Sunday 22 July
We were up at 7 am for our train, which left Guiyang
at 10:20 am.
Around midday, at the Congjiang train station, three
trains arrived, bringing together the old friends — Mulan, Lily, Yiran, Xiner
and Lara. Back in 2007, they all met and
became friends at “baby place”, the main grassy area at our home at Sun Yat-sen
University, where the babies and pre-kindy kids would hang out every day for
their outdoor exercise. When the girls
were barely crawling, we shared each other’s mats and toys, talking baby
stuff. As they got older the girls had
play dates and sleepovers at each others' homes. A few years later Xiner and family moved to
Guilin, and then a few years later again we moved to New Zealand, and Lily has
also now moved away, so it was awesome that we could all get together and let
the girls reconnect.
Jumping into two people-mover taxis, all 14 of us (the
three new girls just brought their mums each) drove to the holiday resort where
we would stay for the next few nights.
It is an old village area of a minority people, the Dong, but newly set
up as a tourist resort. That is, a few
of the buildings are old and authentic, while most are newly created replicas
to house and entertain the tourists (I think Yiran complained that it was too
fake). A lot of it is quite picturesque,
with cutesy old-looking wooden (or wood clad or wood facade) buildings set in a
valley dotted alongside a creek. The
road into the village is barricaded, and we need tickets to get in.
We arrived at our hotel about 12:30 pm, but apparently
it is a busy place and fully booked out, so our rooms weren’t available until
after 2 pm. So, everyone else went off
to lunch while I sat and rested with the bags.
Around 2:30 pm we got our rooms. Inside the rooms, they have a bit of a
tent-like feel to them, as the rooms are small with low ceilings and the beds
are on the floor (mattresses are Chinese style — inner sprung with what feels
like a wooden board on top, making it extra, extra firm). They don’t even have TVs! The hotel itself is like a rabbits’ warren,
with corridors and rooms at odd angles, small stairs up and down and
half-height doors. It looks like it was
a bit-by-bit construction, with not a lot of advanced planning. But somehow it all comes together to have an
artistically creative feel, and, of course, lots of potential for children to
Have Grand Adventures.
While we were organising our room, the children found
the art room, and came back a while later splattered with clay. We felt that our hotel area was safe enough
that the children could run around reasonably freely.
I had a late lunch of specially ordered vegetarian
jiaozi at a nearby restaurant. For
dinner, all the families got together at another nearby restaurant (about every
second shop here is a restaurant!).
At 8 pm we went to a free one-hour concert at the
village outdoor stage, which told the story of the Dong people coming to the
area. It was too loud (at least for my
non-Chinese ears) and, though enthusiastic, a little amateurishly
performed. Miya and I left early (along
with maybe a quarter of the crowd), but Mulan wanted to stay until the end.
Monday 23 July
My tummy had been continuing to trouble me in a
moderate way, and it wasn’t coming right as quickly as I had expected. With the busy activities and not much food
going in, I had eventually run out of energy to the point where I was feeling
dizzy and wobbly. I was also feeling sick
in my stomach, and couldn’t eat. So, it
was time to visit a hospital for antibiotics and an energy drip. Fortunately, the village has a hospital, and
we caught the local golf-cart taxi there.
A couple of hours connected to a drip, and I started to feel
stronger. I was also supplied with pills
and energy drink sachets (to add to my water) to get me back to normal
again. We returned home, where I rested
on the bed for the remainder of the day.
In the meantime, Mulan and Miya had continued to
happily play with the other girls out and about around the hotel, while
Mama was with me at the hospital.
This was the end of Mama’s holiday with us, as she
had to go to Beijing to be with Laolao, who was having another operation for
her cancer. The exact date for the
operation hadn’t been known before we left New Zealand, so Mama leaving
partway through our travels was late re-planning. Mama left the village about 4 pm,
catching a taxi to the train station, then a train to Guilin, then finally a
plane to Beijing.
Mulan and Miya had dinner out with the other families,
while I continued resting at home.
Tuesday 24 July
Feeling a bit stronger, I ate our free hotel breakfast
with the girls in the morning.
About 10 am, the girls went out for a walk with the
other families. Apparently they bussed
up a mountain, then walked back down, getting back around 5 pm. A good time was had by all.
I rested in the morning, then around mid-afternoon I
felt strong enough to start exploring the outdoor neighbourhood. I wandered out and around our hotel, before
heading out back, discovering that behind the hotel I could follow the river
upstream up the valley.
A newly built stone path criss-crossed back and forth
over the river as I steadily walked away from the village, rice paddy fields on
either side of me. No other tourists
were around at all, but I met up with the occasional group of locals. There were plenty of hellos and ni haos from
both sides as I passed, and one builder offered me a cigarette while one woman
worker on her rest break patted a seat beside her asking me to sit with
her. It is interesting that without
Mama and the girls, the locals were immediately much more interactive with
me.
Dotted periodically along the path were newly built,
or partly built, or being built, wooden structures. Some were recognisably pavilions. One may be going to be a public toilet
building (just a guess). One was a
covered-in bridge, a tradition of the local area. Clearly, there is a lot of construction work
going on, with the intent of making this area a massive tourist
destination. In the village itself there
are a huge number of hotel-like buildings being built. I have my doubts about whether the finished
project will be worth visiting, and I am glad we came now before this village
gets too big.
Since the path kept going, I kept walking, too, until
Miya phoned to say that they were back home at the hotel. So, I turned around and started back. At a fast, continuous pace downhill, I got
home 40 minutes later, having been out a couple of hours or so. Not too bad, considering my weakened state,
but my legs were slightly wobbly going down the steps.
The girls ate dinner with the families, while I had
takeaway jiaozi in my hotel room.
Wednesday 25 July
We had our free hotel breakfast again in the morning.
Our (Mama’s) original plan had been to leave the
village this day, and stay one night at a nearby tea farm. Without Mama here, we left it up to the
other four mothers to make the decision about whether to stay or go. I thought that (a) there was plenty to do
here for the girls to play freely around that made moving unnecessary, and (b)
with me being sick I still hadn’t explored everything here, so my non-forceful
thought was that I’d rather stay.
I am not sure what the final reasoning was, but the
mothers decided to stay at the village rather than move. At least partly I guess it was because Yiran
had to leave early anyway, catching her train back to Guangzhou at something
like 6 pm.
Nonetheless, they decided to have a day trip to the
tea farm, before Yiran left. I didn’t go
with them, thinking it best that Mulan and Miya do Chinese stuff without Dad
interfering. They left just after 10 am,
and got back around 4 pm. Again, from
what I hear, they all had a wonderful time.
I heard that some thought that maybe we should have stayed the night
there at the tea farm! I know nothing
more about the trip other than that the tea farm owners Tom Sawyer-ed them into
picking tea up and down the fields.
Meanwhile, I wandered out the front door of our hotel
this time, heading down into the village centre. In this direction, almost everyone I saw was
a tourist, and the streets were fairly crowded.
There is a real mix of buildings, from genuinely old looking village
homes, to make-do brick and wood, to modern several-storey concrete hotels with
wooden cladding. Pretty much the entire
village consists of hotels, restaurants or souvenir shops.
A local product they do here is dyed cloth. Mulan told me that they saw it being done, where the locals put wax on parts of the cloth before dipping it in the dye. Mulan also informed me that the village colour is blue, since their dyed cloths are all blue. The girls all bought fold-up blue-dyed fans, which they took with them everywhere outside, fanning themselves in the heat just like local Chinese.
Near the entrance to the village, they had another of
the covered bridges (much older this time) where a few men were sitting
painting the scenery, which included water wheels lifting water to irrigate the
rice paddy fields. I wandered around in
their scenery for a bit.
The village is also known for their several drum
towers, dotted around. These were kinda
interesting, though perhaps they were all just modern replicas — an old-looking
one’s sign says it was re-built in 1982 (it looked much older than that).
When the others returned about 4 pm, I joined them for
“lunch”. It seems that they had snacked
a lot throughout their tea-picking time, and hadn’t had a chance to sit down to
eat. We said goodbye to Yiran immediately
after lunch.
After lunch, the girls continued to play (somewhere)
with the other three families. They had
planned to see a performance in the evening but it didn’t happen, nonetheless
they stayed out until 9:30 pm.
Thursday 26 July
We had our final free hotel breakfast in the morning.
The girls were saying their goodbyes one by one. First up, we said goodbye to Lily and
family. Their train home wasn’t until
later in the evening, while ours, Lara’s and Xiner’s trains were all around
midday. So, we three families left the
village together around 11 am, getting a people-mover taxi to the train
station.
Next it was time to say goodbye to Xiner, as her train
to Guilin left at 12:10 pm, while ours to Guangzhou, with Lara, left six
minutes earlier.
Our train journey took about three and a half hours,
and then it was back to our familiar home territory of Guangzhou. We said a temporary goodbye to Lara after we
got out of the metro station.
It was a busy evening: a return to our (Kane’s)
apartment to dump our bags, then walking to our old Park n Shop for supplies,
and then we were out again to meet up with Yiran and Lara. The girls had dinner together at Pizza Hut (I
had a quiet dinner at home) before returning in about 9 pm.
In the meantime, Laolao had had her operation, and
from what we hear it went well.
Friday 27 July
Just before 10 am, the three of us headed out for a
walk to and around our old home of Sun Yat-sen University. I had lived there from when Mama and I
got married in 2006 until we moved to New Zealand in 2014. We walked in the Uni at our old gate (West
Gate) and down the drive to our old home building (747). The only change that we could see was that
they had built a handrail going up the ramp to the building entrance door (my
guess is to stop cars parking too close by the entrance). Mulan grabbed the door as a water delivery
man went in, and we caught the lift up to our old home (1001). In the lift some old neighbours recognised us
and plied Mulan with lots of questions. We didn’t knock on the door of our old home,
but we looked out the window in the stairwell, enjoying the old familiar view.
We then walked past the local market area (but of
course we wouldn’t unnecessarily go in!), and on towards baby place. A couple of years ago, when we last visited,
we saw that the old running track/soccer field by baby place was being dug
up. Well, now they have finished it and
it looks amazing. They have build a new
outdoor sports ground (a 6-lane rubber athletics track around a fake-grass
soccer field) with a car park underneath.
Mulan immediately did some handstands and cartwheels on the new-looking
fake grass, and found she was a bit rusty from not doing any of those sorts of
movements for a month. If I remember
rightly, it was on that old soccer field that Mulan first learnt to do forward
rolls.
Then it was on to baby place, which Mulan thought
looked so small, then past Mama’s old work buildings and out the Uni North
Gate to the river. We ate our lunch at
the riverside, before walking alongside the river towards home. Once again, coming up the street from the
river we passed Mulan’s old kindy and the pet shop before arriving in home,
just over three hours later.
At 2 pm Tongtong (another of Mulan's friends) arrived with her mum, as planned, and
the girls went out to play at Xiaogang Park.
I stayed at home again to give them some quality Chinese time without
Dad. They arrived back about 6:30 pm.
Us three had takeaway pizza at home while packing our
bags for our flight the next day.
Saturday 28 July
Our holiday was over, except for a day of travelling
home (does that also count as part of the holiday?). We left home about 10:30 am, escorted by
Grace and Yiran’s Mama, who were tasked with the job of making sure we really
left their city. At the Guangzhou South
Railway Station (really, this time), we said our goodbyes to catch the 12:10 pm
fast train to Shenzhen.
We had a small bit of trouble in Shenzhen. We aimed to catch the metro from the
intercity train station to the airport, but the first problem was that the
metro had three stations that had “airport” in their name — Airport North,
Airport East and Airport. It looked like
it might be possible to fly out of any of them, and we didn’t know from which we
were scheduled to depart. So, a phone
call to Mama was needed, while we stood at the crowded ticket
machines. After some quick research by
Mama, it turns out (we think) that the "Airport" is the only
genuine airport metro station, and the other two are just badly named stations
nearby.
Problem number two was that we didn’t have enough
change — these ticket machines don’t accept notes bigger than 20 RMB. So, while I held our place at the front of
the long queue, the girls raced to change a 100 RMB note. With those delays, we arrived at the airport slightly
later than intended, about two and a quarter hours before our flight left.
But all was good, and, with about 40 minutes until we
were due to board the plane, we sat at the gate and ate our lunch. Our flight, which was due to leave at 4:50
pm, took off maybe 30 minutes late. We
all slept a little, but not a lot, on the smooth flight. I watched one movie, while I think the girls
watched a couple each.
Sunday 29 July
We arrived into Auckland just after 8 am (New Zealand
time), where we caught the shuttle bus almost to our home door (we got off at
the Smales Farm bus station). Home just
after 10 am, for a door to door journey of just under 20 hours.
Sunday 12 August
Mama arrived back in Auckland, after spending an
extra two weeks in China. Laolao is
recovering well from her operation.
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