Shangxiajiu

After the museum, we made our way to another park. Along the way, we spotted this beauty, all dolled up for a wedding! Notice the flowers in the door handles! 

The park consisted of a lot of lakes and gardens. We stopped by this lake for our packed lunch of boiled eggs, oranges etc. Normally we are all about trying out the local cuisine, but we wanted to finish our Whole 30 month out strong, so we didn't have much choice this time. The building below looked like it could be rented for weddings etc., as there seemed to be lots of workers setting up for something. Perhaps it was a restaurant, who knows. Pretty building though, and it was built entirely over the lake! 

We stopped for a rest in one of the gardens, and suddenly this little guy was tottering right for me. At first, I didn't notice his unusual garb, as he was walking at me. I assumed he was at least wearing shorts covered by the apron, but nope! bare little bum for all the world to see! Apparently these little apron outfits are quite common in China, as the parents just hold the kid over a trashcan for them to do their business anyways. But what I don't understand is how you keep the kids clean? Immediately after letting go of me, he tottered a few more steps then wobbled backwards and sat on the ground, bum on the sidewalk. I feel like this takes childhood uncleanliness to a whole new level. 

After the park, we went to Shangxiajiu, which is a busy pedestrian shopping area in old Canton. Not only was it crowded, which we are very used to by now, but every store had a person standing on a box outside of the front door yelling at the top of their lungs about the sales at that store. But every store had one, so the result was a lot of yelling, that some might find off-putting. Meh, just part of the experience. If they weren't yelling, they would clap. This sort of attention grabbing technique has the exact opposite effect on Westerns I think. My first reaction was always, "Well, I was considering going into your store, but now that you're clapping at me like a seal, I don't think I will!" 

One very cool thing about this area is that all of the second stories had gorgeous windows, with cool shutters or amazing stained glass. It looked like it hadn't been touched since the 1920's! 

This building is a restaurant, specializing in snackish food. Didn't go inside, but still a cool building!

This building had a marvelous carving around the outside of it. And check out those stained glass windows! 

I noticed that all of these signs were showing the exact same thing. Not knowing what they meant, we took this photo mimicking it. Apparently the characters read "My Chinese Dream" and then talks about how people should be polite and respectful to best represent China. Not sure why this was necessary, but ok.

We ended the night by talking a walk along the Pearl River. Every bridge was lit up in this fashion, so it had a very festive atmosphere. Also along the river walk were people renting out roller skates or bicycles, so you could have fun trolling around on the sidewalks. People also had carnival-like games set-up on the sidewalk for passerbyers to play, including ring toss, balloon darts, etc. Fun place to spend a Saturday night!