Squatty Potty, Pearl Market

Wednesday we visited the Chen Academy. It was built by many many members of the Chen family to honor their ancestors. At one time it was a residence but now it houses a museum of local arts and crafts. It was beautiful but I had to attach the above photo. It is a "sqatty potty". No instructions necessary. I'd been told about these and we have therefore avoided bathrooms in public places but our friend Tom showed us this one. Tom is compiling a photo tour of China's squatty potties. He has perhaps 50 photos and they really are not all alike. This is a pretty average one.



This is a famous ivory carving that was at the museum. It is a big ball with 43 (I think) smaller balls inside. It is intricately carved and each layer has it's own designs including a small ball in the middle. They had some unbelievable ivory, bone and jade carvings.


This is one of those teeny paintings on a grain of rice. You have to look through the microscope to see it. Who has that kind of patience??


Our guide Michael took us to the Pearl and Jade markets today. This is one of the shops in the pearl market - there were many many stores with many many shelves packed full of many many bags of pearls. The prices were OK but still not like the ones we got with our friend in Beijing. The jade market was WAY overpriced, like little teeny necklaces for $500 - needless to say none of us bought anything there.



This is Shawn and Tom shopping for Rolex watches with our "friend" Linda. This is the "Lucky House" where we bought quite a bit of junk. We decided a good strategy for shopping here is to make some acquaintances with store owners and then buy many items in one store. That way you can usually get to the best price. For example tonight we were buying a little toy for the boys - Linda said she was out but she would sell them to us tomorrow for 5 yuan. We had to leave so we checked another store who told us they were 20 yuan. So we told them she would sell them to us for 5 yuan and started to walk away and presto - they told us they'd sell them for 5. It is kind of exhasting to compare prices and bargain but you can save some money if you're up for it.