School's Almost OUT!: Starbucks and Country Garden Buses

Have Bus Will Travel

 

 
 

 

June 12, 2009

A month has passed and now we are only two weeks away from the end of school!  If I ever thought I would make it to the end of this year, still breathing and thinking coherently, I would have strongly refuted you.   In celebration of this fact, I think I will hop on a bus to Guangzhou and get myself a 'designer coffee', as my Mom calls it, at Starbucks.

Here I am in GZ.  I am reveling in the fact that I can e-mail my friends, drink a commercially-made mocha, listen to Harry Conick Jr. singing in English while I'm at a Starbucks in China.

 

(A Chinese Starbucks bulletin board)

This week, each class will finish their respective reading book and then have fun worksheets till the end of the year. This lesson plan leaves just enough time for movies on the last couple days of school. 

If my grade school teachers ever did this (and I know they did!) it was to give themselves a break. I remember one of my teacher showing us a movie on chinchillas--out of the blue, and another on behavioral statistics, for no reason at all. Anyhow, I digress...

(These are some of my dear students from Grade 3 class 3 ~some making silly faces.)

 

 

I finished up at Starbucks in Guangzhou and made my way across sidewalks, down escalators and subway tunnels to reach the other mall where our Country Garden bus picks us up at.

 

 

(A view from my favorite Starbucks in Guangzhou)

It's always daunting catching a bus in China--even in a 'gated community' like Country Garden because when you are given bus schedule information, there can sometimes be changes that have not been updated to you.  

It isn't always easy being on the outside.   If I was able to read some more Chinese characters that would help. 

 I will usually ask about 2-3 people for confirmation that I am standing in the correct line for the right bus. 

 You can imagine the relief at not only finding--yet again--that I am in the right pick-up spot but am also in the right line at the right time.   If you want to feel like Conan the Barbarian, successfully navigate a bus system in China. 

Ah, here it is (now imagine my relief), it's a Country Garden bus and I'm in the right line at the right time.   (There are at least three different Country Garden resorts in the Guangzhou area and outer limits and I need the bus for Shunde [Shoon - duh!] Country Garden.)

Some of these buses are nice, but tonight it’s a ghetto bus and its parts are starting to show some wear. The seats have itchy upholstery, the window curtains are hither and yon, some people have arm rests...some don’t.   But it's not too bad on the whole.    It is cleaned out after every trip which I think is great for China. 

Some advice: sometimes it is better to get a seat in the front of the bus as you breathe in more exhaust in the back.   It took me a while to figure that one out.   Why I was coming home from Guangzhou with such headaches.   Fumes.

 We're off and now I'm listening to African music on my way home. It came with my computer, but it feels like I'm hiking right outside some Kenyan tribe and can hear their drums in the distance.   Awesome stuff.   As I type, my fingers are literally dancing over the keyboard trying to keep up with the bumps on the road.

 

Passing beautiful southern China foliage on my left,  I listen to two Chinese ladies gab on my right.   Now the playlist is on Indian techno--and I'm by a river in New Delhi.      

 AN hour long bus ride into Guangzhou is not too bad this way.