Fuzhou

Once we got to Fuzhou, we had an extended bus ride to the city.  There was an accident along the way so it took about 45 minutes longer than we expected. The farm land and new construction was great to see though.  Our Hotel is in the resort-ish area of West Lake.  Our hotel is being updated so only a couple of floors are even open.  Our breakfast and our room service is from the hotel next door!  There is major construction (actually destruction) going on right next door and it begins at 6:30 am and goes until 8pm at night!  Not good when you don't get to sleep until 2am in the morning! The first night we walked along the lake a saw a wonderful water show with great music!

The theatre is right next door, so that's nice.  And the posters and programs are beautiful!

I went to an area called Wuyi Square where the center of Fuzhou is.   Behind there we found the White Pagoda and beautiful Buddhist temples of Tian Jin Temple and a meandering park.

We found a roller rink/arcade one day while walking around Fuzhou.  The floors were warped and they even had holes in them! But we survived! On the 8th we held our own Troika "Special" Olympic event.  Matt and Greg were partners in a paddle boat race and were dressed up as Zeus and Posidon and they won the Golden Duckie - first place!  I think they had great costumes too! We then we ordered Pizza form Papa John's and  prepared to watch Opening Night on TV.  Elaine found a wonderful old Neighborhood, Sanfeng with VERY old (Qing and Ming Dynasty)  and picked up pieces of old china and pottery.  It's cool having pieces that are so old! While in Fuzhou I received some pictures from one of the photographers in Guangzhou.  We found out we will be traveling to Xiamen by bus (4 hours) and staying the night there so we can fly out to  Macau!  We saw a lot of the country side and we stopped at the McDonalds! We got to our hotel, and guess what?  It was beautiful, spacious, great internet and had great food.....AND we only got to stay here ONE night! Go figure! 

Guangzhou

We bussed to Guangzhou from Shenzhen, it was about 2 and a half hours, so not so bad. While we were waiting in the lobby for our room keys Donavan brought out a cake for Nathan for his birthday, so the whole hotel new we arrived when everyone sang for him!  The following day we had a press event out in front of the magnificent Theatre- Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Memorial Hall. Guangzhou has a lot of orphan's  homes, so we spent a day at Shiaman Island. It was a very cute shopping area with a percentage of all the profits supporting the orphanges!  Great excuse to shop!  Matthew even enjoyed the area.  

Opening night went well and Mr. Chow, the presenter, greeted us at the hotel with all of his friends that came to see the show. Mr. Chow also hosted a wonderful cast party for us. Matthew has definitely turned into a teenager!  He was getting pics with all of the girls! 

In the past towns  we were mostly on the outskirts of town, here we were right in the middle of the downtown area and we FINALLY SAW THE CHINA WE'VE BEEN WANTING TO SEE.  It was a neighborhood behind the hotel where people live and work and play! We walked through this neighborhood everyday.  We bought our newspapers here so the all got to know us, it is our favorite "chinese" spot from the whole trip!

We gathered in the morning of the 2nd in the lobby to bus to the airport and then fly to Fuzhou.  On the plane they served wine and champagne for Tiffan's and Dillon's birthday! The wine in China is called Die Nasty! It really is; and you can get a head ache just smelling it! (Actually it's call Dynasty!) So needless to say none of us really drank any!