Guangzhou, China

Our time in Southeast Asia had come to an end, but there was still two more nights until we got back home... the cheapest way for us to get back was to fly our friends Air Asia from Hanoi to Bangkok, get another Air Asia flight from Bangkok to Guangzhou, China, and then fly from Guangzhou to Shanghai. We figured since we were passing through Guangzhou that we should spend a day to check out

Since Air Asia doesn't have connecting flights, you just put the flights together yourself. That resulted in us having a six-hour layover at the airport in Bangkok. Since we had visited Bangkok the previous year, we were happy to just pass through this time. The layover was just fine... Ryann slept in her pack & play at the airport and I took the other two outside to play in a park right next to the terminal.

While there at the park, I happened to notice aircrew and ground folks going in and out of a place, so I went to see what it was... it was a little restaurant. We had eaten lunch in the airport for $5+/person, but ate at this place where we fed the family for $3 for the entire family, including drinks... and the food was better!! So if you're passing through the airport in Bangkok, now you know where to go to eat. And there is nothing like Thai food... so good!

So we had a day to explore China's third largest city after Shanghai and Beijing. Guangzhou lies at the mouth of the Pearl River, the industrial heart of China. For those of you who don't know, Guangzhou is the capital city of Guangdong province, also known as Canton which is where Cantonese comes from. So we were expecting a large, dirty city where everybody spoke Cantonese, but we found a large, beautiful city and Mandarin was widely spoken.

With our limited time, we wanted to walk along the Pearl River and walk around the downtown area, especially the Shangxiajiu pedestrian area and the market area.

One thing we will say is how good it felt to be back in China... we were home! It just felt like home for us.

Out and about in the morning...

At Shangxiajiu pedestrian street/square... The place is dominated by Coke, Pepsi, Papa John's, KFC, and McDonald's. Where are we? Oh yeah, China.

In fact there were two large McDonald's right across from each other... did somebody say McDonald's?

High on the priority list for us was hitting a McDonald's during our wanderings that day. We just were craving it after two week in Cambodia and Vietnam where there are literally no McDonald's, and we just weren't in the mood for Chinese food, even if it was Cantonese food.

It was just so good... do they serve corn at McD's back in the States? We don't eat it, but it's great for Ryann...

On another day we would have loved to have tried various food on this street...
Walking to the market area, we stumble across another little carnival area. So the girls got to ride some more rides... We got to the market area and Adayla was excited to pick out dozens of rubberbands for her hair.These places are just amazing. Piles upon piles of stuff. What ever you want, they have... somewhere.

Then Morgan stumbled upon the ribbon store. We spent about an hour here as Morgan went through the ribbon on this floor and the larger room on the second floor.

Fortunately there was a steady stream of gals who played with the girls and took their pictures that the time for them passed pretty quickly.

A French-built cathedral dating back to when this area was ceded to Western countries to develop.

I guess Chinese are used to seeing crazy things like this, but even after almost two years of living here I still get a kick out of seeing bikes loaded up like this...

We walked along the Pearl River on our way back. It was just so pretty...
We got back to our hotel that evening with our bags of stuff (Morgan's ribbon) that we (Morgan) had bought and once we were back we didn't feel like going back out. There was a big card in our room to order Papa John's... so we did! McDonald's and Papa John's on the same day... I don't think we've even done that in America. It was great!

Tally went to wash her hands before the pizza arrived. Ten minutes later she was still washing her hands. She was just having fun...

The next day we finally made it back home to Shanghai! The trip was history...