Post-Australia, pre-Japan

 

The view from the *66th floor of the Park Hyatt Guangzhou hotel 

If you've been following this blog recently, you will know that we took a 12-day trip to Australia that stretched from Boxing Day to the 7th of January. We've stayed home since returning to Beijing 北京, but that doesn't mean we were idle in our free time. The biggest event in the 28 days we've been back, of course, has been the entrance into legal adulthood taken by our daughter. This post will cover a few of those other things that have taken place in the immediate post-Sydney timeline.

My wife's attempt at making some zongzi 粽子, a traditional glutinous rice dish:

The area where we reside is home to a large number of Japanese dining and drinking establishments, doubtless due to the proximity of the Japanese Embassy. The small London double-decker bus does add a small incongruous touch to the surroundings, however:

This building used to house several Japanese bars, but I'm not sure what lies behind the completely-revamped facade now:

Due to my work, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a paid holiday for me. Not so for Amber, as American public holidays generally don't apply to international school calendars. So at Shu-E's suggestion, the two of us used the opportunity to have a look at the 2024 Beijing Worker's Stadium New Year's Shopping Exhibition, taking place outside, you guessed it, the Beijing Worker's Stadium. In other words, it's a recently established temporary market set up in advance of the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, which this year kicks off on February 9:

As you might expect, there were a lot of snack foods for sale:

There were several international booths (many of them Russian), but our attention was diverted to a few stalls selling Taiwanese goodies, such as Kaoliang liquor 高粱酒, a drink so potent my lips went numb the first time I tried it (which coincided with the first time I met my future in-laws):

Shu-E doesn't like to be photographed:

The market was busy on a Monday morning, but I can only imagine what it's like on weekends:

Despite the globalist veneer, the majority of products for sale were Chinese regional delicacies, with my carnivorous wife favoring a lot of meat and seafood treats:

Sea cucumbers:

Non-food items were also available for purchase:

Geopolitics, unfortunately, do not allow me to purchase Iranian carpets and rugs:

Even some goodies from Down Under were on the market:

Beijing remains bitterly cold at times, with temperatures plunging below freezing every evening (and frequently staying there even during the daylight hours). Still, I did capture a nice sunrise one chilly morning while on my way to the office:

The same week as MLK Day saw me (along with a few others from my section) flying down to the considerably warmer southern city of Guangzhou 广州 to take part in a workshop. Arriving late on a Wednesday afternoon, we were taken by locally-based colleagues to a dim sum restaurant for dinner:

Looking south to the Guangzhou New Television Tower, aka Canton Tower:

The view that first night from my room on the 55th room of the Park Hyatt Guangzhou, a luxury accommodation that I could only afford at the reimbursable U.S. government rate:

Sunrise on Thursday morning:

The view from the 65th-floor restaurant where breakfast was served:

On our way to the U.S. Consulate General Guangzhou, where the workshop was held:

The only place on the consulate grounds where photography was permitted:

Freed at the end of the afternoon workshop session, I took a stroll around the area:

The atrium inside the Four Seasons Hotel:

The views from one of the upper-floor bars, where unfortunately we couldn't get a table:

For Thursday's dinner our Guangzhou colleagues introduced us to Dishui Store, a vegetarian restaurant staffed by hearing-impaired servers. It's located inside the Guangzhou Opera House 广州大剧院, which was designed by Zaha Hadid:

I'm not ready to give up consuming meat just yet, but the dishes at Dishui Store were very good:

Following dinner and another unsuccessful attempt at upper-floor drinking, a couple of colleagues and myself went for a walk, taking in the ultra-modern architecture of central Guangzhou:

Passing by a Japanese-style cat cafe:

We ended up at an underground shopping arcade popular with Guangzhou's youthful consumers:

The view on Friday morning from my room:

A group photo at the completion of the workshop:

Another late afternoon pedestrian exploration of my surroundings:

I found myself at the 1200BookShop, "the coolest bookstore in Guangzhou":

I was disappointed at the lack of English-language titles, but I could appreciate the wannabe bohemian atmosphere. I assumed that Kafka would be banned, but you can least get a calendar with his image on it:

 

Travel guides to Taiwan. The one on the far right asks us if we have ever been there:

A great place to people-watch, but how "bohemian" or "avant-garde" can a shop like this remain in Xi Jinping's China?:

I had dinner at an Italian-style restaurant located in an underground shopping mall:

That night I went up to the 70th floor of my hotel to down some cocktails and enjoy the view. *70th floor? Seeing as the Park Hyatt building does not have any floors ending with the numeral "4", the actual story, while still vertigo-inducing, was not quite as high as advertised. Which serves as a metaphor for modern China:

Saturday morning breakfast:

With time to kill before my afternoon flight to Beijing, I decided to do some further exploring. My initial idea was to cruise around on a shared bike, but it turned out Guangzhou isn't as cycle friendly as China's capital - not enough bike lanes, those that exist frequently end up on sidewalks with pedestrians, and too often you're required to use a pedestrian bridge instead of just cycling across an intersection. I eventually gave up, and relied instead on my feet to get around:

Some of the more interesting statues in Hongcheng Park 宏城公园:

The area was dominated by the Canton Tower:

Haixinsha Island 海心沙岛 was the main site of the 2010 Asian Games:

A popular photo op spot:

Walking by the Guangdong Museum 广东省博物馆, which I had visited back in 2015. Yes, this wasn't my first time in Guangzhou:

Lunch at the airport:

Alcoholism in the comfort of my home:

Feeding time for Timi:

Lunch at a nearby restaurant called Long Time Ago:

"Hokkaido Bread" and fried bananas:

Last weekend Shu-E suggested we drive out to the China National Film Museum, "the largest professional cinema museum in the world":

How CGI works:

This Chinese animated film bears more than a passing resemblance to a Studio Ghibli スタジオジブリ production, but Amber vociferously disagreed:

The centerpiece of the museum is a massive central atrium, featuring a giant movie screen with continually changing images. It turned out to be the reason my wife wanted to visit the museum:

There are a staggering 20 exhibition halls in total, and somehow we managed to walk through all of them in the course of an afternoon. My daughter was most interested in the makeup effects:

A heroic Chinese patriot surprising a Japanese soldier eating chicken in a train car. Since the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, the Chinese government has emphasized "patriotic education" in an effort to ensure something like June 4 never happens again. One of the spinoffs of this has been an endless diet of TV dramas showing heroic Chinese soldiers (usually Communists but occasionally Nationalists) easily defeating the villainous Imperial Japanese Army 大日本帝国陸軍, who seem to be as effective a fighting force as the Imperial stormtroopers. I guess the history books showing the IJA still in control of all the main Chinese coastal population centers at the time the war ended were in error:

Lover's Grief over the Yellow River. No, I've never heard of it, either:

Bruce Lee:

Shu-E was amused by the exhibit hall on Taiwan, noting that very few movies released since the late 1980's (when Taiwan started to democratize) were featured:

Amber gets annoyed with things like this, but knows to hold her tongue. She would make a better diplomat than her father:

The first 40 seconds or so of a typical Mao-era Chinese production:

After the museum, we stopped off at a Taiwanese bar for dinner. Actually, my wife had assumed it was a restaurant, but it turned out to be something different. The food wasn't bad, however:

Following an appointment at a hospital due to heart-related issues, my wife and I had lunch at Great Leap Brewing. If my heart is going to suddenly stop functioning one day, I'd like it to happen after I finish my drink:

Everybody's doin' the loco moco:

This has been a brief summary of some of the things that have occurred since our return from the Antipodes ("Post-Australia"). "Pre-Japan" refers to our plan to visit that country from next weekend, during the Lunar New Year holiday. Assuming we can actually make it there (a big "if" since my wife torpedoed my previous plans to go to Tōkyō 東京 last November by accidently taking my passport with her to Taiwan), check back in a couple of weeks to see what went down in the Kantō region 関東地方.

Until then, here's wishing you an early 新年快樂 and a 恭喜發財! 

The trailer for Cape No. 7 海角七號, a 2008 Taiwanese film that was most definitely not included in the Taiwan hall at the film museum. Why not? For one thing, much of the dialog is in Taiwanese, and not Mandarin. But mainly because it depicts Japanese people as flesh-and-blood human beings, and not as cartoonish evil characters to be killed off by red-blooded, motherland-loving Chinese patriots: