Tue, June 10, 2008

Breakfast was at 8:30am, and then we began our sightseeing at 9:15. When we got on the bus, our tour guide for the day, John, began to give us a history of Guangzhou. It is the gateway to South China and its name means Cloudy Mountain. One myth that goes with the city is about the five goats. Many century’s ago, there was a terrible drought. Five Immortals came down from the sky riding five goats, one immortal on each goat. The goats hade a rice year held in their mouths. Because of the resection, respect, and joy that the people showed to the Immortals, they promised prosperity all the years to come.

We began our sightseeing by going to the Six Banyan Temple which gave us the opportunity to see the way monks live. It was such a peaceful place … who wouldn’t want to live their life there? We also were able to climb up the temple to the ninth floor, which gave us a beautiful view of the city. Afterwards, we headed to the Folk Art Museum and were able to look around a building that used to be a university. There were such detailed and intricate designs on the roofing. The rooms were all open (no solid walls) to allow wind to cool it down. So many beautiful artworks were displayed; including carvings made of stone, wood, olive wood, bone, ivory, coconuts, etc. They are preparing to redo several of the displays, so we didn’t see any of the embroidery art and the Buddha was no longer in the compound.

Next, was lunch and a time for shopping. We went to a restaurant near the shopping street and I just love the food here and how it is served. There is so much variety and we just have all the food on a turntable so we can serve how much we want whenever we want it. It’s interesting to see how they are trying to help us out, but it just isn’t working … since we don’t drink tea, they bring water, but water from the tap isn’t safe for us to drink. Therefore, they boil it so we have steaming hot water. To cool it down, they try to give us ice, but that’s just frozen tap so we don’t touch it. Then. They bring us forks to use instead of chopsticks, but Lee says we are not allowed to touch forks since it really isn’t nice manners towards them. Eating is always an adventure. I do like to eat at the same table as Lee and Linda. Today, at one instance Lee was telling us a story of one person getting so frustrated with eating with chopsticks that they just speared the food – and to show this, Lee takes his chopsticks and hits his plate (with nothing on it). The waitresses haven’t had any facial expressions as we ate, but the one who serves us, saw that and just started to laugh and turned to the other waitress to tell her and they both tried to hold back laughter. Lee is trying to teach us to be courteous and have good manners during meals, and then he does that! It’s hilarious!!! I am storing some great memories!

Well, we had an hour and a half for shopping, but it was shops of trendy clothes and such. Nothing interested me, but I looked for some jewelry for my sisters. I bought one thing, but I’m not telling what it was or whom it’s for. I like surprises!

We had a performance that night and I was told to have the most improvement! The venue was so big and beautiful! Definitely an adventure for the technical aspect. It was so funny to see my set-up. At my feet, I had three monitors – two for projection, and one for the lightboard. Then, in front of me was my show computer. We work with so many computer screens! As we began the performance, projection froze up, so I had to go down between a number – and then the power cable was pulled out from across the house (yeah, we had an adventure sending power to projection). For the first half of the performance, there was no projection, but finally for the Viennese Waltz, we were able to get it running again and I slowly got the picture back up again. I had to leave the booth, go to the projector, and old my hand over it as it showed the startup Epson sign, then went on to the image. I love my job! Spots had a hard time at this venue as they were unable to get upstage on the side they were located. They were constantly dousing out and switching people. It was fun and crazy! I’m glad I didn’t have to worry about calling lighting cues. I got Midi to work from SFX to the lightboard for projection. We’ve decided to just use our board for projection – so it sticks with me – and Benjamin will use their board to design each show. We’ll never have the same show twice! It is easier that way …

There was a little worry after the show when one of my spot techs, Jay, was over-hydrated and almost passed out right in front of me. We had him sit down and I searched for his wife and got the physical trainer to help him out. It’s never fun to see people get sick while on tour. Dehydration is a huge problem because of the heat and humidity, but it doesn’t help that one can get sick from drinking too much water.

There was a flower presentation at the end of the concert, so all of us could take back some flowers. I got three small pink roses and I’m hoping to dry them if they will survive travels. The bouquets were beautiful. Not only did they do that for us, but they posted a banner above the stage to welcome the ballroom dance company. It was so nice. When we returned to the hotel, there was another dinner for us – 11pm dinner – and an announcement was made that the Beijing office called us to congratulate us on a great first show in Mainland China. Since we don’t drink, we toasted with Sprite. It was so nice of them! I’m excited to finally be in Beijing and see all the different opportunities we will have …

Awww … engaged people are so cute! There are three engaged girls and one engaged boy on team. I can’t say anything about the boy, but it is so cute to hear the girls talk of their boy and read the cute parts of emails the boys send. Although dating can be frustrating, engagements are adorable, so it’ll be worth it in the end. I had two of the engaged girls in my room talking about their boys and reading excerpts of emails sent from them. It was great! There’s a way to spend a night!