To the beach! In the rain!

01.09.2015

I didn't manage to get out of the house until noon again. I was grateful Sarah had left me the key before she went to work. It was a long haul to the beach, so I made sure to leave at noon on the dot.

Strangely, Sarah told me there were no buses in Yangjiang. When I got outside though, I saw two go by. I got on one that seemed to go to the bus station. A nice man helped me out and confirmed I was correct.

"I don't say English for a long time," he said. Good enough for me.

I took a bus to Zhapo, and got a motorcycle taxi to Hailing and the Maritime Silk Road museum. It was going to rain heavily all day, so it was as good a plan as any.

The museum was quite expensive, but it was cool to see the old trading boat still filled with old porcelain sitting in the water in the massive hangar. This museum was purpose built, just for this boat. They had literally scooped it up, with all the surrounding sea water and plopped it down into the museum. Ah, dictatorships can do anything they put their minds to with enough public money. It was really impressive.

They had only uncovered the ship in 2007, and had only started sifting through the contents in 2013, so there were also actual archaeologists on display, hunched over boxes of sand trying to piece together the past.

The whole building looked like an alien egg sac, which had been planted on the beach to hatch. The inside appeared like the hull of a ship, of course.

This time, I actually believed the artefacts were real. One, because I saw a similar museum in Korea, and two because of course there had been boats in the past, I know that much about history.

I've seen a lot of pottery and to me, these were some of the most beautiful and intricate I've ever seen from that time period (the Song Dynasty 12th-13th centuries). I just thought it was a really great way to spend another rainy afternoon.

After the rain stopped, I went out to the beach. It was already 4:30 p.m., so I walked down the long clean strip of sand once and caught the yellow bus, which is completely unpredictable, back to Zhapo.

Sarah was frantically messaging me wondering where I was. I told her I tried to go back to her place ever since 6 p.m. drove right by me the first time I saw it, and then didn't come for another hour the second time I saw it. I really didn't get back to the city until 9 p.m.

We grabbed some more dim sum on our way to karaoke with her friends. This was the most luxurious KTV I'd ever seen. Romanesque facade in front of six floors of absolute madness. Even though her friends were paying way too much for the beer, only about three or four of them took turns singing with me. Everyone else played dice. I don't know, whatever.

At the end of the night, everyone up and left us with the bill. What? Maybe I had three beers, and some chips and fruit, I wasn't about to pay for the whole party. I offered to chip in, but Sarah said it's the rule that the drunkest person has to pay. Oh man, Chinese etiquette again, seems to cause more trouble than it's worth. Sarah tried to track this drunk fellow down, but he said he didn't know where he was when he answered the phone. Finally, he called someone equally drunk and told him to pay. This second drunk man did, vowing to get the money back from drunk guy #1. Anyway, we just went home and slept it all off, waking late in the morning the next day.

Maritime Silk Road Museum