One Girl, Two Coasts: Day Nineteen: So Long, Farewell...

Day Nineteen

Today was our last day in Yangzhou...it had flown by! We were going out today with our "little grandpa", but essentially uncle...he's my grandfather's youngest brother but he's much, much younger than the rest of the siblings. We ate a quick breakfast, and then went with him to another one of Yangzhou's famous places...it's called 何园 (He Yuan) and it's a place that is essentially a traditional Chinese garden/palace from thousands of years ago. The architecture there is very classic and the buildings there contain many pieces of Chinese history.

We followed this huge tour group that was 90% composed of elderly folks who couldn't take a photo under four minutes with their basic little cameras/phones if their lives depended on it. However, the other 10% was even worse...it was a group of young twenty-somethings who thought they were the coolest people who ever lived. There was no sun whatsoever in the sky, but they were all sporting aviators....good for you!!!! They were also lagging behind to take these ridiculous photos with the most cliche poses...**vomits** I had fun sniping photos of them in the funniest poses. You'll meet every type of person in this country, I tell you.

The tour was hard to understand, since there were probably 2729573 old people ahead of us chatting about their grandchildren's new hobbies or their terrible wrinkles that had completely taken over their face. You can see how I didn't catch much of the tour guide's schpeel.

The tour went on like this for most of the time. We saw many cool things from the old days here in Yangzhou, then wandered around the park on our own. All in all, a beautiful and meaningful place to visit!

For lunch, our aunt brought us to a very local place that had been around since she was a child. It mainly offered noodles and dumplings, so I got dry noodles with veggies and tried some of the dumplings my aunt had bought for the group...they really were very good! All of us had massive food babies once we were done at the restaurant. It was time to go back home and pack up the rest of our stuff before we went back home.

It was sad to say goodbye to our family members here in Yangzhou...we barely have seen them during the course of our lives, and even though they strongly encouraged us to come back whenever we got the chance (or the money for a ticket), I have no idea how long it might be until I see them again. They are all extremely averse to visiting America (which is very weird and uncommon here) because of old age, medical reasons, or simply because of a preference for home. Hopefully it's sooner rather than later that we meet again...

My aunt, brother, and I were dropped off at the railway station by my uncle that afternoon. I made a significant observation when we were in the car; we pulled up to a toll booth and the worker there was very strange. He smiled unnaturally the whole time and was abnormally polite and courteous for a toll booth worker. He cocked his head and wished us a safe trip and a happy day when we left, and it literally sounded robotic. I'm sure he and the other workers were being filmed to make sure they were providing the best care and service to drivers, but it creeped the absolute bajeesus out of me. I still can't stop thinking about it! It's such an unnatural way to act that the workers all looked like robots. Is this what society has come to? I don't know about you, but I for one, am NOT a fan.

In the station, we had to wait a few hours for the next high speed train to Shanghai. It was a lot of standing around, glaring at screaming children, and staring listlessly at the same two commercials on the screens. Fun.

Once we got on the train, we were picked up promptly by the ever-faithful and dependable uncle, and we were home in a few hours. Another of my aunts had prepared an incredibly large and delicious dinner for us, and we enjoyed the comfort of being back in a very familiar place. I had a long conversation with my cousin late into the night before drifting off to sleep. Ahh, back in Shanghai!