And I had an even bigger scare at the breakfast buffet in my hotel (included with my room :-)) - NO COFFEE!!! Fortunately I found a western-style cafe in a mall near the hotel. 30 RMB for a coffee, no wonder I was the only customer!
The hotel staff recommended that I go to the Luoyang Peony Park to see the flowers (number 51 bus), but I decided to walk to the China National Flower Park instead, as it was closer and larger. The flowers were quite spectacular, although many were dying off. I think I just managed to hit the tail end of the festival. Here are a few pictures of the park. I think that the flowers are quite pretty even in death ...
I brought my pollution mask with me today, although I opted not to wear it. I figure that I'm an ambassador of sorts, since I'm likely the only Canadian most of these people will ever meet. I think wearing the mask makes me look kind of sinister and unapproachable! So I snuck it out when no one was around to take some deep breaths. Yes I could tell the difference breathing through the mask and not.
I wandered home along the same route as yesterday. There were some interesting street scenes and I wanted a couple more pictures:
Anyways the locals were all very friendly. One even stopped his car and didn't run me over as I was standing in the middle of the road taking the above picture. (Although they all had a good laugh over it.) I got another offer of a ride (hop on my bike, I'll take you somewhere) - I'm not sure if it's some kind of scam or if they just get a kick of driving foreign tourists around.
Another of the locals was very excited to see me. He's studied English and was pleased he could try out a few lines on me (much the same as I'm doing!) so he invited me to sit down and chat with him and his friends, and he even gave me an iced tea (which was welcomed because it's stinkin hot here). Long story short we're now good buddies and meeting for dinner tomorrow night. We're going to practice English and Chinese on each other lol. I told him I also needed to take a picture for my blog just to prove I've actually made friends over here.
I was feeling a bit under the weather when I got back to the hotel, I guess breathing all the smog is catching up to me, so I've just lazed around most of the day. Like I'm on holidays or something. I just had dinner at the hotel - I wish I remembered to bring my camera, because it was called "shrimp 2 ways" or something like that, and it was literally two little piles of shrimp - on the one side the tails, and on the other the heads, deep fried. Pretty good actually! It was advertised as Sichuan cuisine, so I was expecting a bit of a bite (which it didn't have) but otherwise very tasty!
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