Girls night out: Chaozhou, Guangdong shopping trip

Helen and I joined a group of teachers from Thomas's school and on an overnight shopping trip to Chaozhou...about 4 hours south of Xiamen along the coast and just over the border into the Guangdong province. They had booked a bus and a hotel here, which is well known as a porcelain center in China with a lot of wholesale dealers and excellent deals! Helen befriended one of the two male teachers in the group-- naturally it was Thomas's homeroom teacher! She and I had a nice time one on one for a change, including a late night tea party with the tea set in our hotel room. They had also hired a guide, and he and I had an interesting conversation about the pressures his generation (he is in his late 20s) is feeling with all the changes in the Chinese economy, the loss of company-provided (or government-provided) housing, urbanization, etc.

In the morning some of us went first to the Chaozhou Porcelain museum, where we saw some enormous and intricate pieces.

And some smaller, more modern pieces as well. Did you see the Mao Zedong piece above?

One of my motives for going was to spend some time with a new friend, Julia, and her 2 daughters who have just moved to Xiamen. She and I met online over the summer and she has previously lived in China, and both of her daughters are adopted from China, like Helen. We enjoyed shopping along with my neighbor Deborah and her daughter, although our motley group got the least shopping done, I think. I manages to buy a couple of tea sets at a heavy discount. This photo is of a cute baby and a really interesting old-fashioned stroller.

When we went downtown we, we stopped for some waffle-like snacks on the street, apparently a Guangdong thing, because Julia was familiar with them.

For, lunch rice and meat cooked in a bamboo log...which we spotted at some adjacent tables, since we couldn't read the menu we got lucky!

Finally, a harrowing and thrilling ride in a motorcycle pedicab back to the bus, since we were running late and no taxis to be found. The amazing thing about this city was there were almost all motorcycles on the street, none of whom paid the least attention to lights, lanes or rules of any kind, yet as long as you made no sudden moves, it seemed to work OK. Glad that motorcycles are banned from Xiamen island, though.