Zhongshan - Day 2.

Didi, the market, Maylin, beggars, number 2 tea, the radio museum, a church, two temples, one park, two museums, and my first electric bike! AND root beer!

The day started with my huge buffet breakfast.  Nice.  I later met Julie in the Hotel lobby and went to meet her friend Meylin.  Apparently Meylin can speak English very well.  Amongst other things today, we are going to visit a church, and a temple.  It sounds like an interesting day particularly because the church is in the poor area of the Western Commercial District and that is the area I had been in in yesterday!

We started off by taking a didi taxi (similar to über) to meet Maylin. Julie taught me.how to use the app.  It is surprisingly simple to use except for the fact that it is all in Chinese!  On the way to the drop off I noticed a street market.  I love these, so when Maylin said she would be late, I asked Julie to accompany me there.  She was not so keen but came along.  It was dirty, smelly and the people were raw.  I love places like that!  We couldn't stay long as Maylin said she was at the meeting place.

So we wandered off and met Maylin.  We then headed off to the church.  On the way I met with some beggars.  The girls were a bit scared but I loved it!

Just before the church we passed a Cantonese Tea shop.  The girls asked if I wanted some tea.  Of course!  They bought me some number two black tea!  It was sweet with a hint of sesame!

I even got some very strange 'sugar' made from oranges or orange peel or both.

Before we got to the Church we visited a radio museum!  It had radios.  Sorry, no photos.

We then got to the church.  It was big and pink and closed.  But we looked around outside.

After the church we walked into town and to the first and rather newer, more ostentatious than the second one!  No photos were allowed inside so I took a few outside!

Inside was very gold and very elaborate.  Walls and walls of Buddha figures sponsored by various people and other rooms filled with huge gold Buddhas.  One.room in particular caught my attention.  Buddha was surrounded by twelve 'gods' which represented the twelve signs of the zodiac.  All of these 'gods' had weapons, but  my 'god' has a handbell!  Make what you want of that!

We left there and went to a huge liked everywhere else find the world has shopping mall. We ate lunch.  Chinese food but good tasty stuff! A mixture of crispy pancakes, fried shredded potato, cauliflower, pork, posts strips in sweet bean sauce and cauliflower.  Plus lots of sweet green tea. Below is a picture of Maylin and Julie at lunch.

After lunch we went for a walk and talk.  I took a few photos on the way. Stuff that caught my eye for various reasons.  The first one is of a shop.  Meat hygiene is not a priority.

Pink roses is enough on its own.  With teddies it is too much, and teddies with diamonds on their heads!?  No more to be said!

We had wandered a long way from town and now headed back into town on the bus.  A short journey , and we were at the park.  Inside the park there was a huge building dedicated to the memory of Sun Zhongshan, a local statesman and thinker.  Apparently the town is named after him!  Sun Zhongshamn even went to England to study under this guy, by his name was not mentioned, and I can't manage a Google image search at the moment.

Sun Zhongshan

The building was huge and mainly empty except for wall displays.  After looking around here we went to the other less ostentatious temple.  No one objected to photograph being taken so I took a few...carefully!

As in the other temple, I lit a few joss sticks and did some praying.We then. Theheaded off to another museum.  This one was again dedicated to Sun Zhongshan but was a history of the town from the Qing  Dynasty (1912:1945 ) and then through the early days of the Republic of China.  As museums go, it was quite interesting.  Not only were there the usual  walls dispalys, but also some very lifelike mannequins acting out various scenes from the early days of the Republic of China.  It made very interesting reading.  What caught my imagination was the acknowledgement of the influence of the return if Chinese expats to China, and how their experiences of department stores in Australia and Hong Kong, was brought back to China and augmented the idea of the Chinese department stores.

We left there, had a drink and parted company with Mai Li.  Then having sorted out my bike hiring app.  Mr and Julie headed of through rush hour traffic on electric bikes!  I wish I had had a body cam.  It was fun!  Fortunately there were lots of other electric bikes too, so I  rode between them so they would give me cover!  

Back at the hotel, I said goodbye to Julie.  Tonight I will go with her and her friend to a music bar.  I am already tired so this will be a challenge!

Julie gave me a call at about call at about 7.45 and we took a taxi to meet Marlin.  We met at a music bar called Full House.  It was a small place but quite nice and like most music bars it was difficult to hear anyone talk, bit we tried and then ate.  

I forgot to take a picture at the start of the meal and was left with this photo at the end of the meal!  Left to right was: wild garlic and spicy mushrooms., Spicy aubergine, BBQ beef, smoked fish, and two further portions of spicy aubergine.  It was good!

The above photo is Berry and Julie.  Berry chose the name berry because her name in Chinese sounds like the Chinese for strawberry.  Afterwards we walked Berry to the bus stop and took a taxi to the hotel.  Julie then took me and showed me the area behingd the hotel, her neighbourhood.  We said goodnight and went our separate ways.  I popped into a small store near the.hotel looking for ice-cream as the meal had been quite spicy.  However the ice-cream fridge was full of other non frozen stuff, so I went to explore the drinks fridges. All six of them.  I knew most of the ones in the fridge even the historical britishmuseum.org drinks.  The abundance of these britishmuseum.org drinks really surprises me, they are everywhere.....why!?  Anyhow, I picked one that I didn't know.  Good plan.  It turned out to be root beer!  An excellent ending to a tiring day.  Tomorrow I am having a day off, but might still go out anyway and have booked an evening meal with Julie.  She knows I like fried rice and she knows a shop called Fried rice, sir! Sounds good to me!

root beer