So after our Chinese lesson on Saturday morning (my mind was more than a little bit melted afterwards!), we decided to take in the sites of Guangzhou Botanical Gardens. It was a little bit of a trek to get there but the walk in the sunshine was nice (the directions from the locals were also helpful!) The gardens were also quite close to the edge of the city so seeing the looming mountains (in the distance) behind the skyscrapers was a nice change of scenery.
The gardens were much bigger than I expected and very nice. Everything in China is clean and tidy, even if a lot of it still seems like a work in progress (here especially). The evidence that China is a rapidly growing and developing country is everywhere.The gardens were lovely but we were definitely out of season - our hopeful hunt along the mango trail proved fruitless. I bet in spring time time its beautiful and exotic looking. We also didn't have much luck on our hunt for the medicinal herb garden - that would have been educational (and potentially useful).
We decided to hire some of these bikes things to tour around the grounds - so much fun but I think we ruined the tranquility slightly. If there were rules to abide to we certainly didn't but we'll blame that on the language barrier! Owen and I did have a great time bringing smiles to the faces of everyone we passed though by saying Ni Hao and waving VERY enthusiastically. It was definitely an afternoon of hilarity (and some pretty hard work - those things are not efficient to peddle).
It's obviously the place to come for wedding dress photoshoots - the need to blindfold the bride is a interesting though!
Afterwards some of us went to street food (my first experience). I'm a bit disappointed that it's taken so long for me to try street food, most of the stuff i've seen looks less than appetising, and when I have seen good stuff I haven't been hungry. But anyway, this street is full of stalls where you can get a huge variety of food. I was taken to a stall where you pick some things (which are all on sticks), put them in a bowl and the nice chefs cook them up for you. I'm getting used to this not cooking thing. I had a whole aubergine which had been sliced in half and was covered in chopped garlic - i've never eaten that much garlic in one go in my life (probably for good reason). Maybe that's why I haven't had any insect bites for a few days! Despite that it was still good. I also had oysters for the first time which were thankfully cooked and pretty tasty. I've also discovered i'm quite enjoying tofu - something i'd never had before 10 weeks ago (that was also when I vowed never again after accidentally eating some horrible braised tofu at the hotel in Beijing). Thankfully though, i've accidentally chosen it a few more times since then and i've discovered I quite like it now (I think it's always fried though so probably not very healthy).
I was trying to explain to one of the students my 'point and hope for the best' approach when choosing what to eat - she didn't quite understand the wonder of it!
Some of my other students also recommended snake (we were talking about pets), so that will be something to look out for.
G x
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