Today is a continuation in a
series on cultural exchange travel to China by DreamFinder travel agent Kim Merrill
Last night was the first night I appear to have conquered my
jet lag and slept all night without waking up.
We had a leisurely morning and didn’t have to queue up for the bus until
9:30 am. Today’s agenda had us picking up some of the swimmers from the Chinese
team and touring local sites with them.
Our route today took us into the very modern city
center. We hadn’t been thru this
particular area yet, so it was nice to see some different architecture. The buildings were very ultra-modern and
cutting edge in terms of design. We saw
the tallest structure in Guangzhou, coming in at a total height of 600 meters
after including the obligatory spire that was 150 meters in height. Two other
buildings (both finance centers) log in at the #8 and #24 tallest buildings in
the world, with one of them apparently the most expensive ever built. I’m trying to fact check that data, but while
I was able to get the rankings, in trying to search more details, I’m no longer
able to search. Google is blocked here entirely
(no gmail, people!) and apparently the one search I did on Bing was enough to
shut that down too. The
cultural/governmental differences are quite evident.
Our destination was the Guangzhou Museum and the building
was amazing, very cubic and angular. We
only had an hour here and had to power-walk to get in some of the
exhibits. We started on the 4th
floor and worked our way down. The
exhibits covered provincial ancient life, wood carving (VERY elaborate),
pottery from many eras (yes, we saw Ming Dynasty vases) and calligraphy (which
we actually never found in spite of the signs).
I could have spent hours in there.
We headed to lunch at a restaurant that was located in a
(mostly) pedestrian market area. Lunch
was served family-style and I ended up sitting next to a very pleasant young
man who was very helpful with identifying foods. His English was very good, and when we had a
few glitches with communication, he had a handy-dandy app on his phone that would
type out the intended word after he typed it in with the Chinese
characters. “Bread” was a word that was difficult
for him to pronounce, but the app made it easy to understand. We talked about the differences in meals
between American families and Chinese families.
Both are family-style dining, but the “how” of it is a bit
different. They bring out a LOT of dishes..I
was not able to ascertain how they determine the number that was selected. It was entirely too much food for the people
at our table and there were a lot of leftovers.
One thing I did notice….kids avoid some vegetables in all cultures. Broccoli was well received. Bok Choy, mushrooms, and eggplant? Not so much.
After lunch, we all had time to walk the market. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a very
specific shopper and the idea of a crowded foreign street market with bartering
is NOT my thing. At all. Having been to
markets all over the world, today I was actually surprised that it was not as
crowded as I thought it would be (La Rambla in Barcelona was much worse). That being said, I followed my group around
and avoided going into the shops as that was entirely too space-limited for me. Had my new friends not wanted to go around
and look, I would have headed to Starbucks and hid until we had to meet for the
bus. My daughter actually braved the
crowds and bought a few items for her friends back home. I noticed that there was a lot offered in the
way of t-shirts with slogans in English (which I thought was strange as there
were not any other visible Americans around).
These slogans made no sense, if they are funny the translation is lost.
Speaking of other Americans, while we were waiting for a bus
to come get us from the market, there was a guy a wee bit too close for my
comfort, so I turned around and smiled and said hello. Turns out he was from Houston (ethnically
speaking he did not stick out like we do) and he literally was wondering if he
was missing something as our “crowd” was congregating. We chatted a bit about the reasons why we
each were here and he literally was here to sightsee (we have seen lots of tour
groups). It’s worthwhile to take in your
surrounding and at least smile at people (more on this in a sec).
Because my preparation will consist simply of putting on my
dress and sandals, I headed to the lounge to have a glass of wine and write
this blog. Picking back up on the looking
at your surroundings comment above, I noticed a couple at a nearby table doing
a recording with a microphone. The
gentleman eventually walked by me and I asked if they were recording a
podcast. He was kind of surprised, but
that was, in fact, what they were doing.
They were from the Congo and were here for his work (marketing) and she
was a gospel singer. He asked why I was
here and as some of the swimmers were in the pool, he had seen some of why we
were here already. You never know who you are going to meet, or their story,
and I cannot emphasize enough to smile and say hello or wave.
Tomorrow we are heading to Beijing. Our tour guide is coming with us, which is
wonderful. He has gotten to know us and
is very knowledgeable and easy to understand. The weather there is a LOT
colder, more reminiscent of home (Washington).
The news this morning was of the SNOW they had in Beijing and the trade
war. Sigh. It should not be snowing tomorrow but I will
need to put on socks (I’ve been in shorts and flip flops since we arrived).
Stay tuned—more on Beijing to come! Until then Huítóu jiàn (see you later)
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