Oh, the places I've been and the food I've eaten!

We are now in final countdown mode. As of today we only have 2 more weeks left! I have mixed feelings about returning. There were times on this trip that I thought the day to go home would never come (such as after the bed bug incident in Perth). This has been an incredible trip and one that has made me re-evaluate what's important in my life. This will probably be my final blog. I hope that you've enjoyed reading it! Even though I managed to write quite a bit, it's still difficult to express just what it has meant to see places that I've been interested in for a while, some since I was a little girl. Not everything has sunk in yet and I'm still processing what happened weeks ago. Now onto some final thoughts about Guangzhou...

I've tried a lot of interesting food on this trip and the other night is just one example. Mark's cousins had invited us out to dinner to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival or in Cantonese "Dune um zi." They invited us over for lunch to eat the traditional food of the festival which is sticky rice wrapped in a bamboo leaf and then steamed. Inside the rice can be many different fillings, such as beans, peanuts and meat. In Cantonese, these are called "jong." But this was not the most interesting food of the day, in fact, Mark's parents often send us jong and we eat it regularly for dimsum.

For dinner, we were taken to a restaurant that specializes in emu meat. Yep, emu. You know, the Australian relative of the ostrich. It used to be popular for farm them for meat in Australia and New Zealand, but it fell out of favour a while back when there were too many people trying to get rich off of emu farming. I wasn't really sure what to expect from emu meat and was pleasantly surprised. And it's a good thing that I liked it because every single dish we had contained emu meat. I figured that we would try one dish and then the rest would be beef or chicken. We had emu hot pot and emu stirfry. I guess emu is really the speciality of that restaurant. Apparently, during the day you can see live emus across the pond. I'm kinda glad that we couldn't see them though. I don't even like to see the lobsters or crabs that we eat when we order them back home.

Australians joke that they are the only country that eats its coat of arms. (Their coat of arms contains both the kangaroo and the emu. I guess that I should be an honorary Aussie since I've eaten both now. I think I forgot to mention that we tried kangaroo meat while in Australia. It was in Darwin, our last stop. We found a small, cheap kangaroo fillet in the grocery store and decided to go for it. Ordering it from a restaurant was much too expensive, especially if we didn't end up enjoying it. It's supposed to be eaten quite raw and there is hardly any fat in it and it's actually a purplish colour. But we cooked it up really well - I'm not really a fan of raw meat. We ended up not liking it very much. It's hard to say if we just didn't like the meat or if it was the way we prepared it. Plus, it's really weird to be feeding a kangaroo one day and then have one feeding you the next. I just couldn't get over it.

Here are some other insights that I haven't previously shared (or I don't think I have). It seems that urban Asian women are obsessed with whitening themselves. I'm not joking - we saw this in the cities of Thailand, Malaysia and now in Hong Kong and China. Women go to great lengths to keep their skin from getting dark. Most carry umbrellas during the day to protect themselves from the sun rather than the rain. There are a plethora of whitening creams as well. I'm thinking that Michael Jackson must import them all from here. And it's not because they are afraid to get skin cancer - if that were the case sun screen would be the answer. These are creams that make you whiter. It's hard to believe, but I actually have more colour than a lot of the people here. Can you believe that?! Who would have thought that I'd stick out because I was darker than the Asians rather than whiter. Well, actually I still stick and people still know that I'm white. I just find it so ironic that North Americans spend so much time and money making themselves darker, while the Asians I've come across spend money to make themselves whiter. Truly an example of how the grass is always greener on the other side.

Another thing in Guangzhou that reminds me very much of Russia is how you need to be very careful when crossing the street. Public buses come seemingly out of no where and will have no problem running you down if you are in their way. And don't think that just because you have the signal to walk that means you're safe. Oh no, people making a left turn don't care and feel that they, not the pedestrians, have the right of way. It actually requires quite a bit of attention to cross the street.

One last note, it's becoming more and more apparent that the people of Guangzhou do not have much contact with western foreigners. I regularly get stared at on the subway, in local restaurants...actually anywhere. Anyone who knows a bit of English will say hello and then giggle when I respond...sometimes I respond in Cantonese just to throw them off. I didn't think I'd be such a big attraction here. It didn't really happen anywhere else in Asia and I didn't expect it here. Mark's relatives have also told him that they have never met a foreigner who was so easy to get along with as I seem to be. I found that really shocking. Apparently there aren't many foreigners in Guangzhou who are representing themselves or their countries very well.

Well, I guess that's all. Take care and I'll see everyone soon!