On to Shanghai!

We finally left Guiyang this morning and flew to Shanghai. Guiyang (and Guizhou) are a study in contrasts. Overlooking the main city square is a statue of Chairman Mao, but underneath the square is a Super Wal-Mart. Guiyang had a really nice downtown with lots of fashionable stores and people driving expensive cars, yet some of the worst housing I've seen in a city. Besides the old style block apartment buildings, I saw people living in buildings that were partly demolished. The countryside was even worse, but satellite dishes were abundant in the villages. Guiyang doesn't see many tourists, so we became a tourist attraction ourselves, with people pointing and taking pictures of us all everywhere we went. The surrounding countryside is beautiful, but very poor. We saw some incredible sights, however, including taking a boat ride through the Dragon Palace cave, visiting the Orange Falls, and taking a hike that included walking through a cave and views of several small waterfalls. We also visited 2 minority villages, which were beautiful in a rustic way, and I'm sure you'll enjoy the pictures, but the smell was horrendous.

One of the best parts of visiting Guiyang was going to the Guizhou Minorities University, where one of Dr. Liu's brothers is a professor of fine art, and meeting several students. Our day began with a question and answer session. We then broke into small groups with no more than 3 Americans per group and had lunch with the students. Their command of English was widely varied, and none of the students in my group really spoke English. Fortunately, one of them went and found a friend of theirs who did speak English and he joined us for lunch. The students were some of the nicest people that I have ever met, and even though we couldn't always understand each other, it was very interesting learning about their lives. After lunch, they showed us their campus, and finally their artwork, which was incredible. I traded email addresses with a couple of them and I hope to keep in touch with them.

After Guiyang, Shanghai is a welcome change. Although just as hot and humid, I enjoy not being a tourist attraction! Actually, we've all been staring at the other white people! There's a McDonald's and a Starbucks across the street from our hotel, and a KFC next door. I can't wait to have coffee for breakfast again! And I have to admit, even though I was trying to eat all Chinese food on this trip, I broke down and went to McDonald's for lunch (it was just too convenient!). Anyways, time for dinner, but if I have the chance, I'll write more about Shanghai later. And by the way, it was Matt's birthday yesterday. You can still call him and wish him a happy birthday, if you haven't already ;-)
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