McDonald's and pearls

First Trip to McDonald's

Seahorses anyone?

Is this a flyswatter, a fan or just a lizard on a stick?

 

On the streets of Guangzhou

Today started with the bad news that we had expected.  My uncle Frank had died.  The hemorrhage in his brain had been massive and proved fatal.  I had a hard time with it for most of the morning.  It was so sad to me that he would not be able to meet the two new little girls in our family.  I also struggled to try to remember what I had said to him when we last spoke.  I can't remember for sure.  We all need to make sure that the ones close to us, the ones we love, are constantly aware of how we feel about them and what they mean to us.

Molly's personality is coming through more and more.  She just loves to play and have fun.  When she laughs, you can't help but laugh along with her.  She was mesmerized today by Elizabeth blowing bubble gum bubbles.  You could tell that she just didn't understand what it was that was coming out of Elizabeth's mouth.  One of the last things we did today was going to a designated play room for small children here in the hotel.  She laughed and crawled and played and just had so much fun.  It put us all in a great mood as we played with each other like we hadn't in a long time.

Molly got her first taste of McDonald's today.  Elizabeth and Daniel were so excited to see a somewhat familiar menu.  Molly had some chicken nuggets, fries and part of a strawberry shake.  The shake was definitely her favorite.  Just before eating at McDonald's, we spent a few hours shopping in the pearl market.  I have never seen so many pearls in my life.  There were so many vendors with so many pearls that it was not hard to find bargains.  Strands of pearls that would cost hundreds or even in cases thousands of dollars in the US could easily be purchased 10-15% of that amount here.  A small group of families went together and looked at pearls at several stores.  When we got a pretty good idea of what we were looking at and what the general prices were, we went back to one of the stores and began bargaining with them.  That was much of the fun.  Our little group bought 11 pearl necklaces in all.  Once we had finished, you couldn't tell anything was missing from the shop's shelves.  This one little shop had literally thousands of pearl necklaces.  This one shop was only one of many stores.  It was really overwhelming to try to take it all in.

We decided to walk back to the motel from the pearl market.  Our path took us through a part of the city that exposed us to elements of the culture that we would not have seen anywhere else.  There were hundreds upon hundreds of street vendors selling everything from cats, dogs and rabbits for pets to dried seahorses, frog skeletons and lizards on sticks.  (I will include a picture to help you understand).  It was fascinating.  I wish we had had someone with us to tell us exactly what we were looking at and for what purpose it was all being sold. 

The major theme is this--we are ready to be home.  Tomorrow we will get Molly's visa.  That's all we lack at this point to get out of China and on our way home.  We are so anxious for the familiarities of home.  We are terribly excited to be back in the company of all the people that we love so much.  It just can't come soon enough