Gardener

Made it to Ying Kou. We caught a train to Ying Kou and then a shuttle bus to the city. A second bus took us to the old train station near our hotel. We got off the bus and started to look for our hotel and Terri asked a 'police officer' where the hotel was. Not really a police officer but a guy who stops people from crossing against the lights. As soon as she asked him, he started talking to me. She asked him a few times but he still insisted on talking to me and asking me about Australia. She was getting pretty impatient so insisted that he tell us. And he just turned round and pointed to the building behind us. The look on his face was priceless. I thought that was awesome but maybe you had to be there.

Once we got settled we took a bus to try to see the beach. What we ended up seeing was a very muddy river bank near the mouth of the river, but hey... we weren't sitting inside.

For dinner we jumped in a taxi and asked the driver to take us somewhere where we could get good street food. He took us to a big beer garden where there was a show on. That kind of show is a bit like a vaudeville show where they have singers and actors and they play off each other. The MC spotted me while one of ht singers was performing and chatted with me for a while through my interpreter T (over the microphone) and then the singer did a wonderful version of an English song in my honour.

An interesting day.