Sunday afternoon March 11th.

Today we took a trip to Six Banyan Temple. This is a budist temple in the middle of Guangzhou. It is one of those places that shows the contrasts of this country very clearly. In the middle of the temple there is a 57m (about 175 ft) pagoda built sometime around 500 AD.
In other words it is about 1500 years old. The Chinese really know a thing or two about wood preservation cause most of the pagoda is in the original wood. Rebecca and I took the time to climb the stairs all the way to the top. I asked the guide if she knew of other three year olds that have done that and the answer was no. When Rebecca sets her mind on doing something she is very determined. The rules of the pagoda is that if a child wants to go up, it has to do it on their own. Under adult supervision of course but she had to climb it by her self. She did really well.

After the pagoda was built way back when, six banyan trees grew up around the pagoda and the monks there believe that the trees was buddas that had come to protect the pagoda. That is how the temple got its name.

At the temple we were given the option of having our child blessed by the monks.
We decided to opt out of that but a couple of the other familes had their children blessed. We believe that our children are already blessed through what our Lord and Savior said about them. "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven." The protection from the God of Heaven and Earth is all they need. And of course your prayer coverage.

After the temple we went to the electronics market. I was kind of dissapointed with what I saw. There were 250 million cellphones plus any kind of cellphone accessories, 100 thousand mp3 players, 6 computer and some software (all in Chinese). But then again we did focus our attention on the McDonalds that was in the back of the market and looked at electronics for about 15-20 minutes.

Tonite we are going to be daring again and go for some Chinese food for dinner. All four families are gathering together at a local restaurant that specializes in Cantonese style food. This is the style of Chinese food that is most widespread throughout the world. Owen, Donnas teenage helper and "nephew", did comment on that there really aren't any stray animals around but lets not hope for the reason implied......

Roy