Shamian Island

After our Consulate Appointment, we all crowded into a cab and headed off to Shamian Island. It's an oasis in the midst of all the craziness that is Guangzhou. You can see lots of European architecture, there are several lovely churches, and lots of open park areas. It's also very quiet compared to the rest of the city. Back when we adopted MeiMei, we stayed at the White Swan hotel, which is traditionally where all the adoptive families stayed. But the White Swan has been closed for three years now renovating all the rooms. They originally had around 800 rooms but will now have 500. Still, we like to visit the island to purchase different things like tea sets, name chops, and flowering teas.

There are also lots of photo ops!











Quite different from this photo from the other day, isn't it? The pix up above - peaceful, quiet, serene.... The photo below - chaos, loudness, sea of humanity...




We also had lunch at Lucy's, a pseudo famous place with "American" cuisine....

We did some shopping at "A Gift From China". This is the one place on Shamian Island where you don't barter. All the proceeds from this shop go back to orphanages, so we like to patronize them.

After lunch, we headed back to find a taxi, and unfortunately, Kari took a bad tumble on the cobblestone street. She is all right now, but it just reminds me that we need to have her evaluated soon after we get home. She is somewhat unstable on her feet. Whether that is from not walking much all her life or from something else, we need to figure it out.






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