Finally, on Board

The taxi driver told us that 9 pieces of luggage and 3 passengers were too much for his cab.  I could understand that much from his body language.  I didn’t have to speak Spanish.  Somehow Wyona fit all of us in, and Greg offered a generous tip, so the driver left the port happy. 

We proceeded to get on board.  For us – entering the day of final miracles – no need to unpack again until we leave for home.

The same delicious Sunday market was in full swing and Wyona and I had pesos to spend at the market. Knowing that this would be that last of the really big markets for us we proceeded to the best market of all.

Greg found coins that had been carved so as to leave the interesting figures still in the circle of the coin and the rest cut away.  If only he were a jewellery wearer.  But he couldn’t bring himself to buy one of those, nor lls one of the purses that other men carry.  But to give him his due, he happily carries any of Wyona’s bags, often two or more at a time.

At the end of the day the church bells were ringing at the San Telmo Catholic Church.  We stopped in to watch a priest dressed in jean light the candles getting ready for the service.  Then we headed for the bus, only to be stopped by Spanish music coming from a derelict hacienda.  The front courtyard was full of musicians.  A sign said, come in, stay, free, the musicians are not being paid so give what you can.  At first we watched through the spaces in the high wrought iron fence.

from a website for One Day Cafe in San Telmo
(http://onedaycafe.me/tag/san-telmo/)

Then we could smell the grill where chorizo sausages were grilled, split, and place on buns that were only vehicles to get meat into the mouth.

I would have stayed forever.  Greg and Wyona forever and a day.  The end of a dream day.

Five Days in One

A grand day.

1. We saw a military band and procession on horseback.

Just beautiful.

"I think this is a usual military show -- the band are on horses.  Something one might see in London," said Greg. 

... drummers for the social protest ...

2. Following the horses we found ourselves in the middle of well organized protest about the political regime in Argentina.

Thousands of marchers.

We took pictures.

We tried to get people to tell us what was going on.

Our Spanish is non-existent.

Their English is the same.

 One man did a gesture for us.

He touched his tongue and then hit the bottom of his foot as though it were sizzling.

... looking at the bus schedule ...
no buses come because protestors are on the road

3. We caught a bus – our first local bus with our new cards.

We put $10 each on our cards.

I think the rides cost us $1 a piece.

We have a lot of rides to take yet.

... the blue group walks by ...

4. We got off at the MNBA Museum.

We couldn’t find it.

Greg walked right around a beautiful Greek looking building with fantastic pillars.

 He could find no entry.

We gave up and crossed the street and tried to get in another entry.

... the yellows come next ...

No luck.

But the people ahead of us trying to do the same thing were shooed around to the other side of the building.

Yes.

We entered on that street.

A marvellous building full of treasures: Manet, Monet, Rodin, Goya, Rembrandt and the early 20th Century Painters.

We had a 2 pm tour in English.

 Greg hates tours but loved this one.

 Free admission to the building.

Not even a donation box anywhere.

... now the greens ...

5. We left to go home but passed by an artisan market that was not to be missed.

 I will always regret not buying the beautiful large leather bag I saw at the start of the market.

Wyona says this.

Catherine Jarvis says this.

I know it myself.

"How lucky are we to see this," Greg says.

If you find something you love, just buy it right then, for you may never find it again.

And you will remember forever that you left it behind if you don't buy it.

Ah well.

Some other shopper will buy it but knowing that, doesn’t make me much happier.

I wanted that bag to go with my other 10 bags I don't use.

6. We ate – we needed food by now, but we also needed to sit down.

The serve was s-l-o-w but we didn’t care. We needed to rest.

... a protestor asks Wyona to take his picture ...

7. We went to see Evita’s gravestone.

Just as we were to enter the gates, they closed them.

Six pm on a Saturday.

Too late for us.

8. We took another bus ride home. We don’t know where to touch our loaded transit cards. 

... a soft drink at a 25 hour store ...

I was hitting it everywhere on the unit from which you can buy the cash tickets.

Other passengers on the bus are very helpful.

They can see us doing it all wrong and one will get out of their seat and pantomime the right move, for which I am very grateful.

... drinks spilled ...
filet for Wyona, empenadas for Greg and Arta

9. We get off the bus and walk through the Place de Mayo to our favorite gelato shop.

Wyona noticed that the price has gone up on the half litre of gelato.

She tells the owner that we want the old price -- $60, not $70.

He thinks we want to upgrade to a larger container.

No.

We have shopped all over Buenos Aires for the lowest price, and now, tonight, the price has gone up here. 

... Wyona focuses for another shot for the protestor ...

Still, we are happy, have had a day never to forget and know that we are moving out of our spacious digs to a small room on a ship where we will be stepping all over each other for 28 days.

I hope we are still friends on March 30.

Arta

Back to Tianjin, China

... riding in the put-put ...

We spent a long day in Beijing.

The next day we went only have 1/2 way – just to Tianjin.

Greg loves the beautiful new cruise terminal where we are docked.

In order to make it a pleasant place for westerners the Chinese play western music.

Whomever chooses the music picked a seasonal genre for us to hear – Jingle Bells play for us in April.

This is the place where reading English is as interesting as it can get, for there is a translation needed.

One of the beautiful restaurants was called Heaven on World, a huge sign on top of the restaurant that could be seen from the train, enticing us in. 

“Heaven on Earth is what they meant to say,” Greg whispered to me.

Getting off at the Citizens Plaza and looking around would have been enough to do.

Can you help us find a street market?

Hoping we could squeeze in a Traditional Market Wyona approached some young students who looked like they might speak English.

She said to them, “I see taxi drivers refusing to take people who are speaking Chinese to them.

What chance will we have in them taking us.”

The students went to work, later explaining that many of the taxis are not licensed to go over a nearby bridge and they have to refuse passengers who want to go there.

... thanking the driver with cash ...

To get around this problem, she put is in two put-puts telling the driver to take us to a market – what turned out to be a market celebrating traditional beauties of China.

Before we she left the young woman said that she doesn’t live here, but that she was meeting friends to go for western food and they wondered if we would like to join them.

We laughed and said, no, we have come a long way for Chinese food. Western food just won’t work for us.

... pearl display at street pearl stall ...

At the market, I found a pearl vendors and some silk scarves.

After negotiating prices on those for me, and further down the way, Wyona found another pearl vendor. “I want both of these necklaces and ½ of another, all restrung and I will be back at 3 pm to get them.”

 ... Wyona at pearl merchants ...

Wyona told them all of that without speaking a word of Chinese, nor them speaking a bit of English.

Sign language is a wonderful thing.

 And so was this market.

Many days later we were saying, “What was wrong with our heads. Why did we leave that market so early. We should have spent every cent we had there.”

... red rope is to keep too many customers from entering the store ...

On our journey home, the subway line we needed to take was broken.

We would not have known, just the 5 of us standing there waiting for a train.

But the penny didn’t drop for us.

 OR ... keep your hands out of the subway door ...

A young man with fashionably shredded jeans tried to speak to us.

Then he went to find someone in the subway to translate for him.

She came back and said in English, “This person is telling you that you should not stand here, for the train will never come. Follow him and he will take you to the right spot."

... goodnight Tianjinn ...

That was the answer to a tourist’s prayer.

One not yet even uttered.

Arta 

Pearls

“The pearls are beautiful. They match your eyes.” Ever hear a cornier line than that from a jeweller.

I look, but I don’t buy.

I was alone at the pearl seminar on the ship a few days ago – exciting, sitting there, having thousands of dollars worth of chokers and rings passed around the room.

Slipping right through my fingers and on to the next person, after I have taken a good look, especially at the flaws and  dimples that the jeweller has said to look for.

 ... pearls still in the shell ...

This year, I have had a new appetite for pearls but no information about them – shape (round or baroque), size, colour, and skin purity. At least to learn about them. And on any shopping trip, I find myself going into small shops to see what selection they have in their show cases. There aren’t as many available varieties as a person might think – or perhaps I go to the wrong places to shop.

In Tianjin, Wyona and I walked through a market – and we got stuck at a sidewalk merchant’s kiosk – me first of all, and then her later down the line. Now this is a long story. No one spoke English. There were 5 strings of pink pearls. Wyona decided they would look nice, 2 ½ strings for her and 2 ½ strings for me. Now the trouble was, pantomiming this for the merchant and establishing a price. All she did was gather to both sides of her and behind her, many Chinese women, watching her and then the merchant – all of them trying to figure out what she was doing. Her signed language worked – 2 strands, one for each of us, knotted, paid for and picked up by 3 pm.

... every colour, every size, every hue ...

Now if that worked once, it should work twice – this time with tri-coloured pearls.

Put the two strings together and she would be back for them in 20 minutes.

It was when we got home and were studying their natural beauty that she began to laugh.

The pearls are white, pink and peach, one of each and then the pattern is replicated.

Wyona behind the earring rack and speaking with the clerk

The trouble is that the second necklace is 2 whites, 2 pinks, 2 peaches, and then the pattern repeated.

So half of the necklace has one design and the other half of the loop has the other design.

I was wondering tonight when we were watching the TV show were people take in their family treasures and have them appraised by an auctioneer, what the appraiser will say when one of her daughters takes that treasure in the Antique Roadshow, Maryland.

Arta

Bedtime Stories in China

 ...charming tourist market in Tianjinn ...

Wyona and I were too tired to read our emails a couple of days ago.

But we agreed we could listen if they were read to us as a bedtime story for us.

Greg agreed to read.  We listened. That worked.

Last night, just as we were going to sleep we begged for more stories.

Greg studying the streets in the market
We must go back to do them justice.

With no book in hand, he free-lanced and asked if we knew what three ingredients make China so successful today.

Was it the opium balls, I guessed, since I had gone to the lecture on how the opium wars had nearly destroyed China. Greg, who had also been at that lecture, said he wasn’t thinking along that line, but he had three other things to share.

... detail from ceiling of market building ...

The Chinese dictator in the 1980’s who opened up the way for there to be a Chinese business class – that was one important event. Having a single party system in China, that helps to get a lot done. There is no opposition getting in the way of progress. The third item making China successful is an inexhaustible supply of labour. Without hardly a pause between Greg’s last word in that sentence, and the beginning of the next sentence, Wyona seemed to be interrupting him. She was not interrupting him, for she said to me, would you believe Greg is already asleep.

No kidding, I said, waiting for Greg to pipe up. A long silence. You have got to be kidding!

“Yes,” said Wyona. “ I could tell he was dosing off when his words became slower and more carefully articulated. He is way under right now. Our laughing is not going to wake him up. I hope you can remember what he said for it is over now.”

... vendor in the market ...

I didn’t care if Greg goes to sleep in the middle of the bedtime stories. I learned three important things about China from him– more than I can remember from the volumes I was reading before I left on this trip.

Greg is a fantastic travelling companion. He can gives deeper, more academic lectures than the ones we hear on the boat. All he has to hear is a question asked and see an interested listener.

Greg? Why am I seeing so many shipping containers and no factories. This is going on for miles and miles. Maybe 20 minutes now.

Greg? Why are there so many road fly overs and round abouts and no vehicles using them -- no private vehicles on them, and no semi’s? 

She is as interested in me, as I am in her.

Greg? How did you know the exact spot on the street where the incident with the tank took place just before Tienanmen Square?

Greg? How do you know which line on the subway we should be taking? And how did you spot the entrance to the underground.

Greg? Why are the police stopping all of those kids at the bottom of the escalator and demanding to look at their passports? 

Greg has an answer for everything. For the last question, he reminded me that Chinese people are not free to travel in their own country, as we are. They have documents that tell them where they can go and where they cannot go.

A privilege to travel with Greg.

Arta