Nan-Yue King

Last week we visited the Nan-Yue museum & tomb

We finally got our Chinese diplomatic license plates so we were able to drive there.

We're getting to know the city in a whole new way by driving around in the crazy traffic.

Boys being boys

The entrance to the tomb
They found this tomb while building the Marriot hotel

Oliver with all his mosquito bites.

We use a net but sometimes he sleeps in our bed for a few hours

before we move him to the co-sleeper and he usually gets eaten alive.

The boys entering the tomb

Looking up at me and Oliver

Isaac entering the museum -

It was a very hot day and the mirrored pyramid was almost blinding,

Daniel loving the swords.

He's really into knights and dragons.

Some puzzles to be solved.

It was fun to see some more of the city.

More of Panyu Zoo

Last week we all headed to the Zoo, again.

The boys love the animals so we may become regulars -

just like the Smithsonian zoo in DC.

The train ride to the free-roaming animals.

Oliver enjoying a snack - his spoon

The zookeeper just throwing food at the bears -

notice how they could come and attack us.

Seriously -No fence.

The rhinos that could also come and attack us.

And the zebras

and the giraffes.

After we return to the zoo from the train ride,

we saw that you could feed the animals for about $1.50
Daniel's buddy, Onni tried to feed the giraffes and

they grabbed the stick and pulled him off the ground.

I passed on letting my boys try it.

The circus elephant.

A little sad

But I did let Daniel throw some bananas at the elephants.
He loved it.

It was a fun day even with the humidity,heat, and animal abuse.

Indoor Playground

Our indoor playground

On hot or rainy days we all meet inside and watch the boys play

Daniel has been with his BFF, Onni almost everyday.
He left to Finland last week and now he doesn't know what to do.

Isaac & the yellow horse

Oliver (almost 8 months)

He still doesn't crawl forwards - he just rolls or goes backwards.
Just like Daniel at this age.

He's pretty happy if someone is entertaining him.

If he is alone - he lets the entire house know.

Visitors!

So we walked into church and who did we see?

Our old neighbor Frank (sorry for the poor quality picture, my camera is about to die).

He's now marrried (he actually celebrated his first aniversary here in Guangzhou)

and he was here for 2 weeks as an intern.
Can't wait to have more visitors. Hint, hint.

Guongdong Museum of Art

Since most of the expats go home for the summer and my Chinese is VERY limited,

I've been spending the last three weeks with two stay-at-home dads.

Our children are all the same age so it's total choas with all 7 children.

We all went to he Guongdong museum of Art, down the street on Ersha Dao.

The children were running around acting out all the paintings until they saw this "art"

A video about stacking chairs. They didn't move for 5 minutes.

Isaac thought this "art" was a toy.

Isaac turing his back on the pollution exhibit.
(He's almost totally potty-trained - only one in diapers now!)

Oliver enjoyed the ride around the exhibit.

Repulse Bay

Saturday we headed to the southern side of Hong Kong Island to Repulse beach

(named repulse b/c the British fleet repulsed some pirates there)

We took the metro under the channel to Hong Kong Island,

where we boarded a city bus at Central.

I think we were a tourist attraction: Five of us, our beach gear, and double stroller

Marc with the little swimmers.

Daniel & Isaac love the beach - I wish we lived closer.

Oliver was fasinated with the sand. He loved to feel it and roll around in it.
Luckily he didn't eat it - like Isaac did at his age.
(notice the lovely speedos in the upper left corner)

More of Oliver

and more,

Notice his teeth - He now has four.

Everytime we go to Hong Kong two teeth appear.

He soon fell asleep.

I love his chubby belly - too big for the sun shirt/pants.

More of Hong Kong

Here is the view from our hotel room.

We stayed on the Kowloon side this time. So this is a view of Hong Kong Island

Our hotel was on a small peninsula called kowloon that is close to Hong Kong Island.

Our hotel was not on the harbor but we still had a great view. It was located right behind The Peninsula (A famous luxery hotel - like The Plaza). So the shops near us were Prada, Burberry, Louis Vuitton etc. - Needless-to-say, I didn't do much shopping.

Here's what it looked like at night.

Our street -

Daniel -loving his reflection

We ate at the spaghetti house, which is not like the spaghetti factory.

But we were happy with our food.

Disney on the 4th

So we decided to head south to the "happiest place on Earth"

Need I say more . . .

I guess I was suppose to wear stripes that day?

Thanks Grandma Evanson for the boys' shirts and
Thanks Uncle Miles for Marc's shirt.
(We raided your Good Will clothes pile on our last visit)



Tomorrow Land!

It was a little hot

This was our first ride.

Oliver surviving the heat

Isaac a little upset about the height limit -

he was too short to drive the cars

A little happier

and happier still

( I wonder what the Chinese thought of the diaper)

On to Fantasy Land
(Thanks again Miles for the Nike visor)

The day ended soon after this ride. We called it a day when several adults cut in front of us in line for the teacups - Almost the entire park was full of adults. I think many Chinese adults were deprived of their childhood so they all go to Disney land and cut in front of toddlers. Seriously there were over 20 adults waiting in line to get a picture with Mickey.

Actually, It was good we left early because the heat was too much - We found this out the hard way, Daniel vomited on me on the metro ride home. Awesome.

A tale of two shirts

An ice cream playdate

The boys learning how to make berry ice cream.

Isaac's wearing Daniel's button-up shirt because he fell and fractured his clavicle.

I knew he broke it when it happend, but I wanted an x-ray to see how it looked. That was a crazy adventure. Taking a taxi across town to get an x-ray from a random clinic. Our regular doctor was on vaccation - like most others. Anyway, he's much better now and it's not that painful anymore.

I'm sure it's the first of many injuries to come.

Our cooking demonstration

The boys fighting over the play-kitchen.

Daniel is wearing a shirt from a tie-dye activity at his school.
The day after this play-date, all our whites were purple. Including our white bathroom rug.
Our housekeeper washed it with our whites.
I figure it's a small price to pay for someone to do my laundry.