JULY 14: Let me start today by providing a local weather update. I know there’s been a lot of news regarding bad weather in China. Fortunately, we have not been impacted by any bad weather during our trip. Here in Tuanfeng, it’s still dry, although a little overcast today. Tomorrow evening we will head to Guilin, which is even further removed from the coastal rains and flooding. Thanks to all who expressed concern regarding our safety. Despite only having the traditional Chinese toilets (also known as “squattie potties”) in our hotel, we manage to complete our morning washing and brushing without too many complaints. I won’t go into too much detail here, but let’s just say the conditions are less than optimal. This was part of our sacrifice to stay in Abigail’s hometown. For breakfast we walked to a local shopping area for a quick bite. Immediately after, our driver picked us up for a day of taking in the local sights. This area is primarily a farming community, and our driver drove us into the countryside to see ponds of water lilies, rice patties, fish ponds, and acres of corn and cotton fields. While this area is relatively poor compared to some of the other large cities we have visited, the people here seem happy and content. After driving for about an hour, we enter the nearby city of Huanggang. This is a much larger city than Tuanfeng, and our driver takes us to the local museum here for a self-guided tour. It’s a large, new facility with many wonderful artifacts. Surprisingly, we’re just about the only patrons in the entire building. We spend about an hour in the museum and then drive to a nearby shopping area to visit a few shops and have lunch. After our meal we drive back to Tuangfeng for a rest. Along the way, we point out interesting sights to Abigail in hopes of creating some connections to her hometown. I think we’ve been to so many museums and seen so many towns in the last two weeks that it’s a bit hard for her to single out this area as her ancestry. At 6pm, we reconvene to have one more walk through Tuanfeng before dinner. First we head to the nearby library, where there are classes of taekwondo and yoga underway. We also come upon a multimedia library room with dozens of computer terminals available for the residents. This room is pretty impressive, considering there’s no A/C, and few lights left on in the building. Mostly teenagers are sitting at the terminals, and all appear to be playing video games versus reading books. We leave the library and head to the main shopping plaza, where local street vendors are selling fruits, vegetables, meats and fish. As has become customary, Miriam strikes up a conversation at about every third stall. We buy a watermelon along the way to take back to the hotel for dinner. Tonight we will be dining again in a private room in the hotel. Our guide tells us that these rooms are usually reserved for local businessmen. We are a group of six Jeffery (guide) and Mr. Lee (driver). We are attended by four waitresses, which eagerly carry out each request within seconds. After a wonderful Chinese meal, including sea bass (yes, with the head), we retire to our rooms for the evening. We will pack up everything tonight and check out first thing in the morning. Tomorrow we will visit Abigail’s orphanage and meet with the director there. We had such a wonderful day at Amelia’s hometown, we worry a bit that tomorrow’s visit won’t live up to our earlier experience. After our orphanage visit, we will head back to Wuhan in the late afternoon to catch an evening flight to Guilin, the last stop on our journey. It’s off to bed now as we have another big day ahead of us.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Jul 2013 18:49:32 +0000
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