Kasen reporting:
A Message from Kasen
I am so glad to have a baby sister. She is really fun to play with and she is so nice and kind and beautiful. Today we slept in really late because Karis and I stayed awake until after midnight last night. We were playing and having such a good time, and it is really hard for mommy and daddy to control the situation with us all living on top of one another in this hotel room. Mommy and I ran down to eat breakfast just before 10 while daddy watched Karis sleep in. Then daddy went to eat by himself. I finally could not stand baby sis staying asleep so long, so, much to the displeasure of mommy, daddy and I started laughing so hard at nothing that we finally woke her up around 11:30.
We all got ready and went on a tour of Guangzhou arranged by our guide Peter. Peter says Guangzhou is a town of 13 million people, making it really crowded. We went to a Buddhist temple where we saw some monks, a lot of statues of some guy named Buddha and lots of Chinese folks burning that smelly incense again. There were pretty buildings and old banyan trees after which the place was named. There was a really tall pagoda style building that was leaning just like that pizza tower in Italy.
From the temple we went to the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall, a pretty building named after the great forerunner of the Chinese revolution. Peter our guide talked about him a lot, but mommy and daddy could not answer any questions about the doctor. They said anyone wanting to know more could look it up on the internet. Next we went to a porcelain workshop, one of the fine things that Guangzhou is known for. There were lots of beautiful bowls, plates, cups and vases that mommy and daddy would not let me and Karis get even close to. Daddy did buy us each a pretty bottle painted on the inside through a tiny hole at the top. We even watched them paint our names inside the bottles with a tiny brush.
Next we went to the Chen Ancestral Hall, a really pretty building built for the Chen family. No, I do not know what that means. It was a museum, school and art gallery. From there we went to our final stop on the tour, a massive shopping area in Guangzhou called Xiajiu Lu Pedestrian Street. There must be over a thousand stores there. Daddy tells me that the last time we were here when I was one year old, daddy talked his friend Jim into getting a chicken suit and billboard from a guy in the street so he could wear it around and try to sell chicken. We plan to come back to this place to shop in the next few days.
When we got back to the hotel, daddy talked us into letting him try feeding us at another authentic Chinese restaurant. Again, daddy could not figure out what to order, and no one understood a word he was saying. He did order a couple of things for me by showing the waitress pictures on the camera. The waitress in turn called someone up who sent an English text back to her on her cell phone. She then showed it to daddy to see if that was what he really meant to order. I think it was their way of showing daddy one up on the technological way of ordering food in China. Mommy, daddy and I took turns walking Karis around as she had too long of an afternoon to put up with daddys attempts to communicate with the Chinese folks.
We are back at the hotel, getting ready for bed. Looks like we might be asleep before 10:00 if mommy and daddy are lucky.
Thanks for all the nice things you have been writing about me and Karis. I love reading it. Talk to you soon.