China 2012 - Journal 2

Journal 2

If I collected ten cents from everyone who looked intently and with intense interest (“stared”) at us, I would be very, very, rich in these few days! We are in the city of Guiyang, in Guizhou Province. There are over 3 million persons here. We have not seen a single foreigner! I reckon that this is the first time many have gotten close to a foreigner, much less a Black stranger. Those who are not looking are being nudged by those beside them to “look.” And those who are brave enough try to say something to us! It is fun! Just great to see entire busloads of passengers heads turn to see this phenomenon!

Today we had lunch with the mother’s side of the family at a wonderful restaurant overlooking a famous tourist spot, the Jiaxiu Pavillion. On the way back we toured around the People’s Square and took pictures of the large statue of Chairman Mao. Below the huge square is the largest Walmart Supercenter I have ever seen. It has 48 checkout counters!

Lots of walking this week! Even though I lost a day and a half crossing the International Dateline and flying for about 18 hours, I still logged a few steps short of 135,000 pedometer steps (that is about 54 miles). Wow!