Guangzhou... formerly known as Canton... home of Cantonese cuisine. Now it feels like we're in China. Beijing was so oriented toward foreigners and the Olympics that it didn't feel like a real city. Guangzhou feels less crowded and more livable. It also has a few palm trees and is on the water, which makes it feel cleaner. I like it here.
Last night we went to dinner with our colleague Hai Ying, who was born here in Guangzhou and moved to NYC as a teenager. She took us out with her friends to an authentic Cantonese "hot pot" dinner. As we walked through the restaurant we passed aquariums filled with seafood and plates displaying every meat and vegetable one could think of-- all of which can be chosen to be dropped in the "hot pot", a cauldron of steaming rice soup that sits on the table, waiting to be filled. Hai Ying and her friends ordered us countless dishes, and it seemed like we were there for days, having our bowls and teacups endlessly refilled. It was delicious. It's so nice spending time with someone who knows the city and the culture-- Hai Ying is also going to take us around town this afternoon, which should be an experience.
The markets we have seen so far are filled with mounds of dried food, like starfish and mushrooms bigger than my head, not to mention bowls of scorpions and other insects. We walked through the dried-food quarter, which became the pets-in-cages quarter, and eventually turned into the electronics and red lanterns quarter. We'll see what else we find this afternoon...
Guangzhou is also the place of thousands of overseas adoptions. The neighborhood where we're staying, Shaiman Island, is located near the American embassy, and is filled with literally hundreds of American couples pushing Chinese babies in strollers. All of the stores in this area are filled with baby clothes and pampers-- it's like nothing I've ever seen!
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