Shamian I Love Thee

Free Day

What better to do than visit Shamian Island?

Here is his sweetness before we left. I had actually not even noticed what his shirt says until my sister mentioned it:

I took a few pictures of the beautiful Shamian architecture and noticed they were all coming out fairly hazy. And it wasn't hazy out. I looked at the lens and it was completely fogged up. That, dear friends, is how humid it is here. The first picture before lens defogging:

The second after lens cleaning:

We visited our favorite shop on the Island and found some gifts to take home. While we were there a pair of dapper teens came in and were bantering back and forth with each other. I, of course, has no idea what they were saying. They eventually came up and asked if they could take their picture with me. I, being the astute mother that I am, quickly assessed the situation and realized they actually wanted their picture taken with Kaila. I, being a kindhearted international traveler, offered up my daughter for this photographic opportunity. Here is the picture I have of myself with the sweet young men. Sadly Kaila forbid me from taking a picture of her with them, a decision which I am sure she will regret in the days to come:

My favorite purchase of the day. I regretted not buying one last year. So this year I made sure to get one. It is legal now to have a Bible, to read it, study it, and to be a Christian. There is a nice sized Christian church on the island. I bought two of these beautiful Chinese/English Bibles. One for our home and the second one I have a plan for. If my dream for this second beautiful Bible works out, I will come back and share about it.

We ate lunch at Lucy's:

And then we hailed a taxi to head back to the hotel. I'll tell you I prayed about as hard as I ever have on that taxi ride. Not because he was a crazy driver. Guangzhou drivers are actually quite mellow compared to the Nanjing roller coaster rides. Here is why I prayed. As is customary, when we hail a taxi to take us back to the hotel, I showed the driver a card with the name of the hotel. He immediately said in fairly good English, China Hotel? I said, yes xiexie. The driver laughed and started driving, I'm sure my accent is quite humorous. We started driving and after 10 minutes or so I could see our hotel in the distance and I told Kaila, yay we are almost there. And then we kept driving right past the hotel. We drove past it fast. I say to the driver, China Hotel, and he replied something something. We kept driving and I started praying. I thought maybe he's giving us the scenic route, maybe he's trying to run the meter up, maybe at the next intersection we need to jump out and find help as fast as we can. I was really starting to get worried at this point. I have never felt this way in China before, not once. In Mexico, where I grew up, I felt this way quite often, but in China never before. Right about this point I began thinking through our options (Chad has trained me well I now realize) and asking The Lord for wisdom. Right about then, about only 2-3 minutes past our hotel the driver slammed his hand on the dash and laughed out loud. I could see the Garden Hotel in the distance (this is the other hotel most adoptive families stay at). He turned the meter off and started saying China Hotel, sorry, sorry, sorry. He turned the car around and headed back toward the China Hotel. It was an honest mistake. He was headed to the wrong hotel. He apologized several times, I am sure he realized it must have been frightening to us. These trips are sure faith building in more ways than one! 

Tomorrow morning is our consulate appointment. Getting so close to the end of our trip!