I Love the Picture-to-Word Exchange Rate

I am heading to Shanghai tomorrow and am craaaaaaaaaaazy excited. It is not Shanghai that has me so thrilled; it is that I will finally meet Ping and Naonao and all the rest of Lei's family in Wuxi! I just spoke on the phone with Ping, and she used very clear Putonghua (standard Mandarin), so we were able to have a phone conversation in Chinese! I am not even good at phone conversations in English, so I think this speaks volumes for Ping. If she is already so considerate, and (by the sounds of it) so sweet, then I have no doubts I will have a wonderful time in Wuxi and want to spend more time than I have there.
I also got a chance today to listen to Naonao play her musical instrument, the clasical quqin that you all may have seen during the opening ceremony of the Olympics. (I actually missed that, but enjoyed some screenshots that Lei sent me.) Truly, as Naonao began to play, my mouth dropped open in unabashed amazement. She must be talented, dedicated, and strictly encouraged to be as exceptional a player as she is. I was not even taking into account her age. By either Chinese or American custom (I don't know which, and they differ by a year), she is seven years old. It is nice to be inspired by a seven year old who is still too shy to talk to me audibly on Skype (though she is perfectly willing to send hilariously cute emoticons).
So, to the pictures!
Most of these are from Guangzhou. I will update the descriptions when I return from Wuxi next week.
I went to Guangzhou for a government-sponsored National Holiday celebration. I met wonderful people from all over the world (Morocco, Congo, India, Canada, New Zealand, ...) and ate some excellent food. I almost downed a shrimp dish in the process. (Note: I am definitely allergic to shrimp... sometimes.) People had picked out the shrimp from the dish and left delicious-looking vegetables behind. When I saw that it was a seafood themed item, I left it untouched, and was thankful that I had once I saw the servers refill it with my tasty, tiny arch enemy. (Of course, the next morning I was not so lucky when I discovered that there was shrimp in a breakfast food we ordered at the hotel restaurant. Fortunately, it contained so little and I ate so little of what was there that it had no effect. *Phew*)
So, here is a picture of the garden at the hotel we stayed at. I really enjoyed this spot when I woke up the morning after the reception. Clear, colorful, serene...



I walked around campus a bit before meeting up with the rest of my crew (Carrie, Travis, Serge, and Lisa). It is such a gorgeous campus in Guangzhou that it did make me wish a little bit that I worked at the Guangzhou South Campus in the city rather than the new campus in Zhuhai. Here is a comparison:

Note the historic building with lots of trees providing cool shade...

...and the new building with wide open spaces (covered in cement) and well-tamed low shrubs.

I really did prefer Guangzhou, but am still quite happy with my life as a whole here. =)

Guangzhou has excellent shopping (not that I need excellent shopping -- just saying), especially along Beijing Lu. In 2002, many layers of this historic road were found, dating back to the 600s AD.

This is not one of the oldest sections, but it was one of the more photogenic at that time of day.

Although Guangzhou is more metropolitan than Tangjia, I received many more stares, even when I was obviously photographing them. Yes, in the picture below, I was not asking the men to pose. They were just looking and were totally undeterred by the camera.

I know I have shown you some pictures of our tiny market in Tangjia (which I am loving more and more as I make friends there who give me verifiably good deals), but I am such a sucker for markets that I have to show you more of the ones in Guangzhou. There was a bit more variety there that I have not seen in Tangjia.

Crabs.

Chickens.

Unidentifiable spices...

...galore.

If I have time in the morning (your evening, if you are reading this in the States) before I leave, I will try to post more pictures. I have many that I cannot wait to share. Don't let me get away with not posting them!