This past weekend, Brian and I attended the American Chamber of Commerce Spring Ball in Guangzhou, China. I've been to GZ more times than I can count, but it was Brian's first trip there. Guangzhou is just a 2 hour 15 minute train ride from Hong Kong, so it is super convenient to get there. I have to say, I'm pretty spoiled. Normally, when I arrive at the train station, there is a driver waiting for me holding an adidas sign, ready to take me either to the office or the factory I am visiting that day. This time, we were on our own. I figured, hey, taking a taxi should be no big deal. It's what we do nearly daily in Hong Kong. Luckily, I had asked the hotel what we should pay to get from the train station to the hotel, and they told me 20RMB (about 3USD). When we first exited the train station, we saw a bunch of people flagging down taxis, so we figured we would do the same. We flagged down three different ones, and their rates varied from 80RMB to a staggering 150RMB. I think Brian finds it entertaining to see me haggle, then get pissed, in situations like this, so he just sat back and watched. I finally got so mad that I decided we should walk to the hotel. We walked for about 5 minutes, and then we saw the official taxi stand that we should have gone to to begin with! There, the taxis were waiting, and when I asked the driver "how much?", he just pointed to the meter - duh. It was 17RMB, and I'm so glad that we took the taxi, because 1) 3KM is farther than I was thinking and 2) a torrential downpour began just after we started to drive. Deep breath, KP!
The next order of business was to get my hair done. Now, I'm not a tomboy, but when it comes to making my hair look nice, especially for these kinds of events, I'm not the best. So, I booked an appointment at our hotel, and went with an open mind to what the country of China could do with this Western hair. Well, we started with teasing every last piece of my hair - I was very nervous at this point, because, well, I have a lot of hair and it was looking as if I had just stuck my finger in an electrical socket. Next, we used nearly an entire can of hairspray on every piece of my hair. Finally, everything was pinned up, followed by not one, but two more heavy shellac-ing's of my hair. Needless to say, my hair did not MOVE the entire night. But, I was happy with the result - much better than anything I could have done! :)
After that, we got ready and headed down the the hotel bar, where I had quite a surreal moment. In GZ, the expat community is quite close, and the footwear industry is just one happy family. I had colleagues from both Nike and adidas there in the same bar, and it was just a really nice moment. It was good to catch up with my colleagues from Nike, and I got to meet some new friends from the adidas side. There are some real characters on my team, and I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.
The ball this year had a Love Boat theme. I originally had thought about getting an 80's-esque dress - I am so glad I didn't. Many of the men were dressed in theme (picture white captain shirts, white shorts, and white tube socks), but all of the women just looked nice. Good call. We didn't have much time to find a costume for Brian either, but we did find a captain's hat in a little alley-way in Hong Kong that has any type of costume you would ever want. Many of the men in our group wore tuxes (getting tuxes made in China is oh-so-inexpensive) with vests that they had had made that looked like life-jackets. Brilliant!
 |
| My Captain and I |
The event was LOUD. I was getting hoarse by the end of the night trying to be heard over the speakers. There were two Chinese bands, singing everything from Lady Gaga to Donna Summers. They were... okay. Brian actually got on the dance floor with me, which was a treat for sure. Normally copious amounts of alcohol are required for an appearance from Brian Travolta, however, he busted a move relatively sober this time. We had a blast. :)
One of the funny parts of the evening was the concept of "the Lucky Draw". There were about 15 different raffles, and some of them were the most random things... like 20 Dahon bikes. These are the fold-able bikes that commuters use. What the hell would anyone do with 20 bikes? Even if you shared your raffle winnings with everyone at your table, you would still have 2 each. Brian and I were hoping we would win, just so we would have the interesting problem of getting 4 fold-able bikes back to Hong Kong. Regrettably, some other lucky table won that prize. The other funny thing was the "value" that they assigned to all of the raffles. For example, they put the value of one night's stay in a Presidential Suite, plus breakfast for two, at 50,000RMB (close to 8500USD). Um, what?? Everything was so ridiculously over-inflated that I was just cracking up about the insanity of it all!
The night eventually came to an end, and Brian and I enjoyed our night at the magnificent Ritz-Carlton, Guangzhou. Now, before you go thinking that we are all fancy, a friend of ours had a gift certificate for a free night there, so the entire stay was gratis. I had never stayed in a Ritz before, and, when I woke up, I told Brian that I felt like we were sleeping in the White House. This was honestly the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in, and I've stayed in some pretty nice places. We went downstairs for the breakfast, which was also amazing, and read the China Daily, China's English newspaper. Quite entertaining to read highly censored, highly propaganda-ish news. Especially entertaining was to read China's take on the US's imposition of anti-dumping measures on solar panels. We were super curious to get back home and read the story from the US point of view. Regardless, I think it's pretty special that we get to have these kinds of experiences, and see things from a different perspective. In the gym, the English news is Al Jazeera, so that's also an interesting take on the world. But, I digress...
After breakfast, we just wanted to check out a bit of the city. I have to say, sometimes we look at each other and we are like, "so... we are in China. How did that happen??". This morning was one of those moments. We were walking around, checking out all these crazy, huge, "hey - look at me" buildings, surrounded by Chinese families, listening to blaring Chinese opera music, and just trying to take it all in. I feel so lucky to get to do this with my best friend... travelling around Europe was fantastic, but I did a lot of it on my own. There is something so special about sharing travel moments with someone, and we both just feel so lucky to have had this opportunity together. I think that this kind of move either makes a couple or it breaks you, and Brian and I have become even closer because of it. We truly enjoy every moment together, and all of the travel I do just makes us value every moment that we ARE together that much more. Okay, enough sappiness, I know, barf.
In parting... some of Guangzhou's finest:
 |
| The TV Tower... not sure how tall TV towers need to be, but check this out compared to the apartment buildings next to it... um, is this really necessary?? |
 |
| The Opera House... a strange cross between a motor boat and a spaceship |
 |
| And my favorite part of the day (mostly because it was bloody hot) - the huge fountain that danced to Chinese Opera music. I'm a sucker for dancing fountains, I gotta say! :) |
No comments:
Post a Comment