Century Park

Well you have seen my pictures of People's Park (the park with the statue of Mao) so here is Century Park. (There will also be more pictures of this later and of the other well known "water park" I went by it once and there were carnival rides so we'll see how much I feel like risking my life before I go) Wendy (my student), me, Sherly, Jenna, and Yvonne (Jenna's student) (yes, we are standing in that order) just walked around looked at the sites then had an amazing dinner. The students thought we were quite the riot since Jenna and I are extremely sarcastic with each other (which we had to explain to them and tell them we were being sarcastic after each sarcastic phrase) There is a lot of space and some different rides and things to do (we will probably rent a paddle boat one of these days, no skiing or tubing but at least I'll get on the water, not that I would go in the nasty water in China anyway) There is a giant TV tower in the middle, I think it's pretty uncreative that they have this big tower and it's unimportant b/c it's a TV tower, but can't they think of a better name for it? Well, anyway this is the park that I did the bubbles on the water in (see earlier post). When Wendy and I got there we walked into a dating service thing. There were posters hanging on strings that people were writing their phone numbers on and taking information down. We were looking at them (and some information included a picture, name, birthday, and salary!) then I noticed a man video taping me. He turned out to be a reporter for a no name newspaper who wanted me to say a few words, so I said my words and he kept taping! It's so odd how exotic you are seen as.

The restaurant we went to afterwards had amazing food and we got a free beer b/c they were so excited to see foreigners for the first time (they were also over 20) Sometimes I just can't imagine that some Chinese people have never seen a foreigner. I asked my students on one of the first days of class how many of them have never seen a foreigner until me and I had over 10 hands raised!!! How can you live without seeing anyone other then a Chinese person???

There are also 2 pictures of a golf course...what a difference!! Wow, the grass was brown the place was crowded...but I'm sure it was still expensive to golf there. We had to explain to Wendy and Yvonne that in America golf courses always look like paradise. Again, follow the link to the rest of the pics. They're not photographer quality but who else is sending you pictures of China :) http://picasaweb.google.com/cccapper/CenturyPark