I am experimenting with how to put more photos on the blog...apparently I am already out of space!  Ugh, I am new to blogging and I take too many pictures and would love to share them with all of you so here goes my first attempt.  Looks like I will write about the pics a bit and then also share a slideshow? 

We recently went to Yuexiu park in Guangzhou.  It is know for it's statue of the 5 Rams...Here is the history according to a local tourist page...

The Five-Ram Sculpture is one of the most famous structures in Guangzhou. It has become the emblem of the city. Legend has it that more than 2,000 years ago, the city was a barren land with people who despite hard work were suffering from famine. One day five immortals in five-color garments came riding on five rams, playing their legendary music. The rams held sheaves of rice in their mouths. The immortals left the sheaves of rice for the local people, gave blessings to the city and left. The rams turned into stone and the city became a rich and populous place. Guangzhou got the name of the City of Rams and the City of Ears.

We spent the day walking around the beautiful park, riding some electric motorboats, and having some good street food.

http://www.flickr.com//photos/jennymadsen/show/

                                     Chen Clan Academy

Park located just outside Chen Clan Academy in Guangzhou

For the HistoryBuffs...(thanks to Wikipedia)

In the late Qing Dynasty, Chen Ruinan and Chen Zhaonan, Chinese-Americans who returned to Guangzhou, proposed the idea to raise money from all the Chen clans to build a temple for the worship of their ancestors and a place for their clansman to study for the examination.^[1] Therefore, the Chen Clan Academy was finished in 1894 with the money donated by Chen families in 72 counties of Guangdong Province as well as some overseas family members. When the imperial examination system was abolished in 1905, the Chen Clan Academy was changed into the practical school of the Chens. Later in 1957, the Guangzhou City People's Committee approved the Chen Clan's Academy as a Guangzhou City preserve. Then in 1959 the government introduced a folk arts and crafts gallery into the temple. Now it serves as the Guangdong Folk Art Museum.^[3]

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This is the beautiful entrance to the Chen Clan Academy.  

The Lion and large drum were both located close to the entrance.

                                            

This large painting on the immensely big doors is one of the warrior guards

 we see at most temples.   The door knocker was also amazing.

Different artists were working throughout the academy.  This woman was doing chinese writing of your name for a small fee, and she also had the meaning of your name in Chinese.  We started out as the only people interested and in a matter of moments large crowd had gathered interested in what was happening. 

This was an awesome antique trunk, I would love this in my house,  it came 

from the Beijing (or Peking) Opera House.

Here is a picture of a courtyard area in the academy.

Beautiful Statue located at the rear of the grounds.

                                       This part of the academy had bone and ivory carving.
                  It was absolutely amazing!  Below are the six steps to carving an 11 layer ivory ball.
                                                 Also two carvings on elephant tusks.

This man painted Gabe and Mason's name inside a small glass ball.

Here are a few pictures of the amazing embroidery and sewing displays.

 

This was an exhibit on fan making.

Here are a few pictures of the intricate work done with stone and concrete.

 






Gabe bought an awesome paper cutting of a snake (his zodiac or birth year) from this man.  His hand was incredibly steady while he cut the paper.

 A beautiful vase, there was lots of pottery and glass on display also.

 
Another view of the courtyard and a closeup of the wood carvings that adorned the top of the Academy  Walls.  It was very intricate and beautiful.

  

Having some fun, our impression of the Sound of Music???

This editions, "what you don't usually see back home."  Yes folks those are flammable tanks being hauled on a scooter, five of them to be exact.  The one balancing on top looks safe doesn't it?  Snapped this pic while on the bus to school one afternoon.  I have seen many interesting things being hauled by scooter, just don't always have my camera handy.  So glad he is wearing that construction helmet, that will probably help if something should happen...

China...

This edition is going to be a hodgepodge of events that have occurred or that we have experienced while we have been here, hope you enjoy.

 These are pictures of my Tai Chi performance for the Kindergarten Sports Day Festival.  My Tai Chi experience began on Thursday nights as a opportunity to learn more about the Chinese culture and get some exercise.  It turned into me performing with a group of coworkers and parents for about 1500 students and their parents. 

This is a picture of me and my student, Howdy, and my coworker, Luca.  We were waiting for our performance.  Howdy dribbled a basketball with a group of boys, while Luca did a flag corp routine and my group did Tai Chi.  It was an interesting experience to say the least.  If you know me at all you know I am not a performer and have never really studied dance :)  After about two weeks and probably 20 hours of practice we pulled it off. (video later)

This is a view of the parents and students who performed several choreographed exercise routines that the students had practiced for a few weeks. 

This is a picture of one of the banners that was made for our Kindergarten Sports Day Celebration

The students participated in many fun activities with their parents.  A few students had parents that could not make it, so the teachers stepped in to be surrogate parents.  This is one of my students, Clay.  Below is my co-teacher Ryan, with our student Tina.  These hats are worn by the local gardeners.  Wore my Packer shirt...Go Pack Go!

These were a few of the other activities the students did with their parents and families. 

 Here are Hattie, Mason and Gabe having some fun with the United Nations posters that the school had made.  Our school seems to have quite a large budget for posters and banners.  

Some other misc. stuff...

This is a picture of Obama, right next to Mao, that we saw while we were out and about shopping in a little neighborhood.

This editions, "what we don't usually see back home"  Yes folks those are rats...asked our cab driver, Sam, who is a local in this neighborhood and he did not know why you would buy those...dog chew was our best guess.

Stash of the kids Halloween candy that they bought this year at the grocery store...no door to door trick or treating, but they enjoyed the candy.

Luke and I went out to McDonald's one night and it cost 

us $48 kwai or about $8 for two meals, which is about 4 times what we spend on a Chinese lunch, but it did taste like McDonald's.  Hattie also was discussing fast-food restaurants in her class and she was told there were 200+ McDonald's in the Guangzhou area.

This was some delicious candy we found called dragon's whiskers.  It was sugar that tasted like cotton candy and melted in your mouth, with peanuts inside.  They reminded me a little of the old fashioned orange colored peanut butter logs.

This was one of our splurge evenings after we found a store called Oliver's that sells imported goods, we did not eat everything in one night :)

This is a Chinese vending machine, we have gotten a few good things, for instance something that resembles a granola bar and some good canned juices.  Also a few really gross things, something we thought was dried raspberries, but were actually wax berries, not our favorite :(  

Here is a car that is decorated for a wedding, which we see quite often and sometimes in the middle of the week.  Almost all of them have been this way with a big heart on the hood.

We have been referring to our Wednesday nights as Western Wisconsin Wednesdays...We have dedicated our Wednesday evenings to be a no Chinese food evening.  So this is one of our meals, eggs, ham and veggies, bacon and pancakes with syrup.  

Here are a couple of pics of eating out...the one on the left is a great plate of duck, rice and veggies, with a slice of tofu that we found right outside our gated community.  The whole plate was only 8 kwai or about $1.30 and it is fantastic.  The one on the right was a brand new fast food place located across the way from our gated community.  This meal cost about 16 kwai or $2.50 and it was duck also, but we voted not to go back to this restaurant, it was 

just okay and very fast food tasting.

Contrary to everything we heard about dogs in China (only in certain areas do they actually eat them) many people have dogs as pets.  We saw this one at an outdoor market, he was fast asleep under a table until we couldn't resist petting him, he was just a clumsy fur ball of a pup.