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Our Progress
...as depicted in Rich's wonderful world view Hitchhiking is expensive in China. You will be expected to pay a lot if you are foreigners.
And so a fast train whisks us south from Beijing. Our sleeper is the picture of lacy cleanliness and efficiency. Our companion is the gracious and courteous Mr. Lee, a businessman from Guangzhou.
Guangzhou (pronounced gwong-jo), embraces us like a sweaty hug that doesn't stop. Tooling through the city toward Vitamin Creative Space we see the high-rises, through the smog, brimming green with rooftop gardens, and below busy tropical streets clouded by pockets of mushrooming construction. Spaghetti-like highway intersections tangle in 3D throughout a maze of residential block apartments. Bananas. Breadfruit. Buses. A little kid peeing on the street.
What begs two twiggers' skills in a muggy high-rise city of 11 million? We immediately set about bringing two trees into our host, Xiaoshen's apartment. We wait for word from the mountain project, and scour the city on a mission for baking soda.
We accompany Xiaoshen on a shopping expedition on Sunday; like most Chinese, this is her one day off from work. Together on a pilgrimage to 'the best shopping center', the three of us zone out inside the sleek, bubble-gum colored metro for forty minutes.
A small hike through the stench and heat of
Team Pharmacy!
Nothing to beat an overstaffed Chinese pharmacy for an entertaining way to spend an afternoon. For extra fun, try to search for bicarbonate of soda without knowing a word of Chinese. Bring your best smile. the street (in the city, the division between worlds is that of inner and outer. Inner = livable, air conditioned, plastic, controlled. Outer = exhaust fumes, weather, splashing puddles of anything and garbage) and we arrive: into a Made in China labyrinth: stalls selling Calvin Klein, Nike, D&G... all freshly baked. Or you can watch stall-keepers sitting with a pile of Ralph Lauren labels, patiently sewing them onto generic T-shirts. The continuous press of Sunday shoppers is nothing compared to the masses of long-faced storekeepers. They sleep at tiny desks or eat rice and greens from a lunch tin. Colorful corridors, reeking of new name brand cotton, stretch endlessly.
At times it feels like this shopping trip will also be infinite.
.........
Outside again in the other chaos, I spy a huge old bonsai, potted beside the lobby of a hotel. A squadron of cabbies, rickshaw drivers, shoppers, vendors, and European merchants lounge and scurry about the roasting pedestrian square. This tree is the purest token of life in sight. I decorate Rich with the stuff I'm carrying and make like a tree and dance.
For some precious moments the frenetic activity
of the square coasts to a kind of quiet, as an interested, involved public gathers to watch. I finish to a strange stillness-- and then thunderous applause. I bow, acknowledge the tree as well, and then three of us scamper off toward the cool of the metro once again.
-m
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pete t
non-member comment
cheers rich
cheers rich all sounds a bit far out to me, but i really hope everything goes brill for both of you. Keep up with the journal and i look forward to seeing you when you get back. Hi to Malaika too!! take care from pete, emma, jake and mark. PS: given up smoking for 4 months nearly and jake and myself have taken up ki aikido. early days but both enjoying it. Regards.