Day 13 - A revolutionary sight - The Peasant Movement Institute

Last night we decided we would travel to Kaiping for the day, a town famous for its watch towers and about 2 hours bus ride away from Guangzhou. In prepration we arranged an early morning wake up call, it was great to get the call on time - Yay (nice to know as we will need one tomorrow because we will be traveling to Macau). So up we got to eat our breakfast of plain oats, shower and pack for the day. However after breakfast Livs body began to play up again and despite Adam's desire to see the watch towers he had a greater desire to keep his girl happy and as comfortable as possible (which meant keeping easy access to the essential facilities!). So we just went back to sleep!

A few hours later we recived the other in-house wake up call, good morning concrete drill and jack hammer! So this time we did get up, dressed and headed out to the metro as usual. Today's destination was the Peasant Movement Institute, which was estabilished in 1924 by the Communist Party and closed in 1926. Mao Zedong was one of the teachers here and we got to see his office and living quarters. The institute consisted of lecture halls, dormitories, military training areas, a small libary, an old art room and a medical room.

Lunch time - a time of big decisions and potential consequences! We opted for a relatively large restaurant, where we were seated and promptly received the large number of stares and points that go with being the only white faces around! We are not sure if we should continue to shrug these off or perhaps wave back at them! Anyway the ordering process went ok once the waiter who could speak a little english came to see us, in the end we ordered what "they have"(the table across from us had vegetarian noodles). Liv suggested Adam try some fish, Adam accepted and the saga continues - "Come with me" so Adam followed the waiter back out of the resturant to the fish market next door where he had to choose from tank after tank of live fish, crabs, eels, snakes, frogs and so on. His soon to be lunch -Shrimps! The food arrived and it was great, although typically greasy - which is what Livs vegetarian palate is not coping with. The meal was pretty cheap and to finish it off we went to the nearby fruit market.

Tonight we finally found the street market - and boy are we glad! The market is a huge street of shops that sell everything! They even had a $2 shop, except that their $2 is under 40cents!

The food we purchased for dinner from the market continued our day of not-so-successful eating! Breakfast was plain oats (ok), and lunch was fried (aka greasy) noodles and shrimps for Adam. The drink we bought at lunch time to refresh ourselves, we thought was lemonade, but tasted more like fizzy mint mouthwash! We decided to eat from the stalls at the market for dinner - using Liv's basic Chinese this was successful, until we tried it! The first purchase was chewy, doughy, vegetarian patties which Adam was still happy to eat. Next was corn on the cob - this was cooked so much it was almost dough! - Both of us turned our noses up at this. Next Adam got a sticky rice ball wrapped up in flax - He wanted one because right now in China it's the dragon boating festival - History has it that a man jumped into a river, and the fishermen jumped in their boats to look for him and beat big drums while throwing the sticky rice into the water to stop the fish eating the body. Don't let the happy look on Adam's face fool you as it was less than appettising and he only managed a few bites! On the way home we stopped to get Liv an icecream, despite her Chinese skills she manged to pick a coffee one - If you know anything about Liv you know she hates coffee! Disaster all round, really. But at least we tried, right?!

Adlibing it (near facilities!)