Day whatever...almost done! Guangzhou :City of Haggling

Well, here we are again...does this trip ever end...or do we just live here forever? Was up early today as Syd and I(AM) did the blessing at the Buddist Temple. It was only about 20 minutes away and there were only 5 adults and 3 babies who braved the temple :) I thought the temple and the whole concept was beautiful. It was worth the trip to me. We went in and the smell of incense is overpowering-enough to make you gag( Catholic Palm Sunday mass has NOTHING on this place). There were these pagoda style incense pits everywhere and lots of temples with giant statues of various gods. There was the daily "service" going on when we got there and it was pretty crowded. They do a whole lot of bending and bowing and have little red cushions to kneel on. The music was mesmerizing and I definitely need to find me a cd of that...great relaxing tub music. The "monks" or whatever they are, were floating around everywhere. The temple we went to had three statues in it, one for past, one for present and one for future. This is where we did the blessing, which consisted of a monk banging on this very cool sounding ball thing...Sydney was in a trance :) This actually made her happy, which for before this she was not too happy at all. We will have better pics of this later that Susan our guide took as we had the babies and could do the pics and hold the babies at the same time. We bought some incense and burned 10 of them for Sydney which is a good and lucky number I guess. I bought a little double budda statue with their arms across each others back...Budda Buddies( sounds like a new breakfast cereal!!!) Ok, back on the van. We got back to the hotel and daddy had slept until 9:30 today when I was up at 6 or 6:30 to be ready and done eating by 8...that is ok...my turn tomorrow! Syd continues to do ok, but she has come down with some type of new dry cough and her nose is on double slime duty. It is running so bad that it is raw from blowing and wiping it. Hint to those travelling...if there is any way to compactly pack puffs plus tissues...do it, your nose and the babies nose will thank you for it. Sydney also got a bit of windburn yesterday and her cheeks were bright red this morning...worse than the day we got her. A little of the Aquaphor took care of that though. The famous red couch picture was today as well...oh, and the consulate appt...but we don't have much to do with that. The whole scene of trying to set the babies up was really funny...but even funnier... the expressions and faces of the parents trying to make the kids laugh, look at them, stop crying...whatever, was priceless. Hands were waving , toys flying, sounds I have never heard humans make to try to get the babies attention. Sadly, we only got a couple pics of it and no video. Surprisingly Sydney was very good again for the picture and did not cry at all even though the babies around her were screaming. She wore her new blue silk dress, complete with white ruffle butt tights and her black squeakers. After that I went shopping with Luanne and we had a great time at a coffee shop near the WS. This was the equivalent to our Starbucks...I had my usual mocha , but had to settle for it iced...yes folks...still consuming ice with no problem at all. We did some more pre-requisit shopping this afternoon and dressed Syd in her santa's helper outfit for our Thai dinner together at the Cow & Bridge. It was awesome!!! Highly recommend it to anyone who likes Thai, just make sure if you order something like the fried rice that you ask for the meat to be well done. We ordered pork fried rice and the pork was still a bit pink and undone. That is one meat I will not mess with not being cooked enough, especially not here, so we sent it back and they cooked it up a bit more. We also had duck skewers and shrimp cakes and our main dinners...again, way too much food with lots going to waste. You could feed a country with what is thrown away at meals here. XiXi is great...she took Sydney for us tonight so that we could eat in peace :) She is usually a chow hound and happy to sit and eat whatever we have. BUT for the last 2 days has not been very happy at meal time. It could be the new cough she has, it could be that her nose hurts, it could be that she doesn't feel the need to stuff her face all the time as the food will keep coming, it also could be that she does not poop every day and boy when she does...they are like boulders! My money is on the poop and cough. She can't even sit down when she is going! That HAS to hurt her belly to hold that in and she has been VERY gassy lately too. We have tried prunes, apple juice, suppositories, we even looked to see if there may be a "problem" physically...nothing works. We are having the opposite of what we have heard...no blow outs here, just boulders. As for being a spicy girl... boy does this kid have some spice. If she doesn't get what she wants, you will know it, as well as your neighbors and the rest of the hotel.
We came back to the hotel and hung out with Elizabeth for a while...had a lot of laughs. I miss everyone very much...especially My Kyle & Spencer...I can't wait to see you guys :) only 3 days left! The 17th is right around the corner. Thanks also to everyone who is posting and emailing! I am reading all the messages but it is hard to write back to everyone...so much to say, so little time...have no fear... I have VISUAL documentation for Cricket and everyone else. Up until the sickness started we were averaging 200 pics a day so there is TONS of that and TONS of video too...it slows down near the end of the trip...you understand as it is hard to do that with the baby, but we are trying! Cindy S & Cindy J...hi Guys!!! Cindy J... you never gave me the sizes and colors of the robes did you? I can still get them...I figure they would be about 15 US dollars, probably less. Let me know ASAP! Kim... I DID find some stuff for you at the jade factory :) Everyone else... we can't wait to be home!
I am going to upload some pics of the WS and today, but they won't be "inside" the journaling as I let Joe clean up the HTML for me...can do that tomorrow. We have our swearing in tomorrow and free morning and night. I want to do the River Cruise here, it is not expensive and looks wonderful...the boats are gorgeous.
Talk to ya'll later
AM, Syd, and Joe