Mark in China: May Day in Meizhou pt 2

Yesterday's trip to Meizhou was pretty amazing. Instead of taking a bus as Rebecca and I usually do, this time we got to go in a taxi provided by the school. We went with Kevin (an English teacher here) and his wife and left the school at about 8 am. The taxi we took was not a conventional taxi, but more of a personal taxi - it would be like me offering a taxi/rides service back home using my car. Martin explained this idea to us a couple weeks ago when we visited him in Huizhou - some people who own cars work as unofficial taxi drivers partly in order to escape some steep taxes.

For the first part of the day we visited a fairly posh tea plantation that was very touristy. It was about 15 miles or so outside of Meizhou. It was all on a mountain, so exploring the plantation/park we climbed some roads going up to mountain to see different shops, tea fields, and park areas. The scenery was beautiful and we had a few nice hilltop views, so I took many pictures.

After walking around there for awhile we headed back into Meizhou where we had lunch at good restaurant. I had one of my favorite Chinese dishes, fried tofu in some kind of sauce. The way Chinese meals work is that instead of everyone having their own individual plate with their own meal, all the food is in the middle of the table on a big lazy susan and each person has their own small bowl and spoon and a bowl of rice, so it's more like a family dinner.

After eating we drove a shopping district in the city where Rebecca and Kevin's wife went shopping and Kevin and I went separately, going to shop for DVDs and cameras mostly. I ended buying a few more good DVD movie collections. I browsed some cameras though I was not planning on buying, and Kevin ended up buying new digital camera.

I tried to call Rebecca's cell phone in order to meet up with them but her phone couldn't get service. Kevin called the taxi driver and we drove back to the place in the city where we split up, and we eventually found the girls there. It could have been much bigger of an ordeal but we lucked out.

Today I went to the mountain overlooking the city again, this time with Rebecca, Zhou Ting (I gave her the name 'Jodie'), a student I know from the high school and her little brother and sister. The three of them had their three bikes and I had mine, but Rebecca doesn't have one here so I offered to carry Jodie's little sister on my rear rack so Rebecca could ride her bike. It's a common site in China to see a person pedaling a bicycle while another person sits on the rear rack, both feet opposite the chain side. Luckily the girl was small so it wasn't very hard to pedal or balance. It was a short bike ride for me but fairly long for them, and I was ahead of them the whole time even though I was going much slower than I usually go. I guess I just like to bike fast.