Title: Kaiping Watchtowers (sounds like hyping with a "K")

Sunday is our team's day off. (But really-there is no "day off" we are "on" all the time) The center arranged a tour for us to the city of Kaiping. We were told it is southwest of Jiangmen, but I need to find it on a map to make sure. (Sometimes the translations don't quite make it through correctly) It took us about 2 hours to get there. It is a city famous in China for these old fortress-style homes and judging by the number of signs and advertisements I saw along the way-it is also apparently famous for faucets. I really had no idea that there are so many kinds of faucets, sign after sign after sign, and strangely enough-a lot of them had a friendly explanation in English that "plastic is good".

Anyway, the watchtowers were very cool. They were built to protect the wealthy families who had come home from "Gold Mountain" (California, during the gold rush). They came home with money and Western treasures that made them subject to robberies. So they built these 4-7 story square fortresses to protect their belongings and their family. Often they would have more than one wife and so each wife had their own floor with their own kitchen, bedroom for her, bedroom for the kids, and bathroom. These buildings are a national historic site so some of them are furnished and are treated like a museum. Others are vacant and still others have people living in them. We went to two villages and then had a big lunch.

As interesting as Kaiping was, the drive up and back as well as the time walking around was the really cool part. I was able to spend some one-on-one time with a couple of the Chinese locals who are helping as our guides. The conversations we had are very special. Hearing there stories and answering their questions was the reason I came!

I took over 100 pictures just on that trip alone! Here are a few: a couple of the watchtowers, Mom and me in our "farmer" hats, a cute chicken, a lotus (we eat the root here), a farmer tilling with an ox, and ducks in a truck.

Oh-by the way......Someone in our group has won so far in the contest of "find the most unusual English name" he met a girl named "Vegetable" last night. But so far, I'm winning the contest of "Snap a picture of the most people on a scooter" contest with 5. I'll go ahead and throw that picture in for good measure too.