Baiyun Mountain, Noodles, and Tea Time

We had another full and fun day here in Guangzhou. We spent the morning at Baiyun Mountain. It's a huge outdoor park with gardens and a bunch of random things to see at the top. We rode the cable car up and explored the grounds. The views of the city were awesome; the size of this place is incredible. It's the third largest city in the country (behind Shanghai and Beijing) with 13 million people, although some estimates place it at 25 million. In comparison, the Denver metro area has about 3 million people.







We walked to the viewpoints, saw various animals (birds, rabbits, etc.), admired plants and ponds and gazebos, checked out a temple, and walked all the way down the mountain. The carrier we got back when we traveled to Kyrgyzstan has come in handy for carrying kids on this trip as well!











Back by our hotel, the boys hit up McDonald's for lunch while we girls went to a nearby noodle place that we had heard about. It totally lived up to our expectations! For about $5 total, each of us got a HUGE delicious noodle bowl. Even Johanna, the noodle lover, couldn't finish it completely! We may just have to hit up this place again before we go.

After lunch, the kids were exhausted, so they took a nap. Zack rested and watched them while Morgan and I took the subway to the Fangcun Tea Market. Holy cow, I've never seen so much tea in my life! There were literally hundreds of tea shops. We took the time to sit down and be served tea at one of them (a delicious oolong tea from Taiwan), but we could have done that at each one and spent all day there!














It was primarily a place for wholesalers to buy tea. We definitely stood out. But we found an adorable ladybug tea set that I bought for Johanna as a gift for when she's older, and I got some small amounts of various kinds of tea and have no clue what they are! It was fun to just walk around and see all the pretty tea leaves and flowers and be a part of such an authentic experience.

After some playground time back at the hotel and dinner up in the lounge, I gave the kids a bath and they went to bed. They still aren't asleep though, probably because they had long naps. More about this evening in another post to come.




Tomorrow we stop by the medical clinic to get Johanna's blood test results, and then she has her consulate appointment at the United States embassy so she can get her visa to come home with us. Big day!