The first city, Zhaoqing is a pictureque lake side city of four million people located in the interior of Guangdong province. Signs of growth are everywhere and it is easy to see that the local government is so eager to promote the place.
The men's team placed 7th out of 17 teams in the regatta, ahead of Italy and behind Australia. The venue was the stunning Star Lake, with the imposing crags hovering over the lake like a sentinel.
During the closing ceremonies, all boats were required to huddle in front of a makeshift stage to hear prepared speeches by various officials. Since these had to be translated into equally unintelligible English, everything took twice as long.
We were treated to a spectacle of lion dances and surfing stunts on speed boats.
Due to the lengthy program, we had no choice but to make conversation with the Chinese in the other boats, albeit mostly in sign language.
The Guangzhou guy on the right wants to know about the Communist Party of the Philippines and was clearly trying to impress us with his newly-acquired American cuss words, his favorite being the F word, having worked for a Canadian firm.
The Tianjin guy on my left, a student, and very friendly, told me the location of Foshan. Why he thinks I was asking about Foshan is beyond me, I wasn't even aware that it existed.
The men's team placed 7th out of 17 teams in the regatta, ahead of Italy and behind Australia. The venue was the stunning Star Lake, with the imposing crags hovering over the lake like a sentinel.
During the closing ceremonies, all boats were required to huddle in front of a makeshift stage to hear prepared speeches by various officials. Since these had to be translated into equally unintelligible English, everything took twice as long.
We were treated to a spectacle of lion dances and surfing stunts on speed boats.
Due to the lengthy program, we had no choice but to make conversation with the Chinese in the other boats, albeit mostly in sign language.
The Guangzhou guy on the right wants to know about the Communist Party of the Philippines and was clearly trying to impress us with his newly-acquired American cuss words, his favorite being the F word, having worked for a Canadian firm.
The Tianjin guy on my left, a student, and very friendly, told me the location of Foshan. Why he thinks I was asking about Foshan is beyond me, I wasn't even aware that it existed.
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