Adventures in Guangzhou!

I was all set to head out and explore when I realized I couldn't find any socks in my backpack. I'm pretty sure I wrote about this before, but this goes to show once again that I'm just not a good packer. Recreational reading? Check. USB cord for my camera? Check. Journal? Check. But socks?? Not so much. Feeling incredibly embarassed, I ventured into Lexi's room and stole a pair from her window sill. Well at least it wasn't underwear...

Now prepared to face the world, I headed out in search of the East and West Pagodas of the city. On the way I passed by a couple of high schools that were getting out for lunch break. Surrounded by a sea of identical track suits, I made my way to the food stands to grab some lunch. I had pita-like piece of bread filled with something sweet and then a bunch of shao kao (bbq). I like the style in Kunming because you can grab whichever skewers you want and hand them to the cook to throw on the barbeque. Sure the meat has been sitting out for a while but it tastes damn good once they throw it on the grill for a couple minutes with the cumin-ish spice. Still feeling a bit hungry, I added a dozen jiaozi to my stomach and went out in search of the pagodas.

I found the pagodas and was slightly less than impressed so I pressed on in the direction of a few more sights. The first thing I came across was the Nancheng Mosque. There is actually a pretty sizable Muslim population in Kunming (and China, in general) that dates back to the 13th century. Arabic is still very visible around the city, especially in this area. You can get Arabic calligraphy here as well as pictures of Mecca which seemed really out of place to me, given my familiarity with Middle Eastern Muslims. It was particularly sad to see the rubble where the powers that be in Kunming decided to level the Muslim village in favor of new developments. They basically give no thought or consideration to any of the many ethnic minorities in the area so no one batted an eye over some minor "resettlement," a.k.a. destruction.

After poking around inside the mosque (which was beautiful, if not a little gaudy from the outside), I headed out towards Cuihu Gongyuan, Green Lake Park. This is exactly what it sounds like--a big park built right around a lake with green water. The weather wasn't ideal as it was drizzling on and off, but I decided to hang out in the park for a while. I met some very friendly people and even stopped to listen to one guy play his guitar-like instrument for about an hour. There were people painting watercolors, children feeding the ducks, minorities doing traditional dances on the sidewalk, and people selling snacks. All in all, my kind of spot! And the price was right--free! A place like that in GZ would easily charge a 10 kuai admission fee just to let you see grass, but Kunming happens to be the land of eternal spring where there are flowers, grass, and trees all over the place. Seriously. Sure, there are a bunch of skyscrapers too but overall it is a *much* prettier city than GZ, a much more laid back city, and a much friendlier city.

On my jaunt back to Lexi's apartment I even passed by a random church and decided to head inside. The interior was very pretty with white-washed walls and old wooden pews. It was virtually empty except for a young Chinese girl practicing the piano. I sat in the back to listen for a while but eventually she noticed me and got really embarassed. It's too bad, because the music was great and the acoustics in the main hall were great. If there hadn't been anyone around I would have done some singing in there but others started to show up so I left.

I stopped by Carre Four, the French chain of supermarket similar to our Park & Shop, and picked up some supplies to make a little Italian dinner. One of the dishes I used to cook in America is a Penne Vodka with a spicy tomato sauce. I couldn't find all of the necessary ingredients (strangely enough, they don't carry Italian sausage anywhere in China) but I managed to throw together enough to make dinner. It wasn't exactly what I'd make in the states (especially having only a hot plate at my disposal), but it was a reasonable facsimile thereof.

Not to be outdone, Lexi came home from the office and went right to work baking a Pumpkin Pie. No joke--she went all out and used her mini oven to the fullest extent of its capabilities. Let me be the first one to say that it was *awesome*. She also invited two friends over, Wangwei and Mike. Wangwei is a former co-worker that speaks very good English and is a character. Mike is a Chinese-American graduate of Harvard working in Kunming on AIDS education and treatment and had some disturbing info to share with me. Apparently the highest HIV-positive population in China (Yunnan Province is the 2nd highest) resides in Henan Province. This particular situation is so devastating because an entire region became infected while donating blood. Apparently in order to allow people to donate more blood, the technicians pumped the plasma back into people after taking out everything they needed. This would maybe be acceptable except for the fact that they only had one large bloodbank where all donations went. One person was infected with HIV which tainted the entire supply. Thus, everyone began to have HIV-positive plasma pumped back into their bodies. Awful.

On a more positive note, Mike, Lexi and Wangwei were all speaking quite a bit of Chinese to each other and I realized that I am starting to understand conversations more and more. Without a doubt, I was left clueless quite a bit, but I am starting to pick up bits and pieces which is encouraging. And if I know the initial subject matter, I can usually follow along with a reasonable amount of accuracy. Woohoo!