CHINA 2010 WEDNESDAY 1st SEPTEMBER

No sign of the storm although it did rain in the night according to Keith who said large puddles remained around parked cars and the gardens were wet when he went to work. It was a lovely morning, very hot again, and looking out to the mountains I saw another ridge far away. I decided I would like to be in the large tower block beyond the ‘China Bank’ electric hoarding as from a high floor I would be able to look across the sea, Haiwan Park, Yundang Lake and to the mountains – dream on!
We set off this afternoon on another kite hunt and on reaching our destination, which again did not exist, we called in the help of the army as a young soldier was approaching a bank we were stood close to. Having studied English in University he was most helpful including telephoning the kite company for directions to their shop. A car pulled up with a youngish driver and a younger boy sitting in the front passenger seat. The young men carried out a conversation with Keith’s piece of paper containing the address and telephone number on it passing backwards and forwards between everyone. Finally our soldier drew a map telling us we needed to get a 30A bus, go 5 stops then walk 100 metres and by now it had begun to rain. We thanked everyone and set off with our soldier by our side. We hadn’t gone far, in fact we hadn’t reached the pedestrian crossing, when the car pulled up and offered to take us. We all climbed in, including the solder, and the young lad began to talk to us in very good English. The driver and the soldier shook hands – they were complete strangers – and the young lad said “we Chinese are very friendly people, we like to help”. We agreed with him. So with more phone calls and the use of the satellite navigation system on a Nokia phone we arrived at a spot close to the end of the road leading directly in front of the Conference Centre where signs for the forthcoming Forum were in place and the gardeners busy cutting the shrubbery with petrol driven hedge trimmers. Once again we thanked everyone and as we got out a man wearing blue patterned shorts and carrying an umbrella was waiting for us. We followed him down a narrow path between the flower beds towards a Photographic shop. Stepping into a narrow alley we took the first opening on our left going down a couple of deep stone steps into a kite shop. Never in a million years would we have found this small dingy place. Lots of kites hung from the ceiling and stacked up against the wall were shelves full of kites each in its own coloured bag. A young lad was working on an ancient computer on a table under the window where lots of plugs and wires were hanging down and on a wooden seat were large boxes of foil kites and a few reels. Language was a problem but Keith managed to inform him we wanted a dragon and gave him a code for the particular model we wanted. He kept bringing out the wrong kites all with spars which are no good to us for travelling. He did produce a large orange octopus out of the foil selection on the bench but already having one said “no”. Finally we followed him into the Photographic shop to use their computer which was connected to the internet. It was such a small place and with customers sat on stools by the large glass topped counter, and an open umbrella on the floor, there wasn’t much room so I remained outside as the rain had now stopped. I could see it was awkward to see the screen as it was a large flat screen TV mounted on the wall by the side of several display cabinets. At last the kite was found only to be told “mei you” – there wasn’t any! Well you can’t say we haven’t tried so we might as well go for a beer! The girl in the coffee shop that we frequent in the area had to run next door to the convenience store to exchange a warm beer for a cold one and by the time we had finished our drinks the rain had started again. We didn’t complain as we walked up to the bus terminus as there was no wind and it was 31 degrees and I had an umbrella!