So we're still in Guangzhou and things picked up today. Our overnight bus leaves in a couple of hours and we are just relaxing after a very exciting day. We decided to check out of the hotel and hit the park to waste the day away. Now this isn't your ordinary park. It's your real beautiful, swans in the lake, Tai Chi type of retreat. We payed our 5 Yuan to get in and on our way towards the animal farm we happened upon what looked like a children's playground nestled right in front of a ping pong haven. To Mateo's delight! He sat around for a while looking like the kid who didn't get picked while I filmed the ping pong masters and the myriad of other physical activities people were invested in. I started heading back to where I left Mateo and what did I see...the lonely child with a paddle in his hand. He had been chosen. From 12:30 to 4:00 he took full advantage of this opportunity. People were taking turns playing him and you know what, he's GOOOOD! While Forest Gump was in ping pong bliss I was making friends with a 7 and an 11 year old. They offered me peanuts, cookies and carrot waterchestnut juice and we were buddies. The children's playground turned out to double as a workout facility for all ages and these kids were really impressed by some of the things I could do. Of course being 2 feet taller than them gave me quite an advantage. We played on every piece of equipment and then we ran off to get more juice. For about 30 seconds we caught our breath before running over to the amusement park to go on the spinning buckets, bumper cars and giant swing all before racing remote control boats in the lake. We were really enjoying ourselves and don't forget about the stares because people were certainly looking at me, this over grown child running through the park with these two energetic kids that I had only met hours before.
We ended the day with a relaxing wading through the water in a paddle boat with the family we had just met. It was great even the very end when the boat ride turned into an all out game of boat ramming and we chased boats down in the serene lake of Liu Hua. Today was one of those good days filled with some of those good people.
Joronda
2 comments:
Yessss! (Said with Napoleon Dynamite dialect.) I'm glad you had such a great day with the kids.
Sounds like you have your good and bad days.... hopefully the good days, even if occuring seldomly, outweight the bad ones.....thats kids for you though... doesnt matter the orgin cause they are just kids
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