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Feline friends 

She came, she saw, she picked up a lot of things (Christmas presents and items for daily living) and she left. For seventeen days our daughter was a welcome addition to our household as she visited us in Guangzhou 广州 during her winter break from university. Those seventeen days were far too few, but it was still wonderful to see her in person again since the summer. What follows are a few snapshots of some of the moments spent together with our favorite (and sole) offspring. 

Amber arrived at Baiyun Airport 广州白云国际机场 before midnight on a Monday after a long flight from Seattle via Incheon, and as a result I took the Tuesday off to recover. Her introduction to Guangzhou started that morning with an underground walk to the relatively upscale K11 Mall which the wife and I had visited the previous weekend. She reacted with glee at seeing the Adidas store's only-in-China apparel, and so we would eventually pick up a couple of clothing items for her on New Year's Day as a belated Christmas present. Amber sometimes gets compliments back in the States when she wears shirts purchased on Taobao 淘宝网, so with these Adidas jackets she will be the coolest student on campus (especially as "China" is cool with a certain subset of today's youth, according to my daughter): 

Lunch at Room Meat, a Japanese restaurant the signature dish of which is a meat patty served with an egg on top of rice. My food photos didn't turn out too well, unfortunately:

Replicating her dad's photo: 

Later I took the girl for a walk around the area, during which we passed the mascot for the Chinese post office:

At Amber's suggestion we stepped inside the Guangzhou Library 广州图书馆 to have a look:

I couldn't find any English titles but on the seventh floor these shelves were groaning under the weight of these Chinese-language guidebooks on Japan, an indication of the popularity the Japanese archipelago holds with many Chinese tourists, even during these times when the government in Beijing is trying to dampen that enthusiasm: 

On the eighth floor there was a small Tolstoy exhibit, which unfortunately was all in Mandarin:

The two of us then took a walk down to the Pearl River 珠江. In front of the Guangzhou Asian Games Stadium (the city played host to the event in 2010) was this English-style helter skelter which brought back memories of visiting a funfair in Essex when I was 11. It was raining and my pants got muddy when I reached the bottom and landed on my bum, angering my mother:

Experiencing the night view in Huacheng Square 花城广场:

Having dinner at Thai God the night before Amber and I departed on a quick jaunt across the water to Japan:

I returned from Japan to pleasantly discover the federal government workforce had been gifted with an unexpected two days off (the days bookending the 25th) by a presidential proclamation. As a result, on Wednesday (Christmas Eve) Shu-E and I, with Amber in tow, found ourselves once again at the Canton Customs House, but not before tucking into a quick lunch at a street stand around the corner:

Our still teenaged daugher takes a moment to indulge in some juvenile humor: 

Photography inside the Canton Customs House is unfortunately prohibited. I tried to find photos online as the interior was quite striking, but without luck. This picture was snapped in the rear of the building where the toilets were located:

Next, we strolled over to Shamian Island 沙面岛, where my daughter and I posed in front of the Bank of Taiwan building (1911): 

We popped inside the White Swan Hotel to have a look around. We had intended to enter through the revolving glass doors but were forced to detour when a Chinese tour group seemingly unfamiliar with how such entrances worked ended up getting trapped between the glass doors. Once inside we perused some of the shops, including one selling old Chinese currency such as this vintage one-jiao 一角 note (one jiao is usually around 1¢ U.S.) which can be yours for the princely sum of RMB68,000 ($9715)!:

A refrigerator magnet for sale in a souvenir shop oustide the hotel. We ended up buying a different one which featured a more typical building front seen on Shamian Dao:

This decrepit-looking wing of the hotel is actually the former U.S. consulate building, which was in operation until the current facility (and my workplace) was opened in 2013:

The old Western-style buildings on Shamian unsurprisingly result in the island being a popular spot for wedding photos:

 

Amber rightly complained the 1916 former Soviet consulate building looked much more attractive than its American rival:

In a Didi driving from Shamian Island we passed the attractive Chigang Pagoda 赤岗塔, which dates from 1619. Alas, it remains closed to the public:

My wife had made a reservation for dinner that Christmas Eve. While waiting for our table to become available at 18:00 we took a stroll along the Pearl River, passing close to the Liede Bridge 猎德大桥: 

For dinner the three of us dined at Wang Steak, a Taiwanese company...:

...and then tried to walk off at least some of our meal by going for another walk along the waterfront:

It was a hazy evening (I joked that my daughter's presence must have had a negative effect on the local AQI, as the skies had been relatively clear prior to her arrival), but the lights were still impressive:  

Amber insisted I make it look like the Canton Tower 广州塔 was growing from the top of her head, so I did my best to oblige: 

Chinese drone shows have garned a lot of attention on social media in recent years (just do a YouTube search and see for yourself), but the ones I've witnessed in Guangzhou are mainly advertisements. In this case we were actually behind the messages so everything appeared to us in reverse:

An example being this message from an insurance company. Something about innovation? Even Shu-E wasn't sure:

Christmas Day morning. After opening our presents, we took a Didi to Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street 上下九步行街 to have lunch at a locally-famous dim sum restaurant called Tao Tao Ju 陶陶居. On the first floor visitors can see workers making dumplings:

My daughter showing off her cat-themed nails, one of the presents 圣诞老人 had brought for her this year:

Some of the foods we ordered for that traditional Christmas meal:

We lunched on the uppermost fifth floor, and afterward went out onto the roof for the views:

The restaurant as seen at street level:

Walking along the pedestrian street and popping into some of the shops, such as this pastry business:

Pizazzboy. The exterior appeared to be bricked up:

The dark corridor behind this figure made it look like the poor bear had had its heart broken, while the panda in the background appeared to have overdone it on the eggnog: 

There was an alley with a series of photos of the area taken in the days of olde on a wall. This one from 1983 showed an insanely long procession of buses lined up on what is now a pedestrian street: 

The street as it appeared in 1930:

Eating some bīngtánhúlu 冰糖葫芦, "sugar-coated Chinese hawthorns on a a bamboo skewer". One of the girl's favorite treats, except for the fact she doesn't like hawthorns and so this one consisted of strawberries: 

We next walked to Yongqing Fang 永庆坊, a tourist district which the missus and I had visited a few weeks earlier. Contrary to expectations, Boneless was not a butchers shop but a clothing boutique. Naturally: 

The girls were impressed by the height of this door frame. For context I'm 6'3"/190 cm:

We returned to the grounds of the Cantonese Opera Art Museum 粤剧艺术博物馆 but only because Shu-E needed to use the restroom:

At the ancestral home of Bruce Lee. The martial arts legend never lived there but his father (Li Haiquan, a noted Cantonese opera actor) and his sister did:

 

The posts in front of the house were used to practice kung fu 工夫, though I suspect they were placed there in recent years to stress the connection to Lee and martial arts. The house is free to enter. There are no interior furnishings set up that would have indicated how people lived at the time, but there were many photographs on the walls:

Among the wall displays was this testimonial from Chuck Norris:

Even on a Thursday afternoon (Chrismas not being a public holiday in China) the house was full of visitors:

In the home's reception hall:

Bruce Lee's greatest film (you might have to set your VPN to a non-U.S. location to watch this):

Next we stepped into a Japanese-themed shop featuring many Maneki-neko 招き猫 figurines, including these ones decked out as the Seven Lucky Gods 七福神:

I bought this hat for Amber while we were there:

We ended the day with a light dinner at B for Brunch:

Carbonara and strawberry lemon tea. A new Christmas Day tradition in the making?:

The view of the canal after dinner:

Red sky over Red China:

Boxing Day. Our artificial tree looks like a reject from a Peanuts special casting call. Its lights were actually on at the time I snapped this pic. There was only a handful of presents under the tree the previous morning, but having our daughter here with us during the holidays was of course the best gift of all:

Following a series of medical appointments for the girl (nothing serious, just saving the cost and time of having her do it herself while in the States), Amber and I went out to the Grandview Mall 正佳广场, which I visited on my own during my "lost month". Here my daughter was reunited with an old friend from her childhood:

The mall tries to be more than just a shopping location, laying on a number of "educational attractions" designed to keep the children entertained:

The mall's interior:

Presumably promoting the latest Detective Conan 名探偵コナン movie: 

The Grandview Waxwork Museum of World Scientists on the sixth floor. Amber joked that I only knew the American representatives so I struck a suitably patriotic prose in front of Robert H. Goddard. The hoodie was the result of a chilly (by southern Chinese standards) 14°C/57°F day:

Recognize this dashing fellow? The animal at his feet is a clue:

Qian Xuesen 钱学森 was a Chinese aerospace engineer and one of the leading experts on rockets and high-speed flight theory. During the McCarthy-era Red Scare he was stupidly and short-sightedly deported to China in 1955, where he played a significant role in the development of China's rocket force. An own goal on our part: 

I was not familiar with Monday Bruce (even though the character originates from Taiwan) but I could immediately relate. 为什么...要上班... "Why do I have to go to work?":

On another occasion we tried to go biking. My previously trusty Trek (which has been with me since our Shanghai days) felt fine when I gave it a test-ride in the garage. However, when I tried to add air to the tires, at first everything seemd okay but then the rear tire suddenly, rapidly and inexplicably went flat. I still don't know what happened, but instead the kid and I used share bikes to ride out to Ersha Island 二沙岛:

A Commie building seen across the water. The message above the columns reads (according to Google Translate) "Unwavering in obeying the Party's commands, unswervingly following the Party's lead"...:

...the smaller sign translates as "obey the Party's command and be able to win battles. Have an excellent work style":

A heroic socialist figure in front of the Xinghai Concert Hall:

During Amber's stay a night market popped up in Huacheng Square. It appeared to be in connection to a lion dancing competition, which explained all the banging drums we had been hearing lately:

At the end of the five-day break we embarked on our first leisure drive in our recently registered Geely to 夜猫森林, which translates as "Nocturnal Garden". The reason my wife suggested we visit was the four enclosures full of affectionate cats that were either sleeping or demanding attention. In other words, basically being cats. And one huge capybara. Our daughter was missing Timi the Siamese, who was back at home in Oregon bonding with a pet sitter. Here Amber is comparing her roommate with the capybara:

This Maine Coon had a "stern face" according to our daughter, but reminded me more of the Zanti Misfits. It was very affectionate, however:

How I want to come back if reincarnation turns out to be true:

One of the enclosures also had resident ducks, rabbits and fish, none of which seemed perturbed in the least by the presence of the cats:

In the clip below Amber is using the reflection of her phone in her back packet like a laser pointer, but the cats seem more interested in the people eating on the other side of the fence:

Back at work after the break and sympathizing with Monday Bruce, but a lunch date at Gail's with my daughter did much to lift my spirits:

Around Sunset on New Year's Eve. The 122 AQI reading gave sky a pinkish hue:

A Taiwanese-American friend of Shu-E's was in town visiting from Beijing 北京, so the four of us went to a Hakka 客家 restaurant in K11 for dinner. One of the signature dishes there was this Hakka-style handmade pan-fried tofu:

Feeling tired and wanting to give the wife more time together with her friend, I opted to return home while the girls went out after dinner:

They took a boat ride on the Pearl River: 

Shu-E couldn't believe how extremely crowded it was outside, even though I tried to explain it was because of New Year's Eve. In my wife's conservative, old-fashioned eyes, the Lunar New Year is far more important but China's youth beg to suggest otherwise:

That evening the three of us (Diana, the friend visiting from Beijing, had returned to her hotel) watched the various countdowns happening around the world on CNN, while I also had my laptop open to a live stream of Taipei 101. Outside in Huacheng Square thousands had gathered, even though there were no organized celebrations taking place. Suddenly we heard the masses counting down the seconds to midnight, and then there was a mass release of balloons, the dark shapes of which temporarily blocked our view as they floated up and past our window. After waiting hours in the square for 2026 to arrive many celebrants immediately made a beeline to the subway, resulting in a massive, chaotic traffic jam below our apartment. By the time I took this pic, the worst of the chaos had peaked, but I was glad to be looking down on it rather than being swallowed up by it:

On the first day of the year of our lord two thousand and twenty-six I went with Amber to Adidas to buy the belated Christmas present mentioned at the top of this blog post. Arriving at K11 just after 10:00 we noticed there were lots of young women lined up at a tea stand. My daughter did some sleuthing online and learned that apparently the girls were there not to buy tea per se but rather purchase a limited-edition package that included a meet-and-greet with a "celebrity" named 奴王殿下的弟弟养的狗的主人, or as Google Translate describes it "The owner of the dog owned by His Highness the Slave King's younger brother". From what we could deduce from online this was the moniker of a nerd whose claim to fame seemed to be posing standing next to sports cars:

Amber (with a tea from a different shop) poses next to the work of a more tangible artist, Yoshitomo Nara 奈良美智:

While we were pumping money into the sluggish Chinese economy, Shu-E and Diana were spending time at a nearby museum. While those two headed off afterward to have lunch at a swanky joint in K11, we had lunch at a pub called Morgan's, not far from the consulate and popular with expats. It was here that I touched base with my mother's DNA, digging into a meat pie, while the girl paid homage to my California roots with a Mexican dish:  

After lunch the four of us met at the apartment, then took a Didi to the White Swan Hotel where Diana was staying: 

Her reservation there allowed us to gain access to the hotel's garden, where I did my best to strike an ambassadorial pose with the former U.S. consulate in the background:

And then the following morning Amber was off back to the U.S., where another quarter at school (not to mention Timi) awaits her. We managed to do quite a bit in that short time she was here in Guangzhou (including those four days in Wakayama 和歌山, Japan), showing some of the sights of her parents' latest temporary abode, while seeing to more mundane tasks such as having her teeth checked and updating her glasses prescription. In an ideal world I would like her to stay with us, but she will soon say goodbye to her teenage years and continue on the path she's initially decided upon in her life. Thanks to IT and the largesse of my employer we've been able to stay in frequent contact, as well as see her in person at relatively short intervals, with the next opportunity most likely coming this June, when she'll conclude her sophomore year at college. Until then Shu-E and I will continue to keep up with her vicariously through WeChat. 

In the meantime you can continue to vicariously follow my misadventures on these very pages as we grope our way around Guangzhou and its environs. 新年快乐！