Guangzhou: Day 5

Psalm 90:2 "Before the mountains were born or You gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God."

Today we ventured out on our own again. We took a taxi from our hotel to Baiyun Mountain. When we arrived, there was a monkey posing for pictures. I thought that it was like the people at the Safari Park and we could just take pictures. After taking a few pictures, the monkey pulled up his sleeve where it said 20 yuen. So, I got fooled by that one! I paid the monkey and we headed to the gondolas. We rode the gondolas up the mountain, which saved us a lot of walking we later found out. From the gondolas, we decided to follow the crowd of people that were headed up the mountain. We ventured up a lot of steps through the clouds, beautiful trees, and flowers. We ended up at the summit of the mountain! At the top of the mountain, they had chains where you could place a lock with your name engraved on it. I decided this was a special occasion and I bought a lock and had it engraved with our three names and the date. After placing the lock with the other locks, we headed back down the summit. At the bottom of the summit stairs, there was another cute section where you could choose a wooden sign and write your name. I had Shan Chen write our names in Chinese and we hung the sign up with all the other signs. The boys were very excited for both of these events. Once we got to where the gondolas were located, we decided that we would just walk the rest of the way down the mountain. About half way down, we decided that we should have taken the gondola down. We had already walked over 3 miles up/down the mountain. All of us were glad to reach the bottom of the mountain. It was a beautiful hike and amazing scenery. Plus, we got in over five miles of walking!!

This evening, after dinner, we went shopping at a local store for some treats for the trip to Hong Kong/home. The store was crazy. We stood in line for a long time. You have to learn how to be pushy and not let people push you around. At least three times, people tried pushing their way past us to get in front of us. I've learned how to use my body to block them. It seems mean, but if I didn't, I would never make it to the cashier - this is China!

 

Another family with our agency arrived last at the hotel. They just adopted their son from Jinan, Shandong too. We met up tonight in their hotel room so that the boys could hang out. They had fun playing on ipads, eating snacks, talking in Chinese, and just being boys!! I love all of the friends that we have been making in China. Although I miss my family in Chicago, it is going to be hard to say good-bye to China. I absolutely love it here!!