Adventures in Guangzhou!

I wandered around the stadium and managed to sneak in a gate that wasn't quite locked. The field seemed really cool but I didn't get a chance to really look around too much because I immediately got shooed out by some official. Oh well. I went in search of a jersey to buy as a souvenir but unfortunately was unsuccessful--they only had extra extra large. Maybe I'm wrong, but who are they kidding? How many Chinese guys are actually going to fit into those?

From Olympic Square I walked east toward People's Square, formerly known as Stalin Square. This was basically just an open field by some government buildings. There were only a few people milling about, though I'm told it's a fun place to be at night. As I walked through, I wondered what prompted the name change. Was it changed back when Mao and Stalin broke ways, or was it something more recent? I'm not quite sure.

After a mediocre lunch, I made my way past Victory Square to Labor Park, a large park area complete with amusement park, fields, gardens, and some animal exhibits. I took a chairlift up the hill to the TV tower of the city and was rewarded with a wide sweeping view of the entire city. Viewing the panorama confirmed my impressions of the city--it is a brand-spanking-new city with nice tall buildings, open squares, and parks, good urban planning...and almost no culture to speak of. It seems like a great place to live and to raise a family, but also seems relatively soulless. One of the first thoughts when I arrived was that I could have been in any American city. I'm not quite sure what that says about American cities, but I don't really want to explore that issue quite yet.

Even better than the chairlift ride up was the promise of a "landslide" ride down. Dalian, much like the mutianyu section of the Great Wall, has an alpine slide! For those who haven't had the pleasure, you basically sit down in a little plastic thing with a lever in between your leg. You push it to go and pull it to break--gravity does the rest. I think I've been on about a dozen of these rides in my day, but the Chinese guys running it didn't trust me and so had someone go in front of me to make sure I made it okay. The problem with this is that he kept stopping and looking over his shoulder, presumably to make sure I hadn't fallen off or something, the end result being that I had to constantly slow down.

After walking through the rest of the amusement park, I decided to head to Friendship Square. Friends are always nice to make, right? Instead of finding any friends there, I found a somewhat bizarre orb-like sphere in the middle of a rotary. It was lit up with all these different colored lights and seemed like it should have been hanging from the ceiling of a disco. Not quite sure what it was doing there but I guess I shouldn't complain--apparently it exudes friendship.

Danny and I enjoyed a fancy German dinner and then headed back to the university where I decided to investigate the television show "Prison Break." I guess this show is moderately successful back in the states but for whatever reason it is HUGE in China. Almost every kid I know has seen it and loves it, especially the girls. Not knowing anything about it, I dove right in to episode one. It seemed like a ludicrous premise for a show, but for some reason I was pulled into watching the next episode. Next thing I know, I was six episodes in, hoping I wasn't getting dumber by the minute. I guess it's just one of those mindless guilty pleasures...