Foshan

Left in the morning with Jenny and Steve and took the bus to Foshan. On our way to bus station we saw some imitation Pizza Hut (called pizza) and Starbucks (called Starvisitor Coffee). Its amusing that China isn't all that strict with its patent laws. They have so many imitation items. Imitation brands, imitation stores, and they are so blatant, but no one seems to care to do anything about it.

Foshan (means Buddha Hill) - one of China's oldest pottery towns and is the cradle of the Cantonese opera. The city was about about an hour bus ride away. We got to see a little of the city during our bus ride. The bus was so bouncy, I thought it was going to flip itself. When we arrived in the city we first walked to Renshou Temple.

Renshou Temple - Buddhist temple. This was the first temple we've seen in China. It wasn't very big, more striking was the hundreds of old people at tables surrounding the temple. We found out it was Elder's Day- the 9th day of the 9th month of the lunar year. We grabbed some Vegetarian Chinese food right outside the temple...it was not all that tasty. I thought it would be vegetarian dishes, but instead, it was all normal dishes (dumplings, orange chicken, etc...) with imitation meat instead of real meat. I think I ate more rice than anything else. After lunch we went to tour the temple. We asked some people in the temple if we could take pictures of the big, golden Buddha that people were worshiping, but they insisted on having us join them for Elders lunch! We were the only people under the age of 60 eating at the tables. They brought us an endless supply of food...and we felt it would be rude to refuse. They were all very friendly, but I'm sure it was because we were foreigners. The temple monks all came to our table and toasted with us. It was like something from a movie!

Shiwan - ceramics production. Where we found the toilet waterfall and the beautiful lake with the pottery queen in it.

Zu Miao - founded during the late 11th century. Taoist temple. Beidi is represented by a turtle and a snake there was a pond in the middle filled with hundreds of turtles big and tall. Had a martial arts show.

There were no foreigners in any of the towns we visited. We were the only ones. There were tourists but none I saw that were not asian.