Oh, it's SOUTHERN China! Right.

Salutations readers!  How are you all today.

So Euphy had warned me on a few occasions that Zhuhai is very hot and humid, but I never really paid it much mind.  I mean, China temperate, similar temperatures to Canada right?  Well that may be true for Beijing, we're WAY South of the capital in Zhuhai and yeah, it's hot and humid all right.  I was outside for maybe 30 seconds before my shirt was glued to my back and I was wondering why I'd bothered showering this morning.  That was a bit of a shocker for me considering that we're half way through October, but having a quick look at Google Maps it sure looks like Zhuhai is sitting at a similar latitude to Florida or Cuba.  So yeah, should maybe have expected the tropical weather.  Fortunately my entire wardrobe is light, quick-drying stuff, so at least I'm dressed for it.

Today after breakfast we headed over to the convenience store that Euphy's Dad owns to spend a little bit of time chatting with her Grandma.  We then hopped in a cab and made our way to Gongbei Port, which forms the border between Zhuhai and Macao.

That massive building in the centre is the border, but just underneath it is a huge underground shopping mall that we wander around in for awhile... mostly just for the air conditioning.  After that we headed out on food to go tour the nearby neighbourhood where Euphy used to live as a small child.  We saw her old apartment, and her former kindergarten.

It says right on the building that it's a kindergarten, but technically they go right up to Grade 3 there.  After that Euphy was at a new school, and they moved to place closer to that school, which we also visited.

Euphy's Mom still owns the place, we hung out there for awhile and looked at old photo albums from Euphy's childhood.  It's been a really neat experience getting to see this big piece of her past.

Zhuhai is an amazing place.  Like I mentioned before, I get this fixed image of China as being like Beijing, but this is a massive country in all directions, and in the South it's very much tropical.  I snapped a picture out the window while we're at Euphy's Mom's condo, and I really think that I could convince people that I took this picture in the Caribbean.

Having firmly established that my Geography skills need some work we headed back to our hotel.  I snapped a few pics, and here's one taken from just behind our computer desk that I think shows a good view of how nice we've got it here.

The rest of the day was pretty quiet for us.  We spent the better part of the afternoon hanging out with Euphy's Grandma, and then after dinner we headed out to visit some Aunts and Uncles.  One family had a condo with this groovy view from the balcony, which made my evening:

So that's about it for the day.  A little bit less touristy, and more just chilled out and relaxing, which has been very nice.  Euphy's expressed some concern that I'm going to be bored, but honestly the change of pace has been a welcome one.  We saw some amazing things in Beijing and Shanghai, but it was a tiring process as well.  I'm perfectly happy to just do the odd little bit of sightseeing and spend the bulk of our time in Zhuhai hanging out with family and letting my batteries recharge a bit.  This is, after all, a vacation.

I'm calling it a night now, have a great day to everyone in time zones where your days are just starting!