Day 11 – Touring and Shopping

 

Today was pretty much a free day. We had a tour lined up to go see an old Buddhist temple, and an old family house, and then off to a small shop to do some shopping. Breakfast was pretty good, we tested Ying Ying with some eggs to see if she would break out. She seemed fine, and liked the eggs, so I feel a little better about her having to get her immunizations if they make us get them. We finished breakfast and wandered over to the group to get ready to head out to the temple.

 

The temple was actually really amazing. 1500 years old I believe is what they dated it, and it was fairly large considering they called it a "small temple". It had a very large pagoda inside which was much taller that I had anticipated. It has started to lean though and they wouldn't let us climb it, L  They did offer a Buddhist blessing, which a lot of the families participated in. We had to go in and take our shoes off, and kneel in front of 3 huge statues while the monk chanted and hit a little drum and bell. He splashed a little holy water or oil on us and we bowed 3 times and that was it. It was very nice and peaceful, most of the kids even sat the whole time, Ying Ying included. Afterwards we headed to the Chen House, which is an old family house. Its not really so much a house is it is temple for the Chen family. It was collaboratively built and funded by many of the Chen families from the province. They gather in it a couple of times a year to honor and worship their ancestors. They had several examples inside of the ivory/jade carving and embroidery crafts that the region and family are known for creating. We only stayed for about 40 minutes, so I was kind of rushing around to keep the kid entertained, and so I could see the layout and architecture of the house, while Robyn was taking lots of pictures of the exhibits and the house itself.

 

Our next stop was to a small shop, so we could do some shopping. Our guides said that the prices were good, and that there was no haggling here. We didn't buy much, just a couple of shirts and trinkets for gifts. Most of the merchandise seemed like things we could get back home, and other than the jewelry(which I have no idea about pricing or availability) it all seemed to be the same price range. I didn't really want to buy something here just for the sake of buying something, so we pretty much wandered around until the group was ready. Ying Ying was happy to sit in her stroller so we just rode up and down the aisles the majority of the time. We headed back to the hotel after this, and decided to order some pizza from Papa Johns. Finally, REAL American food! It took about an hour to get here, which was almost twice the quoted time, and then we had to search for the delivery guy, because security won't let them come inside. We finally found him standing outside the hotel by his bicycle. The prices were pretty American, no cheap stuff here. It tasted great, and Ying Ying loved it too. We had a group diner planned for 5 that afternoon, but we figured we'd eat until we were stuffed. The dinner was at a Thai place, so if we didn't like the food, it would be ok since we probably wouldn't be too hungry anyways. We took a little nap before dinner, which Ying needed. She actually cried a bit to get into the bed with me, and promptly leaned back on the pillows and fell asleep. When we woke up we headed downstairs for dinner with the rest of the group. The first thing the brought us was shrimp chips, which Robyn was going to eat until I let her know what they were, J Robyn ended up getting ice cream, and feeding Ying Ying some vegetables.  I got a prawn soup that was the hottest thing they had listed on the menu, along with a bottle of water, a beer, and a Pineapple and Chinese forest frog drink. Initially I thought that 'Chinese forest frog' was some kind of bad translation for a type pf fruit or something along those lines. Turns out it was dead on, its actually the internal organs of a forest fogs, ground up, and dumped in the drink. Since I wasn't really hungry, I got it anyways. The soup was ok, I mainly got it to see how hot it was. I ate the prawn out of it, and tried one of the little peppers in it. It was very hot, but I was done with it after a few bites and moved on to the frog drink. I didn't take any time to initially examine it, that would have detoured me from trying it. It really just tasted like a pineapple punch with lots of pulp in it. The organs are apparently pretty clear, and you could see them at the top. They didn't seem to have any real taste to them, and pineapple is kind of overpowering.

 

We walked back to the hotel after surviving dinner and finally stopped in one of the local shops to look around. Its kind of like Gatlinburg or some little tourist town where all the shops have basically the same t-shirts, toys and knick-knacks. We bought a few t-shirts, and some shoes and outfits for Ying Ying. The shop people were very nice, they loved that babies, and thought it was funny that we could speak a little Mandarin. Of course every 3 or 4 sentences would be followed with a "We have very pretty (insert product here)! I will sell to you cheap!" Robyn gathered her things, and even haggled a bit with the lady and bought our loot. The shop owners even gave the kids a little stuffed toy of some sort for free, which was nice, but Ying could have cared less about it. We made it back to the hotel and performed our nightly attempt at a ritual of bathing and then going to bed. Ying Ying went for it this time, and didn't fuss or anything after bath-time and actually went to sleep. Tomorrow we have a trip to the pearl market off the island. Neither of us is interested in it, but we have 4 days left to burn, and I'm sure the local shops will not provide us with much entertainment after a day or two.

-jason