Our Journey to China: Our First Few Days in Guanghouz

Dinner at Lucy's

Saturday night after medical appointments earlier in the day we ventured to Lucy's it's an American restaurant, sort of they serve American food. David choose beef and noodles.
The hotel we are staying at is on an island....but not what I would consider and island, there is a river that surrounds the hotel and other buildings, but not like what I imagined, like in the Caribbean.

Sunday was pretty much a free day until later in the afternoon, we ventured with Zhou (aka Joe) to the vegetable and herb market. The interesting thing is that they sell fresh fish and poultry there as well, we actually saw the people from the fish market delivering fresh live fish to one of the hotels. The guy was actually carrying around in his truck large industrial size trash cans full of fish and then he was picking them up and putting in a trash can filled with water to be taken to the restaurant. We also went to the pearl store, the is an entire building dedicated to people selling pearls, it is a wonder how anyone makes money. Also there was a stop at the jade place as well, it too is an entire building of stores of people selling jade.We topped Sunday evening off with dinner at the Hut... Pizza Hut. It seems weird, this is the second time we have eaten at Pizza Hut during our stay in China. It seems odd to us of course because we go to get pizza at Pizza Hut, here in China they serve Chinese dishes as well. The pizza is close to home, but they don't use as much pizza sauce actually use very little.

Monday was our trip to the zoo, it's about 30 minutes away, but traffic wasn't bad. That is one thing that seems better here and Xudxou (Shu Dough) where the orphanage was. Nanjing and Beijing were super congested with traffic, Beijing more so than Nanjing.

The visit to the zoo was nice, we saw elephants, black bears, tigers, we did see the panda but she/he was inside, we also got to see white and black swans, lots of fish, flamingos and various reptiles along with several types of monkeys.

We hung out at the hotel this afternoon we went to the playground near the hotel after a bit in the air conditioning. Then tonight it was Lucy's for dinner, nothing super exciting, David had Chinese, Geoff and I had American food. Although Geoff finished off what David didn't eat. After dinner another trip to the playground where his friend Matthew joined us for a bit. Now we are back in the hotel room, David got a bath and we chatted with John and Laureli.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is the big day, our consulate appointment. We leave bright and early to be there to complete our paperwork and be a step closer to home.

All is going well, David is learning more English each day. He seems to understand us so that is a good thing. Tonight he seemed more talkative with both the kids. Well it's about bed time for David, so I will say good night from Guanghouz.