AlbertaTime
in China, China visit #3, Post #7 - June 22nd and 23rd/2014...
So...it's out of Shanghai, June 22 and into Guangzhou to meet with LiWei
again. My ailments were gone;
the fresh
air of Shanghai and good company
had served to pull me through, and I was well-rested. I was really looking
forward to more learning and some hustle and bustle. As usual, I had no
idea how busy things were going to get, or how interesting.
I arrrived
in the early evening of the 22nd, and we had booked rooms in the same
hotel (recommended by LiWei, and a nice place! Nomo Times You apartment).
This was my room view, right to left...
LiWei and I
met and he immediately took me to the top floor, somewhat more than 20
floors high, which has an open air/open ceiling, somewhat walled, pool
area, overlooking very scenic-at-night Guangzhou.
We spent
about 20 minutes walking around, just checking the view and taking photos,
then headed downstairs. LiWei suggested we grab a taxi so he could start
showing me a few things. Excellent. That always ends well. We drove a few
minutes to...
...First,
the Guangzhou location of Touch Woman cafe, where I enjoyed some great
coffee, and a new -- and very cool -- Touch Dog t-shirt. The owners of
Touch Woman, the cosmetics company that gives the cafe its name, also own
Touch Dog, a pet supply company.
Any photos
of me in this entire post are taken by LiWei...
We then took
a short cab ride to the banks of the Pearl River/Zhu Jiang, where we spent
the rest of the evening walking, sight-seeing along the river.
One neat
place we passed was this "theme hotel", in this case themed like "I don't
know what"...but I'd love to stay there :-)
That
journey, including crossing the haizhu bridge, took us to about midnight
when we decided to call it a day and ready ourselves for the tomorrow. The
next day, the 23rd, began with me looking out my window at the awesome
daytime view...
Then, a
quick breakfast followed by a walk to the nearby Yuexiu Park and ZhenhaiLu/Guangzhou
Museum. We had some time to fill since today was for many people a meeting
and preparation day leading up to Shenzhen in two more days. We were
scheduled to meet some folks in the evening but had the day free.
You may
remember than we saw the replica of this water clock when I wrote about
Yantai and the Polaris Horologe Culture Museum there.
A large
outdoor clock dial...
...and a model of the building it used to grace...
...and back
down to city level.
After the
museum/park journey, it was getting obvious that we were headed for a
rainy spell, so LiWei and I grabbed taxi to a very fine furniture store
owned by a friend, for tea and also to meet to go together to the next
appointment, the first (and very fine) restaurant of the evening. The
furniture and wood artifacts in the store were clearly a huge cut above
tourist material. This was product made for the ages. Many entire large
pieces were of nailess/screwless contruction, all dowels, dovetails and
other joinery meticulously done by hand. Prices matched.
As the
rain diminished we made our way to the restaurant where I was to meet with
Rr. Ha, a noted antiquties collector and also the owner of the
Watchlead website, and "Galen" 杨羽成 (now a
WatchuSeek member: btgalen, but also the technical support for the
Watchlead website.
We ate
there, then headed to yet another place for evening coffee...and watchtalk
and some very impressive "here, handle this...".
I was so
enthralled and having so much fun that I, again, neglected photos of the
watches but did catch a couple of the Rolexes at the table, owned by a
younger collector. Also present at the table were Laco, Vacheron
Constantin, Omega, and Patek (I snapped a couple of 'em later, but not at
this meeting). Bottom line, anyways, is the people are most important, and
I didn't neglect snapping them. :-)
That was it
till the next morning, and next post...which is going to be *very* watch
heavy, and it's pretty much going to stay very watch- and clock- heavy
till the end of this trip's series now. New and older factories, smaller
shops, independent watchmakers, the 25th Annual Shenzen Watch and Clock
Fair...all coming, still...
