tues 22 march so the story goes like this.... the bus had stoppped, it was still dark and I had no idea where we were....we couldnt be there yet,i was told that it got in at 7.30 am and its 5.30 now....mmmm not everyone is getting off..mmmm anyone here speak english.....nope!....wondering.....mmm ....i tried asking driver..."is this Guangzhou?"....and he kinda shrugged at me flipped his hand and said something i heard the word Guangzhou, but was no clearer with where we were.......mmmm....hey look there's a black dude (african, found out later guangzhou is full of them...on business..yeah)... "you speak English" i say to him. "yes"....o thank the lordy i say to myself...but then he started to saying all this stuff to me in his english...wtf is he saying.... i went back to my seat, oh yeah i mean bed....and just lye there thinking...oh well i have no idea what we are doing here...bus isn't moving, not everyone is off the bus, so maybe its tsill going...all i know we were getting off at the last stop.... in lala land and the black dude comes up to me (half an hr after i spoke with him and said.."you have to get off now..this is Guangzhou"....huh..im confused...i just go with it he asked me where am i going...i show him the place...mmmm "ching ching chong wing wam wong xie xue xie" whatever he said in chinese to this girl he then tells me this girl will show you taxi to go to this place.....cool bananas i thought... so off we trot down the road...its light now.....oh and thank god its not raining....allaluihah.....and not cold....more praising the lord... oh...hello nightmare trying to get a taxi to where ever we are going...this girl was good...i didnt haveto say anything she just talk.... finally we get a taxi...she say ..."i come with you, so you get place ok".... oh ok i say, dont worry me..... so we go to youth hostel...and poobumwee...no room.... hotel next door....they say no room taxi driver chuck a spass...n no take us anywhere...whatever he say in chinese... so we stand outside going....ok....what now...mmmm umm yeah...why didnt i book a room....won dum gai.... the hotel say we can wait in there...oh good thanks....she talk to them....they say they have room now....delux room.... so we ended up taking room....... now this the funny part..........triple room i didnt pay, the girl wouldnt let me.....cause she staying with us!!! ha ummmm hello.....what you think you doing...... Kailani and I just look at each other and go......what the???? how did that happen...n what.... i say its ok.....but room already paid for....and off we go to our room!!! I scratching me head still wondering....am i dreaming...... She say its ok...i will come with you to Shiwan....now this place , Shiwan is the whole reason why we are in Guangzhou...it is the pottery town and where the old kiln is (more about that later)......Shiwan too hard for you go by self...i come with you....and see Guangzhou...i come with you Oh ok..........whatever i sleep and then wake going...o my god...she planning, when we are gone, she going to have her friend come in and steal all our things etc....no...whe wants something else...what does she want....yep all those thoughts cross my mind...i ended up going...she can have all my stuff, dont matter....too late now, shes here...just have to go with it. So we have our snoozy and then head off on the metro to shopping....yep...im thanking Lilly now being there...yep if we went by ourselves would of been so difficult.... we have lunch with here friend and they paid for lunch....she would not let me pay for a thing all day!!.... So this place is sooo cheap...we didnt but any clothes, i found them all too tacky....converse rip offs $3...dvd 80c (new releases) ...and lots more stuff......and no we didnt get alot of stuff here..we have to carry and with all the winter clothes we had to buy.... The next day we head off to Shiwan.....to the Nanfeng ancient kiln.. This kiln hasn't stopped since the ming dynasty, I won't go into detail about it here and bore you non potters....but basically this is a ceramic town and in the middle of it is this ancient kiln, and surrounding village .. .....anyway this is such a cool place...i was so excited being here....and you lot at tafe....i so wished you were all here.......seeing that kiln in action.....everything about it...took lots of photos for show and tell....and the ancient town surrounding it...very cool......the museum was like right out of one of Rowleys classes in 3d...kinda.... and then i had a go at the wheel....you can play for $4 for an hour....this clay was soooo good to work with....wish we had it at home...... of cause the westerner having a go at the wheel was entertaining for the chinese....now im realy in the spotlight......no one was around when i started, i was off in my own little world trying to centre etc and then felt eyes looking , looked up and great....about 10 people around me watching....oh piss off stop laughing at me.......but then i made a good bowl..yes they were impressed...i was more impressed with myself then they were.....so i mucked around with the clay....and was so good to have a play, have missed it....anyway.....i felt someone else watching.....and looked up and this man said "good..good"" and smiled and Lilly the girl said he said that you good, but he can teach you something if you like....he is teacher.. yes cool banana.......he can show me.....yes.. so he grabbed some clay, sat there with me and ....oh my god..... my mouth hit the ground and i was like ...oh..my ...goodness...did you see that....kailani quick get the video....this man was the one hand bandit...what he did and how quick....was oh my lordy.... and then he grabbed my hands and was guiding them on the clay and talking to me in chinese which i have no idea what on earth he was saying but kinda did.....i think i was in shock...didnt expect the quickness and....i was just lost for words.....by this time i had all the workers around us, they were filming him teaching me and then Llilly was kinda translating for me...she kept saying, you are lucky you very lucky...he is teaching you this....he is most famous chinese teacher.....he does not teach many people...he is teaching lots, way more than he has taught his students...which were the ones that were working there and surrounding me......i sat there with him for about an hour......and i have no idea how much i took in, it all went so fast....and not understanding what he was saying...but he was a true master on the wheel and i was very priviledge to get that oppotunity out of the blue.....apparently his students where very envious...and he said to me that if i had more time he would teach me much more....and i should come back there and he would teach me.....that would be soooo cool....so if it wasn't for my new room mate iwouldnt of got that experience and i doubt very much if i got to that place at all....as it would of been very difficult to find on my own. Sorry you lot that are not into clay....that would of been very boring for you reading all about that....kailani was soooo bored the whole day. Going to that place and doing my Tai chi would be my highlights of coming to China, and meeting those masters. So i had a good day hanging out, checking out the village and the other otherpotters, and artists and the sculptures etc. So our friend..more like room mate/translater what ever she called has been with us the whole time we have been in Guangzhou....it has been very easy for us being here because of her, it would of been difficult otherewise....she has left us now,as we are on the bus to Hong kong. She did not ask for money, she did not ask for anything, she was such a beautiful girl and out of the goodness of her heart she wanted to show us and help us around. She spoke english a little english, she wasnt fluent and realy didnt understand alot of what we were saying....but it was good to have her help us. She paid for so many things, she keptinsisting, she so wanted to look after us. When we said goodbye to her, i did give her money ( about $50) as she was a great help and would of been worth alot more if we hired her to take us places....she said it would of cost her $50 to havea english teacher for 2hours...she got us for a couple of days, so in the end she got what she wanted...just to practice speaking english. So now its off to Hong Kongers......damn its going to be expensive here...accomadation is already costing me about $60 a night and thats a cheap cheap place...and we wont be getting much for that... my $10 a night everywhere else has gone hohum...... So its a goodbye China.... until next time.....damn there was so many things i wanted to get but didnt get to buy....poobumwee update about Hong kong later....till next time | 