exploring ancient tombs and foraging for food

Monday morning we woke up to the rain that had been promised.  Of course that ruled out exploring either of the parks any further (though I still intend to find that crazy ram statue...and I'm not even a Tarheel fan...at this point its just to say that we saw it) so we decided to check out the Museum of the Mausoleum of the Nanyue King just around the corner from the hotel.

Apparently this site was being excavated for the foundation of a hotel to be dug and the builders hit some unexpected stone.  Closer inspection revealed a tomb that while suffering some water damage had been left untouched for nearly 2000 years.

Pretty cool that you get a view from above and then get to go down and walk through the actual burial vault and surrounding chambers.

After exploring where the king and his treasures had been buried we went on to check out all the artifacts unearthed from his burial grounds.

Perhaps the most impressive was the jade burial suit found covering his remains.  Jade burial suits are not unique to this king, but the jade pieces being held together with silk is the thing that makes it stand out from the rest.

I don't remember the exact number, but there were more than 2,200 little rectangles of jade that made up the full body covering.

One of my favorite "treasures" that they found in the tomb was this piece of flat blue glass.  The color was amazing.

There were many seals, precious stones and pearls as well, but after the cool factor of the tomb and the burial suit themselves, the kids were much more entertained with the kids play area of the museum.

We were going to push them along faster, but stopped to consider that it was raining and getting out of the museum early was going to just send us back to the hotel room.  One thought of almost losing our minds the previous night (with no swimming pool to rescue us because of the rain) and we decided to park it and let them play and explore.  When we finally did leave the children's area the attendant turned the light off and pulled the door shut.  We had noticed her opening it for us when our kids stood and looked at it and she explained that usually that area is not open on Mondays but she decided that we had big hearts and opened it for our kids to play.

All our museum time helped us work up an appetite, so after posing with the stone camels honoring the Nanyue king, we headed back to our jewel of a pizza find, Fadino's.

Upon our return we had some quiet time in the rooms.  Naps, sticker books, reading, kids sending emails to friends and their classes, computer games and watching Finding Nemo.  Finally we decided it was time to venture out for a real dinner.  We walked down the street to a place Lee had recommended to us.

Once overcoming the challenge of finding a table for ten of us...the place was packed!...Ian gathered the courage to order (in Mandarin) a spectacular meal complete with dishes featuring pork, beef, eggplant, Chinese broccoli, peanuts, noodles, pork buns, scallion pancakes and two pots of tea.  It was quite the feast and ended up being less than $4 per person.  We left during a break in the heavy rain and even decided to stop at the 7-11 to grab some ice cream bars out of the cooler.

Shortly after we got back to the room the rain really began to come down...I've never heard rain falling on the 10th floor of a hotel before, but it was absolutely pouring.  Thankfully the rhythm of the rain made for a soothing background noise and we all drifted off to sleep rather quickly...hence remaining a day behind in my posting.