A few images from our walk

July 24, 2006

HI!

How are you? All is well with us in China. Since we wrote last we have mostly been busy with our TEFL class, and when we are not busy, we go outside and wander around, eat at restaurants, go to shops, etc., and try to get to know Southern China! We are still healthy, although since I wrote last I spent one day going between our bed and the bathroom, but after one day I got better, thankfully.

On Saturday Tomas and I went along with our English school to a "nature area." Note that that is what we had expected, but quite quickly we realized that everything in the area was man-made! But it was still fun, and we got to swim (in a perfectly square man-made lake, or a man-made pond). We hiked up a hill, which was quite a climb, actually, in the heat, and we saw a great view. But otherwise, the day was so-so. As a part of the school's really gung-ho "learn English now!" attitude, which the Chinese seem to love, on the 40 minute bus ride we sang "Row, row, row your boat," and "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands..." and others, the entire way...

Yesterday Tomas and I took a very long walk to go to a park which we had seen on the map. We walked, and walked, and walked... and even though it was a beautiful day, of course it was VERY hot outside. But thank goodness for the tree-lined sidewalks on which we walked! Our walk took us completely away from all of the main areas, away from areas that could be international or even touristy in some ways, and brought us into actual small neighborhoods. The buildings seemed run-down, somewhat, but the people that were walking in the neighborhoods were well-dressed. However, I am starting to realize that people really dress nicely (women almost always in cute dresses), but maybe their living areas do not look that nice on the outside at least. Anyway, we saw something interesting: on some balconies people had stuck in huge pieces of chards of glass, to prevent people from climbing over!

Other than that, we mostly saw trees, cars, people biking or walking, (and staring at us a lot), and some people sitting along the sidewalk selling their fruits. We bought some small, stubby bananas from a couple on the street. Boy, were they excited when we could buy them in Chinese! (The women show lots of emotion anyway, and I assume the men are happy too). The bananas were not like normal bananas we have either in the U.S. or Sweden...they were almost sweeter and a little tangy, as if someone had put pieces of kiwi inside them (but the color was yellow and reddish).

Anyway, after a long hike, at which time I was getting WAY overheated again, we came to a park where we saw some nice views of the city (and kind of shocking spider as well--the biggest I have ever seen, and yet I only very calmly--very unlike me by the way--told Tomas to get out the camera. He hadn't seen it yet). See some pics.

Can anyone identify the type of the spider, by the way??? I would love to know if we saw something common, uncommon, or poisonous, or not...

Time for some lunch soon. Take care and write back soon!

love
Rachel and Tomas

Huge spider

Huge spider

Tomas at nature area with view

View of Zhuhai and hills