Hello all! Thanks for your recent emails. Just got to the university yesterday afternoon. It's hot here like Florida, humid and a bit smoggy just like last year. Finished visiting Guangzhou after two nights in the hotel there. My friend here, Pan Wei Cong, aka WECO and his girlfriend, Ping, were extremely helpful. As I said before, the Chinese are SO supportive of this poor mei guo ren, it is refreshing. We all climbed the Baiyun Mountain, in the heat of course. It actually felt great to be outside exercising after a 26 hour plane trip! That trip was great except with the inactivity and so much food served, I was a bit pudgy upon arrival and the exercise felt great.
Briefly, a couple of highlights: After refusing the same taxi driver four times at the Guangzhou airport for a ride to the hotel, I finally caved and took what was I guess not an official cab. I dickered for 170 yuan, they wanted 200. OK, off we sped, and I mean sped, as in 60 mph through downtown Providence, no seatbelts in sight, weaving in and out with a measure of cutting others off. Had to take a toll road. When I asked the driver to change my 100 Y bill into 20 times 5 Y so I could pay him, he indicated , sure, and at the toll booth took the 100 Y bill so the attendant could change it. Slyly, ever so slyly, he gave me back 85 Y instead of th 100. Did he ask if I wanted to pay the toll? No, of course not. He did it so fast I was more amused than angry. Then we had a bried pidgin convsation about family and I realized hey this is just a guy trying to make a living so I paid him the full 170 Y and we parted friends.
Tour of Guangzhou: Weco took me all around. We didn't want to wait the 2 hours until 7 p.m. for the riverboat tour of the Pearl River. It was too hot and we were tired after the hike in the heat. So we toured another area "Beijing Lu" Street, a major shopping area. It was so hot and muggy I suggested we go back to the hotel and chat. He and I chatted the night away with such a great cultural exchange: family, life, school, job, etc. etc. He is a delight. I finally conked out at about 9:30 when he left and fell into a deep Aleve induced sleep to take care of the sore muscles.
Pictures attached I hope...my favorite funny sight of the day was the "chicken man", Frank Perdue does have Chinese relatives. There was the funniest fellow blowing on a squawky trumpet fully garbed in a paper mache life size chicken. He was selling egg shaped candy for 2 Y. Weco treated.
OK, off for a walk around campus now. I hope the pictures upload well. China is still a sight to see, very visually stimulating.
p.s. the rose picture is of the real roses my host left in the apartment; sending it so Maryal can see!
2 comments:
Hi Dad........oh how exciting. I would think you would get bored on your 3rd time around. I love the pictures. You blended in so well with the chicken guy. Hopefully Mom will be able to see the pictures of the roses. You know how she loves roses. Everyone is asking for you here in "The States" We all miss you and hope you are having a great time. Noodles Anyone? Sorry it took me so long to write. I had some technical difficulties. But all is squared away now. Until next time......Love you, Alanna
thanks Alanna, missing you all and glad you were able to access the blog! Dad
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