(Nathan) After nearly a week, we've exhausted our tolerance of the two restaurants in our hotel, so being the adventuresome people that we are, we ventured over to the hotel right next door to check out their restaurants. I know, I know—somebody hold us back.

Unfortunately, the approach to cuisine there is the same typical Cantonese style as over here. We order a nice sounding chicken dish. They grab an entire chicken—bones and all—throw it in a wood chipper, fry it up in barbecue sauce, and serve it. You probably know by now that I hate wrestling with my food. And I really hate biting into a piece of chicken to find tiny bones in it. I am soooooo spoiled.

The peas we ordered were a delicious Oriental variety. Felt like a chipmunk stuffing them in my mouth one by one with chopsticks. I desperately wanted a scoop shovel, but the waiter was standing against the wall just watching me daintily nibble away. Every now and then I actually got TWO PEAS on my chopsticks at the same time. Oh rejoice, my stomach. The waiter must have felt my pain, because he eventually brought me a huge serving spoon to eat with. I think that was Chinese sarcasm.

An odd thing we've noticed is that Chinese restaurants bring your dishes out in no particular order. Whenever a dish is cooked, they go ahead and serve it. One time we received our meat first, then appetizer, then salad, soup, and rice. Today we got our peas, then the meat and rice about 15 minutes later. Can't figure that one out.

The best and most frightening part of today's meal was the free baby sitting. Eliana had finished her bottle and was fussing, so the waitress wanted to take her. We didn't mind, thinking it was just for a moment, but then she disappeared around the corner. And then she didn't come back. And she still didn't come back. So now we're feeling like parents of the year who just allowed their baby to be stolen through some bizarre waitress-snagging scheme. But soon enough, we had her back in our arms. Those ladies just adore the babies and consistently comment on Eliana's big eyes and long lashes.

Tonight we headed for a true dining adventure as we crammed four adults and three babies into a cab to a seafood restaurant by the river. Menu was the usual unusual varieties of animal parts that most of us would find difficult to swallow, but we did manage to get some pork, fried rice, and a very large whole fish. Rather tasty actually. Eliana had a sizeable portion of tofu which she gobbled like a baby bird.

On the way out of the restaurant, we discovered that it is also a fresh seafood market. Fresh—as in critters swimming in tanks. Critters—as in turtles, snakes, alligators, crabs, lobsters, all sorts of fish, snails, grubs, wormy things, eels, octupi, and—yes—geoducks (GOOey duks). Gotta check out the photos ("China: In Guangzhou" album) to truly appreciate the nastiness.