60th Anniversary Chinese National Day

Thursday (10/1/2009)
We arrived at our new hotel yesterday afternoon. It is the Victory Hotel on Shamian Island. Typically, this island is filled with tourists, especially Americans that are adopting. However, because of the holiday this week, pretty much all of the foreigners have gone home. We have strolled the streets and visited several shops and food markets. They eat everything here. You can find snakes, Lizards skin, turtles, scorpions all right around the corner from KFC. We met one lady whom upon seeing Elsie asked if we were Christians. Upon replying, she pulled out her Chinese Bible and told us about a local church on the island. We may try it out this Sunday. Weddings in China are big this week, because the married couple can take advantage of the holiday for their honeymoon. Today is National Day here in China. I guess 60 years ago today, Mao Zedong proclaimed to the world in Tiemann square the founding of the People's Republic of China. A HUGE parade was held at the square. Complete with the army, tanks, warplanes and ICBM nuclear weapons. Oh, they also had little kids singing. As we walked through the market, we could see all the TV's playing the parade. We came back to the Hotel and watched a little bit on TV. Um, I think that was pretty much the only choice, since all the TV channels were playing it. We hope to see a big fireworks display tonight. We may have a good view out of our hotel window. The woman in the photo with Tamra and Elsie, is our guide Elsie.