Goodbye Typhoon, Hello Monsoon

10 Day Weather Forecast from Weather.com for Shenzhen
Sunday - Scattered Thunderstorms, mid 80's
Monday - Scattered Thunderstorms, mid 80's
Tuesday - Scattered Thunderstorms, mid 80's
Wednesday - Scattered Thunderstorms, mid 80's
Thursday - Scattered Thunderstorms, mid 80's
Friday - Scattered Thunderstorms, mid 80's
Saturday - Scattered Thunderstorms, mid 80's
Sunday - Scattered Thunderstorms, mid 80's
Monday - Scattered Thunderstorms, mid 80's
Tuesday - Scattered Thunderstorms, mid 80's

Sunday Kathy, Andy, and I got up early (especially now that I have figured out how to sleep here) and went to the Chinese Cultural park which is about 20 minutes from our hotel. The park has areas (like Epcot) that represent all of the varied cultures of China from Tibet to the Pacific Ocean. The people in the office were nervous about us making it there (I can't imagine why -- I am a world traveler now with sunscreen, passport and "Top Ten" travel book) -- so someone came out and took a taxi with us to the park.

We thought it looked like it might rain, so we were armed with umbrellas. The English guide we had arranged met us at the entrance. For those of you that have been tour guides (as was one of my many jobs in college), it is tough to tell the same stories over and over -- and still tell them with the requisite energy that will make the jokes funny. I, luckily, did not have to deliver a punchline in another language. Here is where the phrase "Lost in Translation" has its roots. Tough crowd. Tough job.

He did have a lot of good information as we walked through -- and I only took 160 pictures (literally). I was most impressed with the papercutting (gift shop) where the girl (I just can't judge age here, she could have been fifty) was using scissors to cut a single piece of paper into entire montages of people, places, and things. Remember making snowflakes in Art Class? Yeah, it was kinda like that -- except this art would be significantly higher than "refridgerator grade". I was also really impressed with the level of detail in the recreations. The great wall was a few hundred meters long -- but was crafted individual brick by brick with bonsai trees and hand painted individual people there for the correct scale. It looks incredibly realistic, so it was fun to have my picture taken next to the wall like I was a character in Gulliver's Travels.

We broke for lunch because the rain had moved from a cats/dogs level to small farm animals. We went back to the hotel and ate at an Italian place where I had the best beef tacos of my life. Yes, I said that right -- Italian and Tacos. This is "Western" food.

The afternoon we had to ourselves until we were to meet for dinner at the Korean place for Jesse. I just got caught up on email and relaxed.

The Korean food was good for me (I didn't know any better). Jesse said it was the first Korean restaurant where they didn't understand Korean. My favorite was the Kimchee (fermented spicy cabbage) pizza. We had random meat grilled at our table and there were a lot of little bowls of stuff to eat. It was a slow night for the restaurant, so four waitresses stood within three feet of our table the whole meal to attend to us. I am not a paranoid person beyond the normal feeling that everyone is out to get me -- but sheesh, back off ladies.

I picked up a picture that I had commissioned to be drawn by a local guy -- and dog paddled back to the hotel. It was a good day.

6 hours of sleep