Peony festival!

10.04.2015

Earlier in the week, I sent out an email to some of my students and people who might be interested in coming to Luoyang. I expected no one to have any time to go, but I thought it would be cool to see who would answer.

I sent one to this guy who I wanted to do some part time work for tutoring kids in their homes in the evenings and such. No one answered and said they wanted to go, so I just started looking for my own couchsurfing host. I found one on like, Wednesday or something.

For some reason, this guy called "Flydog" sent the email to all of his students at the other university in town. On Friday, he told me that "some" students were going to come with me. Um? No? I already have a plan. I told him, they could come, but I would not be staying with them and they have to find their own place to stay. I didn't get any response, so I just figured they weren't coming.

On Saturday morning, Flydog jumped on the bus and said that these people are coming now. There is no room on the bus, so they are coming on the next one. Oh...good...god... I just say fine and I don't have a cell phone, so I figured they would go away.

A few minutes into the bus ride, this young woman comes over and gets the older woman sitting beside me to switch seats with her.

"Hi I'm bebe's friend! We will come with you!" "Um, I don't know who Bebe is..." "Oh... they are coming on the next bus!"

What? Who are you and who are these people? I tell Bebe's friend that I want to sleep, so I do all the way to Luoyang. When we are close, I call Courtney from Bebe's friend's phone and warn her about the Chinese people. She is a little irritated and I tell her I will explain later.

Bebe's friend decides she won't come after all, and goes home. But, it's too late, Bebe's friend already gave Courtney's number to everyone! Oh my. She gets about 50,000 texts and phone calls, from a bunch of Chinese people, and we block every one. I think this is really rude of Flydog. I was only inviting him, not a bunch of strangers I don't know! If the races were reversed, do you think the outcome would've been different? If I was Chinese, would he have sent a random white person to travel with me? I don't think so.

Anyway, after all that, I apologized profusely to Courtney but she seemed to take it all in stride. I was insanely embarrassed. Courtney had to do some shopping and so she drew me a map and I went to see all the peonies at Wangcheng park for the peony festival.

The smell, as you can imagine, was intoxicating. China is full of endless wafts of coal smoke, vehicle exhaust, factory pollution and the scent of feces and urine from public toilets. This was just fantastic for me. I just stood in the middle of all the flowers and breathed in, savouring every second. It was well worth the $10 entrance ticket. I stayed in the peonies for as long as I could, enjoying every single breath and drawing it out all day. I wandered around every inch of the park (except the really sad zoo area) and took a nap in a replica temple complex from the Zhou dynasty.

After the peonies, I met Courtney and her boyfriend Chris in the old part of town for some street food and chicken wings. Nom nom nom. I had some REALLY spicy wings that made me cry, lots of beer and paid for the whole thing because I felt so bad about the morning's drama. We went back to their place, Courtney gave me a homemade brownie (!!!) I didn't know when I would get another one, so I ate that thing nice and slowlyyyyyyyyyy.

Peony festival