Visiting the Shi Wan Porcelein Furnace and Ceramics Museum

Each day has been pretty busy, and the following week promises to become even more busy.  Yujing's dad was nice enough to book us a tour of Beijing for six days, and I'm sure there will be plenty of interesting stuff to see there.

On Tuesday we went to the Guangdong Shiwan Ceramics Museum in Foshan.  Yujing's sister drove us, and I was able to take some video footage as we drove through the town.  Nearing the museum, it became clearer that we were entering a district that is actively producing porcelain and ceramics to this day.  Large office buildings house different ceramics companies available for distribution throughout China and the rest of the world.  Foshan has been famous for producing quality pottery and ceramics since the Tang Dynasty, over one thousand years ago, and the kiln at the ceramics museum continues to produce pottery to this day.  In addition to the museum and a few art exhibits, there were many storefronts selling pottery, and even some large factories and office buildings for companies that mass produce ceramics as well.  It wasn't a usual museum, but was more like a complex of several buildings in the same area.  Cars are not allowed inside the museum grounds, and there is no admission that needs to be payed.  Many of the buildings are covered in tiles depicting scenes from history or beautiful landscapes.  Near the entrance to the grounds, there are a series of steps that lead up past buildings that have been standing over one thousand years, and the top offers a nice view of the surrounding area.  The view is a combination of old tile roofs that belong to the preserved buildings that have stood for centuries surrounding the museum, and concrete and steel construction in the surrounding area.  There were plenty of traditional ceramics available for sale in different shops located within the museum grounds.  They weren't the usual gift shop fare, they were run by independent merchants, and sold functional bowls and vases as well as art peices.  There was a contemporary art exhibition that included a series of red ceramic life sized figures of Bruce Lee, as well as a wall of photographs that had been submitted of people posing with the figures.  Bruce Lee isn't from Foshan, but one of his family's ancestral homes is located in Shunde, one of the districts of Foshan.  His teacher, Ip Man was also from Foshan, and established himself as one of the premier masters of the Wing Chun style before moving to Hong Kong.  As usual, the weather was hot and humid, but it didn't stop us from enjoying the experience and taking a lot of photos and videos.  There was also an exhibition of pottery dedicated to war heroes of the Chinese Revolution.  I'll include some photos, they were a remarkable combination of depicting the struggle of battle, the glory of the generals who led their armies to victory, and scenes of the daily lives of ordinary people.  One touching figure depicted a woman in military uniform breastfeeding a small child.  Not only did it demonstrate a significant step forward for women, but it also portrayed the young mother as nurturing her newborn country after the revolution.    The ninetieth anniversary of the formation of the Chinese Communist Party is this upcoming August 1st, and patriotism is already starting to ramp up, with some variety shows or performances honoring the occasion.

July 4th and 5th: Getting around in Foshan, dinner with Yujing's family, shopping in Jusco and at the local market

In case you're not too familiar with me, I have food issues.  I'm a vegetarian who doesn't eat vegetables.  Yep.  Well I might have to adapt that line because recently leafy greens like spinach, kale, collards, chard etc have made their way into my daily diet in the form of blended green smoothies.  But as for just plain steamed or fried vegetables, I ain't havin' it.  So obviously there was a lot of concern on the part of Yujing's family regarding what I'm going to be eating.  When we got to Yujing's home, her mom prepared more fresh fruit than I've ever eaten.  Watermelon, honeydew, lichees, dragon's eyes (a bigger variety of lichee), a melon which I don't know the English translation of, etc.  I'm used to eating fruit, but usually as part of a blended smoothie, but it tasted really good.  Eating a fruit with seeds is a bit different than when they are all blended together in the Blendtec, but good nonetheless. 
After eating fruit, Yujing's sister drove us to a hotel room, and her mom gave us a nice bag of lichees to snack on throughout the day.  Driving through Foshan was remarkably similar to Taiwan, espescially Banchao City in the suburbs of Taipei.  While there aren't as many scooters as in Taiwan, there are the familiar sights of large air conditioned luxury buses, and small scooter repair shops where the workers prefer to smoke and chat instead of repairing scooters.  The sidewalks and shops have a similar layout, with a large overhead lip coming out from each building to protect those walking beneath it from the rain.  Some of the buses here have really long rear view mirror on both sides that extend from the top of the bus out like antennae on a caterpillar.  We got lucky, because while the forecast had predicted a cloudy rainy day, the sun was out in Guangzhou.  The city has a lot more trees than I had expected, and Yujing's sister helped us check into a hotel. 
We freshened up with a couple of showers, changed our clothes and managed to stay awake.  In the evening Yujing's sister and mom picked us up and we went to dinner.  We were ushered into a private room in a restaurant with Yujing's two uncles, three cousins and their wives and two kids.  I was nervous about what I might be able to eat, but was able to eat some lotus root and peapods.  They were prepared with black fungus, which I was unable to find the courage to try.  Looking through the menu, I ordered two of the dishes that didn't contain meat; a plate of custard tarts and a bowl of bird's nest soup.  If you've never heard of bird's nest soup, it's a soup that is made from the nest of the cave swallow, which builds it's nest using their spit.  It's very sweet, and has small strands that are kind of halfway between jelly and a soft noodle.  It might sound gross, but it's actually pretty good, and I didn't have to use chopsticks to eat it.  I had never used chop sticks before, and was struggling with the vegetables, so the waitress brought out a very large serving fork.  I was also quite lucky because the restaurant's specialty was a pastry that appeared kind of like a larger disc of shredded wheat, but tasted like a croissant.  Yujing's extended family was very warm, and gave me a good welcome.  Her cousin's son is 5 years old, and was so cute, he brought me several custard tarts, and refilled my cup with beer a couple of times.  By the time that we got back to the hotel room, it was 11:00, and we were ready to sleep.
The following day, we took a trip to the Poly Canal Plaza, a new mall that is being built in the Nanhai district of Foshan after having breakfast at the hotel.  I ate some toast, watermelon and took a bite of lotus root, but it was a little too spicy.  The Poly Canal Plaza is a state of the art shopping mall, and the grocery store within the Jusco department store carries western food if I should ever need some.  It's pretty hot here, and it has high humidity, but it's not as bad as Taiwan.  The mall had a Jusco, a huge department store where we bought some pajamas, towels, and I got a few books that help Chinese kindergarteners learn Pinyin (a phonetic way of transcribing Chinese with our alphabet) and beginning Chinese characters.  Yujing ate lunch at a Thai restaurant, and I practiced using my chopsticks.  I'm no professional with them, but I'm getting better.  After eating, we took a bus to Yujing's parents house.  The buses here are really convenient.  We didn't have to wait long, and the bus fare was only 33 cents.  Just like in Taiwan, there are plenty of taxis available and they're cheap as well, usually about two or three dollars.
We got back to Yujing's parent's home at about 4PM and we went for a walk to a meat and vegetable market to buy some chicken for dinner.  It was kind of cool because they had tons of live fish and even live chickens that you could choose from.  The chicken being sold comes from live chickens on site, and for an extra fee you can choose the chicken that you want to eat and have it prepared while you wait.  For those who do pick out a chicken, it is taken to a back room and killed, after which they bring it out for you.  Sure there's blood and it's not a pretty sight, but it's more humane than the conditions in which chicken are prepared for the market back in the USA.  You can also be assured that purchasing such a chicken is fresh and came from a healthy source.  The chicken cages are bigger than the ones that store bought chickens in the US have a chance to live in, and before being brought to market, the chickens are raised on a farm where they are free to walk freely.  It's admirable that the people have not tried to distance themselves from the actual act of butchering.  US supermarkets have packaged things to the point where one might forget that what they are eating was once alive, and that isn't such a good thing.  There was a small bakery just up the road, and luckily they sold plain bread.  We had to look for a bit to find it, amidst the deceptive loaves that concealed ham or beef, or even worse deadly almonds or walnuts for me.  I have a really bad allergy to nuts, especially walnuts and hazelnuts, and brought two Epipens in case I have a bad reaction.  Yujing's mother purchased a toaster oven for my visit, and I prepared some toast with cheese for dinner, in addition to a ton of honeydew melon and lichees. 

Photos from traveling to Guangzhou

Apparently the photos won't post if they are pasted into the email text. Which means they can't be integrated into the post, but will have to appear at the top, separate.  Oh well.  Here's a second post containing the images referenced in the first one. 

Travel to Guangzhou

Our trip started on Friday.  It started off unexpectedly at 5 AM when I received a call from the taxi service informing me that they were waiting for us in front of the apartment.  The same taxi service that I had called on Thursday to schedule a 5 PM pick up.  Usually I wouldn't remember if I had said "PM" or not, and would chalk it up to human error on my part, but this was a little bit different, and that's because when speaking with the guy I distinctly remember him saying "Okay, that's 5:00 AM right?" after which I said "Oh no, PM, good thing you checked." 
After getting back to sleep and waking up at nine, we had a bit of a scare.  It seems that on Thursday, to make sure that I didn't forget my passport, I took it out of my drawer where I always know it is, next to some folders containing records and other envelopes.  I guess I had the intention of setting the passport aside to be sure it was packed in either the computer bag or my backpack, however that plan didn't go so well.  The following day, when it came time to put the finishing touches on preparing the two large checked bags, backpack, computer bag, and a black leather shoulderbag that was a gift from Yujing's mother, my passport was nowhere in sight.  I turned the bedroom, living room, and even the kitchen upside down, but it still didn't turn up.  I was utterly shocked when it wasn't in the freezer.  Finally, after one hour of facing the possibility that I would miss the plane, I checked the laundry basket for the third time.  I figured I'd check the shirt pocket of the long sleeve, button down shirt I had worn on Thursday in addition to checking the pockets of my pants in the hamper for the third time.  And there it was.  In a pocket that I use so rarely that I don't even check it when doing the wash.  Needless to say, the crisis was averted which means that now I have to figure out how I'm going to fulfill a vow that I made in the desperation of the search to be a better person on earth in the event that I find it.
I ate the last Culinary Circle flatbread frozen pizza and green smoothie that I will see for a month, finished packing my bags and come 5:00 PM the service picked us up just as intended.  Thus began the first of twenty seven hours of traveling.  We got lucky, because we were able to check the two bags all the way through to China in one go:  one a monster filled with all of our clothes, two boxes of Cliff Bars, and a ton of other stuff, and the other a medium sized too-big-for-carry on roller that was filled entirely with bags of chocolates that we bought as presents for relatives in China.  The bags followed through the Alaska Air trip to L.A, and the Korean Air trips to Seoul and Guangzhou and we didn't have to see them again til they rolled off of baggage claim in China.  We had to go through security again in L.A, I was a bit concerned about time in making the connecting flight, but we managed it with time to spare.  The time spent in LAX was pretty uneventful, and by hour seven of the journey we were boarding a midnight flight to Seoul. 
It's been a while since I've been on an international flight.  I had forgotten how nice it is to have movies on your own personal screen that you could actually choose,  I watched "Blue Valentine", and it was super sad.  I had flown Korean Air back when I went to Taiwan to teach, and I remember that the flight staff had kind of retro uniforms, and they still do, but they've been updated.  Not updated in the sense that they are no longer retro, but updated to a different variation of the theme.  They wear these neck scarfs that are completely stiff, as if they have been sprayed with hair spray or starched.  The end result is two long bits of scarf going in opposite directions like a bird taking flight.  On their neck.  I don't know what they did to deserve this punishment, but they seemed pretty happy regardless.  I'll attach a photo just so you could see what I'm talking about:

I didn't sleep much on the twelve hour flight, or on the four hour layover once we got to Seoul.  We landed in Seoul at 5:00 AM their time (hour twenty one of traveling in case you're counting) and I took the opportunity of the empty airport to change my shirt and undershirt, reapply deodorant, brush my teeth and shave in the spotless bathroom.  In fact, the Incheon airport is so spotless that if you ever see something that needs to be cleaned in the bathroom, you can call the janitor.  His photo and phone number is posted in the bathroom.  I've attached a picture.

And here's one of me and Yujing during the layover:


Our flight to Guangzhou was delayed a bit, and I didn't sleep on that flight either. Even as I'm typing this, I'm fighting the urge to sleep as it is only 6:00 PM local time here.  I'd tell you how long it's been since I slept, but if I counted the hours I just might fall asleep.  Customs and entry to China were super easy, just a matter of waiting in line.  I had to wait in a separate line than Yujing while being admitted, because she is a Chinese national, and I'm a foreigner, but the official I got was not the least bit curious, and didn't say a word to me.  Yujing's Mom, sister, and cousins were able to meet us at the airport, and I was so happy when her mom ran up to me and gave me a big hug.  We drove in Yujing's sister's car, and arrived at her parent's house.