GUANGZHOU DAY 3

---

Ok, today we were supposed to be going into the urban village in the middle of the city. It was sort of funny because during lecture Jack had warned us that we could potentially get robbed (or worse) and that we shouldn’t do ANYTHING that would warrant any unnecessary attention—So basically scaring the poop out of us.
It sucked today too, because it acid-rained again. So we weren’t really sure if we were still going to leave. But the rain eventually stopped so we leave in small groups lead by one Chinese group tour guide.
The urban village turned out to be nothing like what Jack described it as!! I was kind of mad because I ended up not bringing my camera for fear I’d get attacked and robbed but I then I realized then that I would’ve been fine. The village was not far at all from where we were, literally about a 10 minute walk, but it was disgustingly unclean the rain had swept up a lot of gross black residue from the ground and carried it everywhere. I wore sandals instead of my new shoes because I knew the blackness would ruin the shoes. By the end of the tour—which lasted less than 45 minutes—we all went back to the dorms where we rested for a bit before going out to dinner on campus. The food was supposedly western but it kind of wasn’t at the same time. Similar to how American Chinese food isn’t really Chinese, that’s what the food was like…this doesn’t mean the food was bad by any means… it was just not American style, in my opinion.
That night while after leaving the restaurant we videotaped an orchestra rehearsal inside a building. They were playing with both traditional Chinese instruments as well as western instruments, it was really cool. After that me, Layla, peter, and James decided to do more shopping, since Layla had been begging me all day. So we left for about an hour before coming back to the dorms, because James said he was tired. Funny thing though, once we returned to the dorms he didn’t fall asleep as soon as we thought because he and the guys decided to play truth or dare and include all of the rooms in their game.
Me and Layla eventually decided to play their games too. It was fun until it became strictly truths then it got really awkward really fast. So we decide to stop playing.

---