We'll be staying in the Liwan district, the main shopping and center of the historical district, of Guangzhou. Visiting my in-laws.
The streets that run from the huge open plaza left and right have some serious shopping, haggling over price is expected, and all sorts of stuff. Many of the streets are permanently closed to traffic. Go down the side streets to find the traditional shops and homes.
Our accomodations is the top penthouse (two floors) of the reddish apartment building on the right.
____________________ Pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in Christo!
Galactic Signature: Blue Self-Existing Monkey
Oh yes my daughter is coming with us too. She would never forgive us! LOL
Guangzhou is the epicenter of good Chinese food. Lots of great eateries there is one a couple of blocks away from where we are staying that is 100 years old and very busy all the time. They open at 6:00AM for tea and dim sum.
I'll talk to my sister in law about getting a consultation with a chinese doctor of traditional medicine.
We won't be leaving for China until the end of the week.
____________________ Pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in Christo!
Galactic Signature: Blue Self-Existing Monkey
I can understand a fair amount of spoken cantonese but I have a very hard time speaking it intelligibly. The most common response to even my most well practiced sentences is "are you speaking chinese?" LOL. So I keep it to the phrases and idioms of polite manners. Haggling in the markets is easy enough if you can count to ten and use their universally understood sign language for the numerals.
Guangzhou is a major center of integrated Chinese and western medicine research and treatment. Both my mother and father in-law were sucessfully cured of (breast, colon) cancers using the integrated medicine provided in the best hospitals there.
____________________ Pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in Christo!
Galactic Signature: Blue Self-Existing Monkey
____________________ "In a person (not Corvus) who is open to experience each stimulus is freely relayed through the nervous system, without being distorted by any process of defensiveness." -C. Rogers
A good set for your family Phil, I think the middle one should suit you just fine!
Such a wit! LOL. Beijing gets like that during the duststorms blowing in from Mongolia and the Gobi. Guangzhou was pretty bad when they were going through their frenetic de/construction phase. The demolition and construction work was 24x7. Clouds of dust and noise everywhere.
Shamian Island is a short walk from were we're staying. Famous for it's use as a defence against the imperialist British during the Opium Wars and then becoming a forced lease concession to the imperialists. "No Chinese after dark" was posted on the stone bridge leading across the canal that separated the main city from the island.
100 US sailors marooned in Hong Kong girlie bars as ships depart
By DPA
Jun 24, 2008, 6:45 GMT
Hong Kong - More than 100 US sailors were marooned Tuesday in Hong Kong's famous 'girlie' bars after their aircraft carrier hoisted anchor and left without them.
The sailors were left behind when the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier and its support ships, carrying a total of more than 5,000 sailors, decided to leave Sunday because of an approaching tropical storm.
While officers managed to contact most of the men who had been on shore leave in the former British colony since Thursday, more than 100 could not be reached and were left behind.
They now have to wait several days in Hong Kong before being flown to the aircraft carrier group's next port of call, which is kept secret for operational reasons.
The sailors were expected to spend most of that time in Hong Kong's Wan Chai district - famous for its raunchy nightlife and bar girls. The US Navy would cover their hotel and meal costs.
'I'm sure they're not tremendously depressed,' US Navy spokesman Lieutenant Ron Flanders told the South China Morning Post newspaper in a story published Tuesday.
One sailor stranded in a Wan Chai bar Sunday evening as his colleagues headed out to sea told the newspaper, 'Hong Kong is a fantastic city to be stuck in.'
The sudden departure of the USS Ronald Reagan and its support ships was caused by Typhoon Fengshen, which lashed the Philippines and caused a storm warning to be issued in Hong Kong.
It seems the British can't keep away from their former colony:
British warship HMS Kent calls in Hong Kong for [extra] friendly visit
September 10, 2008 People's Daily
British warship HMS Kent has been looking forward to the visit in Hong Kong and later in Chinese mainland, its Commanding officer Simon Hopper said Tuesday.
HMS Kent, one of British Royal Navy's most modern warships, called in Hong Kong on Monday for a ten-day visit.
Commander Simon Copper said at the briefing, HMS Kent will conduct a logistics stop. [ A "logistics" stop! LOL I bet. Hahaha!]
Its 185 crew onboard the warship, for many it is the first time they have visited a Chinese city, will enjoy the excellent recreational opportunities and experience the unique cultural mix in this diverse and modern region, he added. ["Recreational opportunities" - hahahaha! WooHoo!]
Captain Andrew Tate, British Royal Navy's Naval and Air Attache in British Embassy in Beijing, said HMS Kent will also pay a goodwill visit to Qing Dao. [Qing Dao is a freaking beer factory! HAHAHAHA!]
____________________ Pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in Christo!
Galactic Signature: Blue Self-Existing Monkey
The jet lag is still having ssome effect。 Lots of dreams last night waking up every couple of hours。
Our connecting flight on Northwest from Japan to Guangzhou was cancelled and they put us on a Japan Airlines flight with only a half hour delay。 Japan Airlines is much better than any US airline。 The service friendly and food frequent and plentiful。 Very nice。
I could tell I was in Guangzhou as soon as the plane landed （10：30PM） the air smelled of incense，burning wood， herbs， and sewage。
We had dinner at an all-you-can-eat chinese buffet。 LOL Of the many times here this was a first！ Old school food though， not even close to what you get in the USA， my elderly mother and father in-laws love the food。 My brother in-law kept the beer pouring and lots of tosts。 His new wife （twenty years younger） gave a baby boy who is now four and the little emperor in the family。
Lst night my brother in-law took me to the Meijin Flower Massage Spa。 I think I got the most talented and beautiful girl in the house。 She is from Hubei。 First scalding hot herbal bath。 Then the hour long massage。 She used some strange techniques I think of as Fire and Ice。 First， just using her hands， she would make my arms pale， cold and numb then brush her hair on my skin and blow suddenly the blood would rush back into my arms and hands and turn red and hot。 She spent a lot of time on my feet and the acupressure points there。 The girl working on my brother in law said they don‘t get many foriegners， once they had a black man and the way he stared at them frightened them and made them cry。 Way too much excitement for me， I had dreams all night about the girl from Hubei。 I’ll have another before I return home。
____________________ Pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in Christo!
Galactic Signature: Blue Self-Existing Monkey
That's swell Nocturne. The other computer I was using no longer lets me post here! The one I am using now is very sensitive.
Today I am at the 104th China Import and Export Fair. A 10,000,000 sq ft complex. I've got to run - I'm using a high ranked and trusted Officer's PC The Chairwoman would not be amused and I do not want to make life difficult form my very gracious host. Really amazing event here. They've never missed holding the fair even during the Cultural Revolution. This afternoon a driver will take my neice and us around town to seek out local special foods and snacks. My brother in law wanted to show me his new night club but my energy level gets depleted pretty early in the evening - I can barely stand up! I'll figure out some way to measure the dosages and activites because his night clubs are really something!!
____________________ Pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in Christo!
Galactic Signature: Blue Self-Existing Monkey
Very interesting posts, Phil. Enjoy yourself. I hope with all your connections you can track down that herbalist. I have the feeling that they can help you there in China.
____________________ "The force and degree of a man's inner benevolence evokes in others a proportionate degree of ill-will" - Gurdjieff
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." — George Orwell
There are two Traditional Chinese Medicine apocatharies below the apartment I'm staying in today. Last night I noticed that my eye-ball was red and tender to the tocuh - uh oh the iritis is back. So this morning I was wisked off to the Sun Yat Sen University Opthalmology Institute. We walked inside and saw two long queues of about 50 people in each. On the wall is a large chinese character flow chart of the process to follow. The place looks like an aged train station with people lined up to buy tickets. The queues are for getting an appointment to see a doctor. I got my appoinment and was directed to another building. There we found large waiting room with a harried nurse standing behind a desk and an ancient soviet era switchboard that would buzz and a button would light up. She would push the button and call someones name out. We were told to go to another room first and get the standard vision test first then come back. There we found four queues and four nurses and eye test charts to read. Getting that document we ruturned to the central switching station and the nurse frantically pressing buttons and calling out names... to make a long story short the doctor confirmed the iritis and prescribed three medications. Getting the prescription filled we had to go through a couple of more queues. The whole process took 1.5 hours and cost $20 including the medicines. I asked the doctor about TCM and she said even with TCM iritis is very hard to cure.
Last night my neice, in our quest for the best of local Guangzhou foods, led us through some dark alleys to especially seedy looking joints but gosh if the food wasn't truely the best and most authentic cheap eats Guangzhou has to offer. Delicious delicate stuffed fat noodles, cream custards, and rice porriges of such flavor and delicacy that you'll get nowhere else.
____________________ Pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in Christo!
Galactic Signature: Blue Self-Existing Monkey
The family consensus here is that TCM would be effective for me only if the traditional medicine doctor has time to understand and my condition and lifestyle。 They say it is a long term approach require many visits so the doctor can work up the proper TCM diagnosis and therapies。 Apparently TCM is not like western medicine where once something is given the scientific name the specific drug is chosen。 They advise me to rely on my doctor of western medicine and if his therapy does not work then consider moving to China to begin long term working with a traditional chinese medicine （TCM） doctor。
My wife says she wants to buy a small apartment here。 That sounds good to me so as soon as we can sell our house in Florida we‘ll start looking for a place here in Guangzhou。
Yesterday we drove to Zhuhai on the southern coast of Guandong with my neice to drop her off at the Sun Yat-Sen Univeristy campus there where she is majoring in English Business Communications。She says when the students get tired of eating canteen food they go into the local village to get some good food and the boys enjoy the village bad girls。Hehehe。 We then drove to the mainland - Macau crossing and went shopping at a humongous， maze-like， and jam-packed mall。 This multi-storied mall sits at the Customs and Immigration checkpoint for crossing over to Macau。The thinking is they’ll catch some of the gambling money before it gets over to the famous Macau casinos。 LOL
On the way back to Guangzhou we visited the home town of Sun Yat-Sen， Zhongshan。 A very nice historic museum and village。 Sun Yat-Sen is considered the Father of modern China。
____________________ Pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in Christo!
Galactic Signature: Blue Self-Existing Monkey
