Really, I haven't forgotten about my blog, really!

Picture from my hotel room in Beijing. Some days I couldn't see those buildings at all.

Ok, maybe I did.

But I'm still here, reacclimating to Eastern Standard Time and getting settled in my apartment. I've been so busy with travel that I haven't gotten to completely unpacking some of my stuff.

My pictures have all been uploaded to Flickr, so if you click on that box over on the top left, it will bring you to them.

Or, to see the Beijing pictures, click here.

There's a few pictures of Guangzhou here.

Picture from the hotel in Guangzhou...clearer, but still not great.

I'm going to start a new hobby

It's called pearl arranging :P

Before I get to some of the pictures from the places I saw, I spent this morning taking pictures of all the things I bought and I wanted to show some stuff off.

Some burgundy silk fabric, with dragons on it. Interestingly enough, it is very similar to some burgundy silk brought back from China by my great great aunt Marcy for my grandmother, and that my mother ended up using for an Asian inspired top and skirt. I wonder if I was subconsciously remembering that fabric when I this?

More silk, this time a wild, handpainted floral pattern. I had bought a cheap 'silk' bathrobe at one of the markets and wasn't sure it was actually silk (still not quite sure, it may just be cheap silk), so I wanted to buy some real silk to make myself one. I know this stuff is the real deal, given how slippery it is!

One of the pearl necklaces I bought for myself. These are black pearls, and its a long strand I can loop around twice, or tie in a knot like in the picture. It was about 40 bucks.

Another pearl necklace, my favorite, and I do believe the best buy of the trip. Also the most expensive, so I'm not tell you how much I spent. These are salt water pearls, as opposed to fresh water. These are similar in quality (and price!) to Mikimoto pearls. Let's get a closer look, shall we?

Aren't these just gorgeous and absolutely perfect? I just can't get over them. If you recall from my early trip, I did buy some silk fabric in a similar color, and these match perfectly! Even though I didn't have plans for that fabric, it has now moved to the front of the queue and will be made in to a hot little dress!

Here's a picture of pretty much everything I bought for myself. No presents in the pictures here, and there are more things I bought that I also bought as gifts. To sum up: some grey wool, the cheap bathrobe, a purple cashmere wrap that reminds me of a stadium blanket, a tea set, a jade elephant, and a coconut necklace that I'm sure will look familiar to Colleen (that was from Hawaii, not China). Also, more pearls, some of which are loose so I can make my own necklaces!

Finally home!

Well, it looks like that last post got cut off a bit! I was posting from my phone, so I wasn't sure how it would come out - fail, obviously. My apologies for that picture of my pale, pale chubby legs.

Anyway, I'm home, after a long trip that included 4 flights and a little layover in this nice little group of islands in the Pacific. You know, Hawaii? It was a nice little break. I know this will be surprising to hear, but I actually put on a bathing suit (!), went swimming in the ocean (!!), and then laid out in the sun for a few hours (!!!). Obviously, the extreme jetlag has gotten to me, and I've been very confused and doing things that are very out of character.

I'm going to get started on uploading my pictures today, in between doing laundry, catching up on my tv shows (so many!) and eating Honey Nut Cheerios, which I've decided are the best thing ever. Oh, and maybe some sleep?

Homeward Bound

Well folks, my Asian travels appear to be over...

The Brides and Babies of Shamian Island

The hotel where I'm staying, and the office I'm working at in Guangzhou, is on a little island in the Pearl River called Shamian Island. Now, the Pearl river...well it's a lot like the Charles, or the Potomac. So it's really sketchy when I see people fishing in it.

 

When European merchants first came to Guangzhou, the only place they were allowed to settle was the Shamian Island. It's not too big, about 3 blocks wide and maybe 5 long. But the architecture is nice, there are some old European style buildings that really stand out from the rest of the city, which is full of dirty and shabby looking homes and tall apartment buildings, all alike, that are very much 1984 meets Miami. I have pictures, I think you'll understand it. So Shamian Island really stands out, and while the buildings are not all well maintained, it's got character and some interesting architecture, and trees as tall as the buildings.

 

There are 2 groups that are drawn to the Island. The first being the brides.

 

Apparently it's popular in China to get a photo book done before one's wedding. It appears to be more than just the typical posed photos of the bride in her dress, and the groom in a tux. I think they also take photos in normal dress, well, at least dressed up. So there's always a bunch of brides and their posse (posses?) all over the island, taking advantage of the scenery and getting lots of photos. They, the Chinese, also seem to be fond of very goofy poses.

 

There's a second group that is drawn to the island, the babies - and their families. Not the babies of the aforementioned brides though. The US Consolate's office for processing visas and passports used to be on the island, so all the Americans who adopt Chinese babies had to come here before heading home to the US. The Consolate's office has moved, but the families still come here. The hotel caters to them well, and all the little stores around here have free stroller rentals, and cute baby stuff to buy. It's nice to see the happy families, and the really cute babies everywhere. There weren't as many over the weekend with the holiday, but I saw a couple more at breakfast today. Most of the time it's just the parents and the baby, but I have seen one family that brought their 2 other kids, and a couple today with a grandmother.

 

I haven't mentioned the hotel I'm staying at, The White Swan, but it's pretty nice. Aside from the bed, which is a rock - I did ask for a second duvet for more padding, and they brought that, and a mattress pad, so last night I slept much better, but that could have also been the Jack and Coke I bought at 7-11 for about 3 bucks... Decor-wise, the hotel is nice, although I've heard they are going to be closing it in the next year or so to renovate the whole thing. Aside from the lobbies and restaurant areas, it reminds me of the Vineyard...particularly the front bedroom. The carpets are light pink and green, and there's a lot of light wood in the room. Of course, the musty smell in the hallway, and the smell of the water (though this is from the river I believe, not the ocean) might be what really reminds me of the Vineyard! 

Hello from Guangzhou!

So far, Guangzhou has been pretty uneventful, and honestly, I don't expect that to change. Let's sum up:

 

-Arrived Tuesday. Walked down the street with my coworkers for dinner at Lucy's, a restaurant that serves all sorts of food. Decent and cheap.

 

-Work on Wednesday, almost a full day. One of the folks here took us to a local Dim Sum place for lunch. Dim Sum is a local Cantonese food, and we were the only Westerners in the place. What is dim sum? Basically, think the Cantonese version of ravioli and other filled pastas - except with out the pasta and cheese (aka the yummy parts). We had some veggie filled things, others with pork, chicken, shrimp, etc. I was a little weary since I wasn't sure what was in them - we didn't pick from a menu because they just bring a cart around filled with little containers of dim sum, about 3 in each bowl - so I just made sure my coworkers ate each kind first, and then after I had their assurances it didn't have any sea food it it, I would try it. We also got two noodle dishes, both of which were pretty good. Dinner at Lucy's again that night.

 

-Thursday, October 1st. Went in to work for a few hours in the morning. Now, the first is National Day, and the first of 5 days of vacation for pretty much everyone in China, so the office was quiet. That does mean we are able to get our work done, without worrying about interfering with people's work. Left before lunch, and we walked around the island for a bit looking for an Italian restaurant. Couldn't find it, so we got a taxi and went back to the mall we were at the day before. There was a bbq place our coworker had pointed out to us the day before so we decided to check it out. It wasn't so much bbq as it was a buffet of unidentifiable meat dishes. I picked out some noodles that looked safe, and had a spring roll or two. 

 

After lunch, we wandered around the downtown area for a bit. There's a lot of shops there, and there were a lot of people out, so it was pretty crowded, and the weather is hotter than in Beijing. I headed back to the mall by myself for a bit, and wandered around the jewelry vendors, then found a cab to go back to the hotel. I was pretty tired by that point, and was having a nice caffiene-withdrawal headache, after one of the waitresses at breakfast filled my half finished cup of tea with coffee. The rest of the day was quiet, but it got pretty noisy as evening drew near. We had early assumed that there would be a firework display that night, and that our hotel would be a prime viewing spot. Of course, our rooms are on the other side of the hotel. I went downstairs at one point, to see about getting some dinner, and it was very crowded at that point. It seemed, by the noise, that there were about 50 people in each room on the otherside of the hotel, facing the river and presumably, the fireworks. A peek out my window later showed very crowded streets, and lots of noise. The fireworks went on for a while, and were very loud - being that this is China, I'm sure they were quite spectacular. 

 

That's about it so far. Almost lunch time, and most of our work here is done now. And we've got 3 more days in the office too. I'm really not happy with the poor planning of this trip, but there's nothing I can do about it. As great of an experience this is, I'd much rather get the work done, change my flights, and go home early. If there were actually something to do here, other than shop, maybe I wouldn't mind, but I'm really ready to go home.  

The Great Wall

Before I start talking about the Great Wall, I'd just like to say, there's only one way to follow up a night like Thursdays...it involves going to Hooters for dinner, then a club named 'Sex in Da City' and watching pole dancers with your male coworkers. :P

 

The most obvious of things to do when one visits China is to see the Great Wall. And that's exactly what I did this weekend.We were able to arrange for a driver through someone at work, so Saturday morning myself and 3 of the guys met up to head out to Mutianyu, one of the sections open to tourists. We all hopped in to an old VW Passat and headed out. It was a pretty tight fit, but apparently the guy arranging this for some reason didn't know I was coming. Apparently the guy wasn't expecting all of us either, because a few minutes after we got out of the city, he pulled over at a gas station and started looking at one of the tires.

 

Now, this is something that would never happen in the US...the gas station guys came over, they talked to the driver, and then right away jacked the car up, pulled the tire off and wheeled it off to the garage to fix it. We stood around and watched, amazed at how quickly it was getting done - and the driver hadn't even filled out any paper work yet! It turned out that his car really couldn't carry all of us. He called someone and was able to arrange for a van to come pick us up at the gas station. We hung out, had some snacks and were on our way after less than an hour.

 

The ride out to the Wall was interesting enough. Our new driver was some kind of cross between a Nascar driver and a New York taxi driver. I'm not sure if the far righthand lane in China is strictly a breakdown lane, but he had no qualms about driving in it. Or in the lane going the other direction. Even in the narrow, winding roads as we got up the mountain. We were all pretty scared at times!

 

Once we were up there, we bought our tickets and hopped on a chairlift to take us up to the wall. I'm not sure if there were walkways or stairs to get up there, but it would have been a long walk, and we probably wouldn't have had any energy to walk on the wall. The views from up top were pretty amazing, but we had some pretty crappy weather. I'm not sure how much of it was clouds, and how much was smog, so you couldn't see as far as you might on a really clear day. We walked along the wall for a bit, taking pictures and taking in the view. The wall itself is pretty cool. The ground was often unlevel, the stairs were steep and crooked, but everything was in pretty good condition. We could see further along the wall, and there were parts that were falling down and in very bad condition.

 

For the way down, we hopped on some 'toboggins' and slide down a giant luge. It was pretty fun, although you couldn't go too fast without getting yelled at! We did a little shopping at the bottom (I bought a shirt that says 'I climbed the Great Wall') and headed back to Beijing.

 

And that's about it for my trip to Beijing. Sunday was spent seeing the Temple of Heaven, and then a little more shopping at the Pearl Market. I'm off to Guangzhou tomorrow, which sounds like it's going to be a pretty quiet trip. Not just because the office is closed for 3 of the days we're there, but because there doesn't seem to be much to do there. Well, hopefully it will be a relaxing end to my travels for now!