Last day in Guangdong, continued

On Friday morning, we toured the Chen Clan Academy which is known for its brick, stone and wood carvings on the actual building and the various kinds of carvings within (ivory, bone, etc.) It's a gorgeous compound with beautiful courtyards. Besides the Academy itself, one of the highlights was walking up to it through a park where people were involved in all sorts of activity: calligraphy (using water on the pavement), some game resembling hacky-sack, aerobics and something kind of like ping pong (?). Anyway, it was really fun to watch. I seriously could have spent hours sitting in that park people watching if I didn't have two toddlers to run after!

The exterior of the Academy:

Brick carvings on the outside:

One of its many beautiful courtyards:

After that, we walked around Shamian Island, a small island in Guangzhou (accessible by bridge) that is mostly pedestrian-only. It's home to the famed "White Swan Hotel", the place where all the Americans stay when they are adopting from China, because the U. S. embassy or consulate is on the same island. Carolyn and I of course had to visit the White Swan, which is practically the stuff of legend in many of the adoption blogs we follow. Sadly, it was underwhelming, but perhaps that's because we approached from the back and never even saw a sign for it until we spied the name and logo on a parking cone!

My gang in front of the waterfall at the White Swan: