Come on ride the train.....

One of the best decisions we made was to use the metro in Guangzhou. You can find a great website/app here. It doesn't require internet to use it while in country. Riding the metro, especially to get back and forth from the Garden to the China hotel is the way to go. We felt very comfortable, even at 9 pm, because you literally walk out the hotel doors and straight into the metro station at both hotels. The metro is very busy at all the hours we rode (9 am-9pm) and that also helped us feel safe. Dorothy and I decided we'd do a photo tutorial in hopes that some other families would be emboldened to use the metro and save some cash! (at $1 a ticket, it beats a cab or driver by a ton)

Step 1. Walk out your hotel and down into the metro. You will see ticketing machines. They only accept relatively crispy 5 or 10 yuan bills or 1 yuan coins.  Most places you want to go will cost 5-7 yuan per person.

Step 2: Choose English on the touchscreen and look on the map for your final stop. We were headed to Zhongshanba, where there are a lot of children's clothing malls. Then to the right of the screen you can choose how many tickets you want. It will calculate your cost. 

(Yuexiu park is our starting point from Marriott China Hotel on Blue Line 2. To go to either the Children's Markets or the Garden, you will be going North to the Red Line 5 and changing trains at Guangzhou Railway Station.)

(below is your instruction cheat sheet on machine) 

Step 3: insert $ and gather change and green tokens at bottom of machine. 

Step 4: scan your green token on top of turnstyle. and have the most responsible adult  KEEP it until you arrive at your destination.

Step 5: head down the MASSIVE escalator, which will have the color of the metro line you are boarding. Remember not to do any karate with other passengers (see photo below)

Step 6. When you reach the bottom of the escalator, you will know which side to board by knowing what stop you need to change trains to reach your final destination (in our case, it was the Guangzhou Railway Station). The direction the train is going is clear by the starting point on the map above the boarding doors (Yuexiu Park- location of Marriott China Hotel) and the bold-faced stops to come, whether it was to right or left of original stop. 

You are supposed to wait to the side and wait until people exit to board (see yellow arrows) but this is China and everyone just pushes everyone else and gets where they are going. 

When you are on the train, you can track your progress by watching the blinking lights. 

 Step 7: Changing trains is not too bad. You will get off at your change stop and see signs for how to get to the other metro line. In our case there were clear arrows to get to Red Line 5. You will not need your token at this stop. Just follow the arrows up and down stairs and escalators until you get to another set of trains.

Step 8: remember to look at the signs above the trains in bold to see which direction the train is going again. At Guangzhou Railway Station, you can take one train to the Garden (Taojin stop), or the other train to the Children's clothing markets (Zhongshanba stop). 

 Step 9: once you arrive at your destination, often you will be able to determine which door (Letters A, B, C, D) to exit by reading this sign. Each exit takes you to a different side of the street. If you end up at the wrong one, it's not a huge deal. You just cross the street above ground. Or you can come back into station and take the other exit. You won't need to enter the paid zone to do this. 

 Step 10: as you exit, deposit your green token in the slot and walk through. Congrats! You did it!

List of useful stops: 

- Yuexiu Park (China Marriott Hotel) Blue Line 2

- Taojin (Garden Hotel) Red Line 5

- Chen Clan Academy (beautiful historic home/museum) Yellow Line 1

- Airport South (GZ airport) Orange Line 3 

- Hanxi Changlong (Chimelong Safari Park shuttle bus) Orange Line 3

-Zhongshanba (street full of children's markets within 5 blocks) Red Line 5

Here is a list of places to explore in GZ with their corresponding stations. 

Painting fans in Fuli Town

Today we woke up bright and early due to the time change but that meant we got to sit on our wonderful porch before the night lanterns got turned off for the day.

And enjoy some coffee and listen to the quiet before the honking trucks and motor bikes began.

Today we had the privilege of visiting Fuli, an ancient town that is well known for its fans and beautiful landscape scroll paintings. Our guide Kevin (after his favorite American actor, Kevin Costner) told us Fuli is 1400 years old and his family has been living in the area since the Han Dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD). His family has been painting and passing down this artistry for generations.

Here are some fans drying that are waiting for their bamboo to be inserted. The fruit on them is lychee.

Here is Andrew faithfully painting his bamboo and flowers, which we practiced for probably 4 hours! Kevin's uncle was our instructor. The more we attempted ink painting the more we were impressed with his skills that made each stroke appear effortless.

 

Here is a beautiful ink painting in the traditional Chinese style. The skill it takes to do this is incredible. The number of strokes, textures and shades he was able to accomplish with one brush and one color was astonishing.

Above he is inserting bamboo spokes into my fan. It turns out I am horrible at painting mountains with ink on fans. Andrew's bamboo and flower fan turned out much better than my mountain fan. Below are some of huge fans - 1.5 meters wide- with intricate details.

During our adventure we were served lunch, which was a delicious family recipe over rice. Today was an amazing privilege. We felt very honored to meet this family and spend time in their studio. We picked out a scroll that was painted by Kevin's cousin, who is known for being the best in the area at painting mountains. The scroll we chose is a mixture of traditional Chinese and western style. I liked it because it showed the karst mountains and had my favorite colors.

 

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World Traveler

I have missed traveling the world. It has been over 11 years since I have left the country. I guess I have been a little busy or something. In that time we got married, moved across the country and added 4 kids. I am excited to add number 5 and travel the world again at the same time. I have never been to Asia, but sort of felt like I took a trip there for a long weekend in college. I travelled to Vancouver, BC with a bunch of Japanese students, stayed with more Japanese people and ate Japanese food. I have also been in and taken lots of photos with Japanese students giving the peace sign, which clearly happens in June's country, too, because she is doing that in one of my favorite photos. She is a smart one.
We can't wait to travel to her country. Even an11 hour flight (and several 4 hour ones) seems like a vacation when it's only you and your husband!

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Her name means joy

We will be keeping our little girl's Chinese first and middle names because we loved the meaning of them. Joy and Elegant. I had actually had it on my heart to name her something meaning joy anyway. Can you guess why when you see the photo?

Also, we have the feeling she will be bringing a lot of cheer into the family. Sure there will be difficulty. But overall, we believe there is great joy to come.

Not too long now

We are getting excited to go to China and get our girl. Many people spend a few days beforehand in Beijing, do some touring, and get used to the time change before they start parenting their new child. We decided this would be a good idea. We also wanted to celebrate our 10th anniversary (last December) somewhere fun. Since we didn't really have the funds for a separate adventure, we decided to take advantage of the fact that we were flying to China. Here is the place we are staying. I can't wait to see the Karst mountains.