Guangzhou

This is the only photo I took in Guangzhou. I was there for about five days, including a full weekend, but sadly, this glimpse from my hotel room was all I caught on film. Blame it on the food poisoning that caught up with me after a sketchy Thai dinner. Still, shame on me during a visit to the third largest city in China.

We did head to a famous mall at one point during the weekend. It was basically made up of specialty shops selling whatever mass-produced item they designated. I saw a lot of pillows made of Angry Birds, tons of keychains, and more clip-on hair extensions than I ever though possible. I did end up grabbing a couple nice gifts (a vase for us and one for my mother-in-law, some textiles) but since I wasn't in the market for the famous Guangzhou pearls...that was about it.

The food in Guangzhou (when our colleagues took us out) was uniformly excellent. We had some amazing Sichuan food and some of the best Vietnamese I've ever had. Plus, I had a lovely stroll through the gorgeous Shamian island while on my way to a meeting and admired the French/British architecture.

In which I went to the Forbidden City

My trip to China came up at the last moment (as in, emergency taxi rides to the Consulate to get my visa) and the trip itself was quite rushed.

But. But. I could NOT LEAVE CHINA without seeing at least one freaking tourist attraction. So, when our schedule didn't have us leaving Beijing until noon, we (I traveled with a colleague from an adjacent office for this conference and set of visits) knew that we had to drag out jet-lagged selves out of bed and make it to the Forbidden City. Beijing traffic is such a bear that we went straight for the subway where...man, this nine week pregnant girl could barely handle the crowds. Luckily, it didn't matter that I didn't have a pole to hold on to since we were packed like sardines. But we made it.

While we had gorgeous weather in Beijing, the pollution is typically so dense that you may not even see the top of this building. In fact, on our return flight through Beijing, the BeijingAir twitter feed ranked the pollution as 'very unhealthy'. No kidding, you could even see it hover against the ceiling inside the airport.

But back to the Forbidden City. I learned virtually nothing there. We did a quick path through the palace area, dodging Chinese tourist and vendors, taking a few photos.

We admired the traditional Chinese palatial architecture and the home of nearly 500 years of royal dynasties. Always a sucker for painted ceilings, I spent a lot of time staring up at the trip and ceilings above me. We got a little distracted (wouldn't you?) and lost track of time, requiring us to book it out of there. Heading out through the famous Tianamen Square, we ducked back into the metro to grab our luggage and head to Shanghai.

Sadly, no photos from Shanghai. We stayed there one night, left at 5am the next day and spent the whole time working. However, from the short walk between our hotel and office, I made the quick assessment that resulted in a phone call home along the lines of "honey, we should totally bid on Shanghai!"

Going Bananas in Sri Lanka

While in Sri Lanka, we had our first experience with an organized tour and tour guide. It was not an entirely pleasant one. While our driver/guide was great, our tour company, Ceylon Tours, was entirely unhelpful and uncommunicative (once they had my money). The hotel they booked for us in Kandy was CRAZY (no kidding, Jesus on a cross was the only thing hanging in our bedroom and he was LIFE SIZE. Plus, no A/C or fan in a malarial endemic area. We went back into town to find another hotel.) and most of the rest weren't particularly nice either. Oh well, you live and you learn - from now on my control-freak self will book all of our own travel.

That said, Sri Lanka was beautiful and fascinating. Maybe not the best R&R out of Kabul - the chaos exhausted us - but I would easily consider living there someday. Yes, that's us, the "better to live there than visit" people when it comes to African and South Asian countries. People were friendly, there's lots to see and do, clean(ish) beaches, good surfing, delicious food, low malaria risk...see, we're not too hard to please!

And also, the fruit was delicious. I haven't had pineapple that good since Benin and the bananas were out of the world. Thanks to our driver, we had lots of opportunities to pull over to roadside fruit stands and try all kinds of different and yummy fruits. Best part? No food poisoning! More photos and stories to come, I just liked all these fruit pictures and am hungrily reminiscing from cold, gray, Kabul.