A Walk in the Park

We walked down the street this morning to see Lord*Bao Park.  It was about a 10 minute walk, and we felt like big shot wei (why) guo (gaw) ren (run) (= foreigners) with directions and a small map on a card written only in Chinese characters.  No big deal.  Now, it will completely ruin the scene I'm trying to create here if I admit that we could see the park right across the street for 9.5 minutes of that 10 minute walk, but it just took that long to get to an intersection (which is really not the correct term to use because intersection sounds so neat and orderly, almost safe, if you will, and it truly is anything but) where we could cross the street.  Once there, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.   It was a photographer's dream, especially for the newest photographer of the bunch, with something to capture at every turn.  A long, long time ago, Lord*Bao was a very righteous man, not to sound so 70's or anything, but those were the words our guide used, and they carried a lot of weight coming from her.  The beautiful temple pictured above was built to honor him way back in 1999.  What???  No, that's not a typo, although I'm sure it could just be Chinglish, but that's what the sign said.  Never thought I'd live to see the day I would be able, without shame, to admit that I was around the year a Chinese temple was built, but this is it.  Oh, well, it certainly looked ancient, and the view from the fifth floor was marvelous.  Dad, you would have loved it.  Off in the distance we could see the hotel we stayed in the last time we were here in 2009.  It was a much different experience then than it is now.  We couldn't step outside the hotel without people staring at us, mouths agape, pointing at us and taking pictures.  We're noticed everywhere we go now, but it's much less dramatic for the noticers and more tolerable for the noticees.  Maryn's going without sunglasses now, having learned how to look right past the people looking at us, and Tenley's just happy to be out and about, I think.

Tomorrow evening we will meet with the guide we had last time we were here.  Her name is Jane, and I know she has been the guide for many other families who have come here.  She will be knocked over when she sees how Maryn has grown.

Tom and I are eager to move on to the next location.  While I certainly love a hotel buffet that serves "Blue Gordon Chicken," I haven't been eating dinner at night, and I'd really like to try a room ventilation system that offers something in a cool, refreshing menthol!  Which is reminding me how this morning, three 20's ish men were sitting in the park, and when they saw us they said, "Hi!"  Tom said hi back, and they were desperately trying to pull any tiny bit of English out of their heads that they could without much success, so one of them did the next best thing and offered him "a smoke".  We gave them the universal sign for are you out of your minds, we don't smoke!  I pulled a tiny bit of English out of my head and with a wagging index finger told him, "and you shouldn't either."  They laughed, and we walked on toward the "ancient" temple of Lord*Bao.