Playing Tourist

Did two big touristy things in Guangzhou this week: the circus and a river cruise.

Random placement of lions. 

Monday night, I went with two colleagues to a phenomenal circus, which was at the same place as the safari park (there’s also a water park, a crocodile park, a theme park and a hotel). We paid about $55 for it and it was totally worth it.

Oddly and sort of comfortingly, there were few animals. It was mostly acrobatics. Honestly, I was really preparing to be depressed over the treatment of animals, but in reality, with one exception, it didn’t seem abusive. Odd, but not abusive.

The odd started immediately, when the very first thing (after some clowns) was performers on horseback. The horses cantered around and these acrobats amazingly did all kinds of tricks. I don’t mean something as mundane as standing on a cantering horse; I mean more like three sets of people on each other’s shoulders straddling two cantering horses, or another performer flipping over and under another one. It was incredible. The oddness of that act was sitting in the middle: the horses cantered in a ring, with a giant clamshell-like thing in the middle. Seated in it were three people, petting lions. As Steph would say, Whisky. Tango. Foxtrot.

The other non-abusive oddities in the animal world were these really random interruptions. There would be some performers out, doing something mind-boggling, and then all of a sudden, a small herd of deer, a giraffe or an ostrich or something would run through.

Hamster wheel of death. I didn't take this photo.

I don’t remember many acts that were totally dependent on the animals. Most were used as dressing, like a parade of acrobats doing flips on motorcycles (people flips, not motorcycle flips) followed by a flock of flamingos. They did have elephants perform at one point. One stood with one foot on a stool and spun around with its three other legs off the ground. Two others flipped a jump rope.

The one animal thing that creeped me out was the bears. It was very unnatural. The bears were riding bikes and motorcycles. I didn't like that at all.

Most of the stuff was just unreal. They put on the circus every night, and I just don’t see how. The performers are from all over the world (there was a screen with a display prior to every act) and are just unbelievable.

Halfway during the horses, I turned to one of my colleagues and said it was worth every RMB we paid.

Insane motorcycle riders. Photo filched from internet.

The horses weren't even the coolest. Have you seen those big metal balls where people ride motorcycles in them? Like in upside-down circles? Well, they had one with THREE, and one guy went against the grain. I don't see how they didn't crash. Then they added more, and then they added more again. They had 7-9 motorcycles in it, with one guy going in an opposite direction. It was scary.

Then they had this giant thing like a hamster wheel that had four more hamster wheels out of it - four rotating circles rotating around a center one. They had guys in each circle, doing flips and jumps as the things rotated around the middle one. Of course, they flipped upside down on the rotation. Then they'd jump to the top of the circle, balancing as it rotated itself and rotated around the center. They started doing things like flips and jumps and did things like skipping rope and stripping. It was really fun. I was terrified for them. All three of us who went could barely watch.

My building (IFP) is to your left of the 100-story one.

The finale was this diving/trampoline thing. It was quite fun to watch, almost a comic routine. They had two trampolines in front of two “buildings” and, completely synchronized, people would jump off the “roof” and bounce back up into the “windows” or something.

They had three diving boards (two at “roof” level and one way higher) and again, it was synchronized to have them jump off into this pool that in the opening act had been set on fire. The finale for the diving thing was a guy all the way in the catwalks who dove down. I’ve no idea how deep that pool must have been.

So that was fun. It was on the must-do list, and an person who’s leaving soon wanted to go, so I joined her.

Another must-do was the river cruise, which is something I see from my bathroom window every night. We had a 40-something group from work, which was really awesome. The boat wasn’t just us, but we pretty much commandeered the second floor, which was the open, in-the-breeze one. I’d heard it had the potential to be hot, but it was really pleasant. And they gave us watermelon. I hadn’t expected that.

Canton Tower at night.

Really, it was just a slow boat where we went down the river for 30 minutes and then turned around and went back. The Guangzhou skyline is pretty amazing and everything lit up – including the bridges – was really pretty.

The fun thing was passing by my apartment building, just because I see the boats every night and this time I was on one. (Outing myself as being very lame, I know.) But it was cool, even if my photos didn’t turn out great.

One of my colleagues kept trying to get me to pose for the photos and I kept saying no. She didn’t let up and I eventually let her take some of me with my apartment building in the back, but they’re not very good. I’d also worked eight hours that day and had my hair in braids, so I look kind of silly – and hot. So I’m not going to post that.

So it was nice to play tourist. Today I went to an American food place, mentioned in several guidebooks, and had friend chicken and mashed potatoes, plus corn. It was FABULOUS.

It really was nice to have just a tourist day in my town. Really, there’s only one other thing that I absolutely want to see while I am here – a big park with a ram statue that is kind of the landmark – so I feel I’m on my way.