a word of English, so we ordered by pictures and gestures. They served a yummy hot tea when we were seated, but we couldn’t get them to understand “bottled water” for anything! Finally I found an empty bottle at the bottom of the diaper bag and showed it to them. Whatever it takes! We had a lot of laughs with the waitress as we tried our best to order something edible, and ended up with a really nice dinner!
Hot item on the menu… fresh salamander!
This was a really fun day, and while Lily Belle didn’t sleep well that night (darn that caffeinated tea!), things were looking up!
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