David's Big Adventure in China

My travels with a tour guide ended on August 9 when we returned to Guangzhou. We spent a total of 24 days traveling around Eastern and a bit of central China. I saw places and things that I would not have seen in a guided tour geared for westerners. We normally used local transportation and didn’t take tour buses so most of the time I was the only white face in the group. Not being part of a tour group allowed us to see what we wanted and on the time schedule we wanted. All in all it was a great trip. I saw so many things I never dreamed I would see in person. I came away so impressed with the building skills and craftsmanship of the Chinese people, it’s just such a shame that much of it was wasted on egomaniac emperors. It’s funny that they could build so many fabulous things yet sometimes there is a stark contrast in what they can’t build. In the building where I saw the terracotta warriors they had quite a few buckets sitting around catching water from the leaking roof. It seemed such a contrast that in the building that covers a national treasure of incredible building talents from thousands of years ago that they can’t keep a roof over it that doesn’t leak.

After returning to Guangzhou I spent a couple days relaxing and recuperating in a nice hotel. My legs were so incredibly sore for almost 5 days after that speed decline down Mount Hua that I needed some rest. On Sunday I headed to Shenzhen to visit my friend Lily before she heads off to America in a couple weeks to marry an American man (George) in Decatur, Illinois. She went for her visa interview today (the 16th) and got her visa. Getting a visa to go to America is quite an ordeal and it has taken her about 9 months to get a fiancé visa. On Sunday evening I had dinner with Lily, one of her neighbors and two ladies that were students at GLV in Zhuhai when I was there for my class. It’s was tough being the only man in a group with 4 lovely ladies……I know you all know how tough it was for me but I suffered my way through it……lol! On Monday, Lily and I went to a theme park in Shenzhen called Splendid China. It’s kind of like EPCOT at Disney in Orlando with 2 parts, 1 part is miniature versions of many of the great sites in China such as The Great Wall and the Forbidden City and the other part has exhibits and entertainment that highlight many of the 55 minorities within China. They do a fabulous show in the evening with music and dancing and incredible costumes.

On Tuesday I took a couple local buses to the port and then took a ferry to Zhuhai passing by Hong Kong along the way. Then on Wednesday I took a local bus to the border then walked across into Macau and went to the Chinese embassy there to get my work visa. I was 2nd in line and paid extra for same day service. I left the embassy at 9:15 and was told to come back and get the visa at 4:00. I walked around the area a bit then found a nice hotel lobby to escape the heat and do some reading. Then I went for some lunch then on to a different hotel for some more reading. I went back to the embassy early hoping the visa would be ready and it was so at 3:15 I hopped on a local bus that took me back to the China border and fell into line to exit Macau. After going through the Macau immigration I walked 100 yards to the China immigration. It takes about an hour to get through both lines. Now, I’m back in Zhuhai and tomorrow (Friday the 17th) I will fly to Kunming which will be my home for the next year (and maybe longer?). Kunming is actually pretty close to Viet Nam and Laos so those are places I hope to visit sometime within the next year. My apartment will not be ready until the 25th so I will stay in a hotel on campus for a week at a cost of a little over $10 per night. I’m not posting any new pic’s this time but just as a reminder if you want to see pic’s click the link on the right side of the blog under “my links” that says “pictures”.

Now for the usual odds and ends. Snoopy (from the Peanuts comic strip) and Playboy are both big here. I have seen many Snoopy stores and many Playboy stores. I had heard that people in the north of China are taller than those in the south and when visiting the north I found that to be true. I think I am taller here too since I can reach up and touch the ceiling in the corridor of most hotels that I have stayed in…..lol. I mentioned a while back about the lack of cultural entertainment here and as evidence of that they did a special piece of the news about the play Momma Mia opening in Beijing. For my male readers I’ve got some good news and bad news for you. First the good news, Budweiser beer is available almost everywhere and costs about the same as the local beer. Now for the bad news….those Chinese ladies that you thought were quiet and subservient are quite the opposite. I have seen many ladies here give service people quite a hard time if they are not delivering perfect service and I have seen a few instances of ladies having really loud arguments with each other. One day I saw two ladies having a knock down, fight complete with kicking, punching and hair pulling. I have also learned that quite often in a divorce the father takes the children rather than the mother. I don’t have any idea what the actual statistics are but it is surely much more often that the father takes the kids than in the U.S. Of course, the father gets lots of help raising the kids from his parents. One last observation of special interest to my Coca-Cola buddies, they still use the old pull tabs on Coke cans here. Well that’s all for now, my next update will be from Kunming in Yunnan province where the weather will be much cooler and more comfortable.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 16th, 2007 at 7:14 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.