Day 4 Markets & Dinner

This was the much anticipated shopping day! I was in search of pearls and diamonds. Charisse took us to Jade Market downtown to see her pearl lady. 

 Going downtown is always an exciting experience. It's fun to see random temples and such just everywhere in parks and scattered throughout the city.

 Jade Market was such fun. I bought pearls for everyone. It was really cool to watch her work on the strands. She even made me a baby bracelet for Jeff & Rachel's baby but since they ended up with a boy I'll be saving that.

After we went pearl shopping we went to lunch at a Japanese place called Yoshinoya that Mendis remembered from his mission. They had great bowls.

After lunch we went to Charisse's diamond gal. She's got a connection for everything. Mariann's shop was pretty intense. It took me forever but I finally find the ring I wanted for our 35th anniversary. We also bought a diamond band for my wedding ring set that was so pretty. Spending that much money was scary but we got a great deal. The rings had to get sized so we came back a few days later to pick them up.

Charisse took us to some other street markets to do some shopping. They were crowded and busy but such a great time. Knockoff central for sure! Our first market was the Ladies Market. I had heard about that market from tv shows!

The street food all looked fantastic but I didn't want to mistakenly eat something that might kill me so we passed it all up. Well almost all of it. Charisse introduced us to Chez Choux for the best cream puffs of our lives.

I had a chocolate chocolate one. Divine!

That night we took Doug and Charisse out for a really nice dinner to thank them and to celebrate Doug's birthday. We went to the Dynasty Room.

 The food was fabulous.

 This was interesting...I put my purse on the floor by the table and they ran over with a stool to put my purse in. Apparently it's bad manners to put your purse on the floor.

After dinner we went for a little walk down to the church building. It has about 3 chapels in it, a visitors center, and all the offices for the leaders. There's also an office for the general authority over the area and an apartment to live in. Elder Gong and his wife were living there but they were gone for General Conference at the time. We saw Doug's office and the chapel they usually attend church in for their ward. Another great day flew by just like that.