More Beautiful Zhongshan

The weather has finally warmed back up this week and we took the time to wander around Zhongshan some more- both around our apartment in Kayin and the first park again. This is basically a post to show you pretty pictures of where I live :)

We explored the area within walking distance from our apartment:

Ali, Gretchen, Jessie, and Larkin looking
awesome as always :)

Trying out settings on my camera. Looks
like it should be on Instagram.

Apartments everywhere!

Sweet pond with dragons

And we also went back to the first park we visited in Zhongshan with the ILP teachers from the Kayin school:

View from the top of the pagoda.

Lots of pictures... I'll break it up with a reminder of the comment ability below. I love hearing what you guys think and knowing that people actually read what I write :) Also, let me know if there's anything in particular you'd like to know about!

Walking to the store.

A day at the park

One of our last days of New Year's vacation we decided to check out another park in Zhongshan that we discovered next to our school. We braved the cold and rain to make sure we saw the decorations before they were taken down.

It turns out it's Sun Yat-sen park. He was born in Zhongshan and I think the city is sort of named after him. So there's a giant statue of him in the middle of the park :)

This park also had New Year's lanterns up all over the place. So here's some pictures! (More on Facebook)

I'm not sure what's up with the pigs...

It was really cold, despite what the pictures may look like. Our hands were freezing! The park apparently has a waterfall cave, but we didn't seek it out because it just sounded extra cold at the time.

One of the entrances had a large horse display for the New Year. Emily and I are both the year of the horse in the Zodiac, so of course we got a picture with it :)

My favorite part was all of the red lanterns! I'm not sure why, but I just love them!

Parade Time!

On Friday Feb. 14th (Valentine's Day!) we got to be in a parade! (My camera was buried in my bag so all pictures courtesy of Chrissy) I'm not positive what the parade was for, but it was some sort of large city/charity parade. All I know is that someone asked Bond (they run the schools we teach at) if some of their foreigners could be in the parade. They basically just wanted to show off the fact that they have foreigners :)

The group (Kayryn, Emily, Noor, Abby, Larkin, Chrissy and me)
with Fanny, the Chinese coordinator tasked with
taking care of us for the day :)

Before the parade they took us out to lunch at a nice restaurant. They had several dishes to eat, including spaghetti :) It was quite yummy.

Oh, and do you notice the sunshine? It was the first sunny day in like a week and we were all so excited to take off one of our five layers of clothing!

For the actual parade we ended up walking with a bunch of other foreigners who work for/with Bond. Most of them are from Britain and Australia, though there were also a few Americans, some Sri Lankans and an Irishman. They were all very friendly and we chatted with them through the whole thing. One of the Australians' name is Lin and it turns out that he lives in the same area of Zhongshan as us while teaching at a middle school. He was hilarious and loved playing to the crowd throughout the entire parade.

The point is the pretty girls on the left.
They walked past us going to their spot in the parade.

We had to wait a while in line for the parade to start and while waiting we had several photo ops with people. One of the other American's said that his picture's ended up on a billboard before!

Since it was a city parade, there were also official cameramen all over the place. At one point a man with a video crew came along and filmed us looking happy and waving our flags. He told us to 'smile and look beautiful!' He then came back a little while later wanting to interview someone about the Red Cross. Somehow I ended up being volunteered (something to do with having the most experience since I signed people up once...) It turned out that all they really wanted was a foreigner saying they loved the Red Cross and that Zhongshan has a great Red Cross program. Again, not sure what it was really for, but I eventually did it to their satisfaction. For all I know, I'll end up on Chinese TV!

A few of the other girls in our group and the other foreigners we were with were also interviewed about their feelings about the parade.

Finally the parade started and moved forward! The parade went down both sides of the street and we couldn't see the other side very well, but we did get a peek at some dragon dancing. Along the route, once and a while there was a performance group set up. We saw some drummers and some cute kids singing. It was funny because our group was taking as many pictures as the people watching :)

Once we reached the end we wanted to stay and watch the rest, but we had to find a bus to take us back. So us and the other foreigners found a bus and we went back to Bond Institute (Bond's HQ).

Celina, one of  the other Chinese coordinators, is looking for pictures and newspapers about the parade to see if we ended up anywhere. I'll let you know if she find's anything good!

Nanlong Street Barbecue

So one day during vacation we decided to go back to Nanlong (the area of Zhongshan Korrin will be teaching in) to eat street barbecue again, and this time I took pictures!

We decided to go to Nanlong to eat because during New Year's vacation most of the shops around where we live had closed down and our eating options were few, and we were getting a little tired of them.

They way street barbecue works is people set up stalls on the streets with a bunch of different foods on sticks. You choose what you want, and then they cook it up for you. There are also some stalls that put together noodle soups with what ever you want in it.

There is veggies, squid, chicken, other meat... We do try to avoid meat we can't identify.

After we finished eating (which took a while because it's so good and we kept ordering more) we walked around Nanlong a little bit.

Chrissy took us to the park down the street.

I love that Chinese parks have like 10 ping pong tables
for any one to play on :) 

Parks at night are full of people dancing and
roller blading.

As we were leaving the park we came across a group of people practicing some drum, cymbal, marching thing in a courtyard. It was cool and video will probably be going on Facebook :)

We we headed back to wait for the bus we had our worst bout of bus bad luck yet. I took nearly and hour for our bus to come. We even started considering a taxi. While waiting we've developed this habit of singing songs together and the Asians love to watch. Eventually someone watching pointed out to us that we were standing in front of a KTV, or karaoke, business. He really thought we belonged in there :)

Waiting for the bus... again...

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

That's Chinese for 'Happy New Year' :)

So the next morning we walked back past the mall and heard some very loud cymbals and drums. As we followed the sound we found a group performing a lion dance in the mall! So we made our way down to them and watched. (Videos on Facebook!)

After they finished their performance on the stage, the lions made their way into the crowd and everyone started trying to touch them. Good luck I guess?

Then they started dancing through the mall. Each store in the mall had a bundle of lettuce, oranges, and a red envelope hanging from the doorway. The lions would dance through the store and then take the bundle. More good luck for the businesses.

I know it's blurry, but see the bundle in the top left?

Now the lion is eating that bundle :)

After we'd had our fill of lions, we got on the metro and went over to a park. It was crowded but also all decorated for the New Year. There were many elaborate lantern displays all over the place. I'm pretty sure they're supposed to light up at night, but we were there during the day, so *shrug*

Then we found a stage where people were doing song and dance numbers. While we sat and watched a teenage girl came over and asked to take our picture. I said yes, and then she took group photos, individual photos, photos with her, photos with her sister... Way more than we expected.

We wandered around the park for quite awhile. We found a garden of idioms and fables, a bamboo forest, and at one point Abby was handed a baby for photos.

I don't know what idiom or fable
this is for, but I liked it :)

Three blind men and the elephant
and a random cute Asian boy!

And when we finally found the exit we were greeted with more decorations!

The next day we spent many hours riding the metro to check out another park at night, but when we got there it was closed...

By the end of our stay we were Guangzhou metro experts. Chrissy and I had to go to the train station to buy our return tickets. We thought we knew which stop we needed, but then realized we needed to go further. But when we got off at the stop we needed we could leave the metro because we hadn't paid to go that far. So we had to go back to where we had paid for, buy a new ticket, and then ride back. Then the man in line behind us kept saying "Zhongshan bai" over and over. I think he was trying to be helpful, but we're not really sure...

And every time we rode the metro we made friends :) People loved to stare at us riding the metro. Many pictures were taken.

It was also during this trip that we discovered Kungfu. Not the martial art, but the Chinese fast food restaurant. They have yummy food- including boneless chicken! That's rare in China. You still have to be cautious about what you order there though because apparently one of the yummy looking dishes has sea cucumber in it...

New Year's Eve

So we spent New Year's Eve at the park above the mall that we had found. It was really close to our hostel and at the end of the park is the Pearl River and the Canton Tower, the tallest structure in China (pictures in a minute!)

One of the cool things about China is that everything lights up at night! And there are extra lights out for the New Year. I'm going to miss all the lights when they get taken down after the New Year is over. (My camera battery was dying so some of the pictures are from my phone and not as good of quality)

So this park is really long and skinny and as we walked down, each section had a different decoration setup.

The first section had a stream/pond with a bunch of trees and colored lights. (Sorry if it gets picture heavy, and they're not the best night photos all the time...)

Next we were greeted with a large cylinder of orange trees covered with red envelopes.

Yeah, that red stuff is all oranges and
envelopes. Oh, and Canton Tower peaking
out from behind :)

Clever here- it's 2014, the year of the horse :)

The next impressive thing was a plaza full of cherry(?) trees also holding red envelopes. It turns out oranges are just lucky and it's tradition to give people red envelopes filled with money for the New Year. This means there are orange trees and red envelopes everywhere!

Look! It's me doing a classic Asian
picture pose!

Oh, and did I mention the whole park was full of people and vendors selling lots of light up stuff? The longer we were there the more people there were. Turns out we'd picked a pretty good spot to spend New Year's Eve :)

We finally made it up to the river and as close as we could get to the tower. The tower did a light show about every 30 min. and later it added in a water show at the river.

So that strange art in front? It's actually
called the Magic Mushrooms...

Every time we stopped to take a break from all the walking, the next thing we knew we'd become an attraction and people were taking our pictures. At one point a man walked up, said 'What's up?' and then gave us all a piece of cooked meat on a stick that he had apparently bought for us from one of the vendors. There was also a group of Middle Eastern guys that we saw several times through the night. I'm not sure if it was purposeful, but we'd sort of play leap frog with them walking through the park.

We tried to find fireworks somewhere, but were unsuccessful. Apparently China has started banning fireworks in places and it seems that Guangzhou is one of them. We did hear some at one point, we just couldn't see them. Probably because of the haze.

And here's some more pictures of decorations, Canton Tower, and me!