Fuzhou, China. Where's that? We didn't know either. But we got there as the sun came up after an overnight train and as usual everything was in Chinese. Remain calm. Look inquisitive. Act in charge. Apparently this worked because a local quickly came to help us book our train tickets to Hong Kong, as well as found us an Internet café and told us the must-see sights in Fuzhou. These sights consisted of, well, one local park. Since it was only 6:00AM and we had fourteen hours until our train was to leave, we began to doodle on the whiteboard outside the train station.
Little did we know, blonde foreigners in Fuzhou are a very rare occurrence.
It was as if the loudspeaker had just said,“ATTENTION all Fuzhou residents: Two foreign exhibitionists have been sighted with a mysterious, erasable slate. Report to the train station immediately to see them and discover what this“white box”is all about". Sure enough, people came and people stared. Within five minutes of Kristin's palm tree sketches, there was a crowd of at least 30-40 inquisitive onlookers. Unsure of how to keep this group entertained, we did our best by exhausting sketches of trees, suns, boats, and flowers, and had them try their own creations.
This was successful for almost an hour, but we were hungry so we ventured to the nearby store for
something that resembled food. Justin found a pre-packaged "pizza" that turned out to be vegetables on bread, and Kristin found mini "ham sandwiches" but had to laugh at the false advertising of empty rolls with a sliver of ham sticking out to make it appear full. We checked our map to find bus routes to the nearby park. A local named Tiffany came to practice her English and became our new friend and free tour guide for the day. To our surprise, the nearby “park” was on steroids for National Day. We had to try the Water Happy Balls on the lake, which made us feel like we were hamsters rolling around on water—best $3 spent yet in China. Exhausted from our "workout", we headed next to the duck paddleboats. "Too big" for the fun animal-shaped ones, we still had a fun adventure interacting and white boarding with the locals.
To recap on our adventures before Fuzhou, in Shanghai we had another memorable holiday experience.
Somehow we ended up at The Hensheng Peninsula—a four star hotel in the center of the city. A place that's spotless, luxurious, and way out of our price range; except the apartment-style rooms on the 19th floor for $20/night. Yeah, we don't get that either. Highlights from our three day visit to Shanghai included eating rice and beef dishes for breakfast—from KFC, bargaining with local street vendors, playing intense games of ping pong in the hotel rec room, and watching a beautiful firework display over the river and city from the rooftop.
Up next: HONG KONG!
Little did we know, blonde foreigners in Fuzhou are a very rare occurrence.
It was as if the loudspeaker had just said,“ATTENTION all Fuzhou residents: Two foreign exhibitionists have been sighted with a mysterious, erasable slate. Report to the train station immediately to see them and discover what this“white box”is all about". Sure enough, people came and people stared. Within five minutes of Kristin's palm tree sketches, there was a crowd of at least 30-40 inquisitive onlookers. Unsure of how to keep this group entertained, we did our best by exhausting sketches of trees, suns, boats, and flowers, and had them try their own creations.This was successful for almost an hour, but we were hungry so we ventured to the nearby store for
something that resembled food. Justin found a pre-packaged "pizza" that turned out to be vegetables on bread, and Kristin found mini "ham sandwiches" but had to laugh at the false advertising of empty rolls with a sliver of ham sticking out to make it appear full. We checked our map to find bus routes to the nearby park. A local named Tiffany came to practice her English and became our new friend and free tour guide for the day. To our surprise, the nearby “park” was on steroids for National Day. We had to try the Water Happy Balls on the lake, which made us feel like we were hamsters rolling around on water—best $3 spent yet in China. Exhausted from our "workout", we headed next to the duck paddleboats. "Too big" for the fun animal-shaped ones, we still had a fun adventure interacting and white boarding with the locals.To recap on our adventures before Fuzhou, in Shanghai we had another memorable holiday experience.
Somehow we ended up at The Hensheng Peninsula—a four star hotel in the center of the city. A place that's spotless, luxurious, and way out of our price range; except the apartment-style rooms on the 19th floor for $20/night. Yeah, we don't get that either. Highlights from our three day visit to Shanghai included eating rice and beef dishes for breakfast—from KFC, bargaining with local street vendors, playing intense games of ping pong in the hotel rec room, and watching a beautiful firework display over the river and city from the rooftop.Up next: HONG KONG!
