SCHOOL: My Ordeal is Done!!!! Thank you Lord and Nate for helping me to get through this difficult time.
Claire had a great week, but I can't tell you about her AOI week. Just like a typical teenager she went on a three day field trip but couldn't give us any details about where she went or what she did. This is a sample of the kind of conversations we had.
Claire: Hey Dad.
Dad: Hey Claire, how's it going?
Claire: Oh it is going just fine, but I fell down the stairs and sprained my ankle again.
Dad: Are you OK?
Claire: Yeah, they put some cream on it and gave me a big bandage.
Dad: Is it feeling better?
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| My Favorite Statue |
Dad: Oh great, where was that?
Claire: I don't know?
Dad: What do you mean you don't know?
Claire: I don't remember the name, it is just some lake.
Dad: Did you write it down, or get a pamphlet?
Claire: No
Dad: How come?
Claire: I don't know.
Dad: Well, did you at least get some good pictures?
Claire: No.
Dad: How come, was there a problem with the camera?
Claire: No, I accidentally left the camera in my room with my backpack.
Dad: So, do you have any idea where you are?
Claire: No, but we did see a cool Dinosaur museum as well.
Dad: What was it called?
Claire: I don't remember.
Dad: Is there anything else you can tell me about your trip?
Claire: Nope, that's about it. I need to go it is almost lights out.
Dad: Ok, well I love you.
Claire: I love you too Dad, I will see you in a day or so.
Dad: Ok, well keep having fun.
The scary thing is that based on the conversations that I had with my daughter, even if I had the special skills that Liam Niesson had in Taken, I don't think it would have helped. Thank goodness they have special VIP kids on these trips that have their own security force and some of them are Claire's friends.
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| Starbucks in the French Quarter |
We got a special surprise during the week and went to dinner with my friend David and his family. We met him, his wife, son, mother and friend from Schenzhen at a restaurant not far from our home. The dinner was amazing, but to top off the evening we took a walk through the restaurant. The restaurant is an art gallery in itself. There were sculptures, fountains and paintings that were a festival of color and texture. The favorite of the family was a sculpture that was on the floor. It was a raised relief of clouds. It was designed to be walked on and David told us that the reason in China to walk on cloud sculptures was that they clouds take your troubles away and give you peace and tranquility. His story about it while we were walking amongst the clouds was great. We actually felt peaceful and satisfied. That feeling could have come from the wine and good food we had before our walk, but I am sticking with the clouds.
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| French and Chinese Together |
The rest of the week was pretty quiet and we had a real nice Friday, just hanging out watching movies. On Saturday we all slept in and continued to recuperate from our seven day work week. Saturday afternoon we packed up and headed for Guangzhou to begin celebrating Mother's Day weekend. We rode the scooters over to the metro and and then took it to a place that we have been wanting to explore. When Paul was with us here in China we kept wanting to go to this place called Shamian Island.
According to Wikipidia, Shamian Island was an important port for Guangzhou's foreign trade from the Song to the Qing Dynasty.[2] From the 18th to the mid 19th century, the foreigners lived and did business in a row of houses known as the Thirteen Factories, near present Shamian,[4] which was then an anchorage for thousands of boat people.[5][6] Shamian became a strategic point for city defense during the period of the First and Second Opium Wars. In 1859,[2] the territory was divided in two concessions given to France and the United Kingdom (of which 3/5 belonged to the British and 2/5 to the French).[7] It was connected to the mainland by two bridges, which were closed at 10pm as a security measure.[4][8] The English bridge to the north was guarded by Sikhs, and the French bridge to the east was guarded by Vietnamese French troops.
One of the really cool things that we found here was The Chapel of Lourdes. The chapel was a working Catholic Church with a grotto that was created to look like Lourdes itself.
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| The inside of Shamian Church of Our Lady of Lourdes |
After Shamian we made our way over to our favorite shopping mall and book store. We had about an hour and a half to kill before we met some friends for dinner.
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| Our Lady of Lourdes built in 1890 |
We then made our way to a hotel that we like in Guangzhou. We were spending the night so that we could have a leisure morning before church.
The next morning we woke up and headed to our favorite breakfast restaurant, Starbucks!! The girls did a good job the day before picking out cards for Cecelia. They found some very unique ones, made out of wood. They also had great messages on them. We had a nice time together before we headed off to church.
Church was very nice and the theme was obviously Mother's Day. The priest did a great job comparing the love that Christ has for us, to the love that a mother has toward her children. It is pure and unconditional. The message was a great way to start off our day.
We then ventured over to Haizu Square and met another one of our friends for Sunday brunch. The restaurant we chose is called Rendevous. The buffet was outstanding and came with a main course. I know I have said it before, but you gotta love eating out in China. I paid for lunch and it came to about $60 for six of us.
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| This is the Mother we celebrated on Mothers Day!!!!! |
We then headed home and topped our weekend off with a nap and a quiet dinner. It was a very enjoyable weekend.
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