What a Long Strange Trip It's Been, pt 12
2006-01-03, 14:33

The Hammer

It was our last full day in Nanchang, and we were starting to schvitz about things we hadn't done in town that we felt were important. Mainly, we wanted to visit the August 1st Memorial, the monument dedicated to observing the beginning of the Communist Revolution, which was launched right there in Nanchang itself. It's because of this reason that so much of the city looks relatively new - the town was pretty wrecked by said revolution.

The memorial is basically a large, open, concrete-paved rectangle that has some stone bas-relief scenes of import leading up to the Cause and a tall stone monument with a Chinese flag atop it with 'August 1st' on it as well as the star. Surrounding the monument is a moat of sorts with the mechanics of what looks like an intricate fountain. No water in there that day, though, because it would have most likely evaporated within minutes of exposure to the sun that was glaring overhead.

While we have no official statistic on exactly what the temperature was on that day, it was surely the hottest since we'd been there. Best guess, it was about 105 degrees, maybe including the heat index. Damn hot by our standards. And what time of day do we go to witness this sun-baked slab of concrete? Why, 1 P.M., of course - truly the coolest part of the day.

I think we lasted a little over five minutes there. We got ourselves a few pictures, then we were the heck out of there and into the nearest store. Crazy thing was, there were a couple of people hanging out there - under a big umbrella, at least - and if memory serves they were vendors of some sort. I couldn't tell what, through the waves of heat emanating from the pavement. Perhaps they were just a mirage.

Later in the afternoon, we went to a local porcelain shop - Jiangxi being the birthplace of the craft and all - and poked around for some things that might do for gifs back home and that would also travel well. It was a nice little place, featuring a few welcomed air conditioning units, and items that ran from heap/typical teaware to some really gorgeous wall art of intricate naturescapes. A few made us wish we were wealthy enough to afford both the item itself and the shipping costs, which can run as much or more than the cost of the item. We managed to find a few things to make good presents that we could actually pack and travel ourselves without too much worry over breakage.

Before we made our purchases, our guides advised us on how to make a minimum effort at haggling and still be respectful, as haggling's pretty much expected. It was more of a formality than anything, basically getting us about ten percent cut off the price. More fun was when we were at the night market in Hong Kong and haggled three pair of jade chopsticks (6 sets total) down to about 1. Especially since the guy we were haggling with new almost no English and we communicated through a calculator. I guess it goes to show that, no matter what language you're speaking, business is still business.

After the porcelain shopping, the only other major thing we did that day was to have one last group dinner together in Nanchang. We were at another place that didn't seem to have an obvious name, either in English or Chinese or anything else. It was nice, full of art and brass and chandeliers and a circular staircase. As usual, there were way too many attendants for the number of people eating there - there were four women in black dresses just for working the front door as greeters - and we sat in the 'party' room of the place, full of large round tables and not much else. I decided that I'd had enough of Jiangxi's idea of what carnivores eat there - not to mention sitting separate from my wife during dinner - and sat with the vegetarians. Their meals were just as good and usually slightly cheaper, anyway. Problem was, for some reason for which we never learned the answer, the vegetarian meals were late arriving - like by a good 15-20 minutes. And here, we had a newly acquainted baby on our hands who was desperate for some food. I walked with her so I didn't sit there seething at the table and to try and keep the baby distracted from her hunger (and me from mine, for that matter) by showing her pretty things around the restaurant. There was only so much bouncing and "oh, look at that thing!" she could tolerate, though. Luckily, some food arrived before we worried about reaching that stage.

And let me tell you, this child could eat. For one who new little beyond super-soft noodles and thick formula for seven months, the girl knew how to heat. She tried just about anything she could, and eggplant had proved so far to be her favorite. Mushroom broth, cooked carrots, tofu, you name it - we stayed away from meat at that point, just to take a few steps at a time - she'd eat it. Even now, the only food we've found that she doesn't like is fresh blueberries. Very adaptable, this baby.

We spent the rest of the evening quietly in our hotel room, hoping to get a decent night's rest before the next leg of our journey, Guangzhou.

-- End Transmission --