Day 4: Enjoying Dongguan
Breakfast the next morning was served at a local place a few doors down from the hotel. It wasn’t quite a restaurant, not quite fast food. It was SO. GOOD. The menu was all in Mandarine so we had Benny help us order. Benny is originally from Hong Kong and now calls L.A. his home. He just graduated from the UA with his masters in dance.
Left side of the table: Tom (viola), Ken (bass), Benny (dancer)
Right side: Me, Phil (obviously), Don (lighting)
The best dish was this wide noodle made out of rice flour and then wrapped around stuff inside. Kinda like a noodle burrito, except the noodle had the texture of an egg white. We had ours with egg and mushroom inside. One of our favorite dishes, so far.
Next up was exploring the area around us. For me, that meant shopping, shopping, shopping! There were malls at every turn, but they were Western style clothing with Western prices. I found the street vendors much cheaper. Most of the clothes/shoes I’ve been buying cost me from $3-$9! Woot woot! Phil just rolls his eyes. The stores offer A/C, however, so he couldn’t roll his eyes at that. It was very hot and humid that day. I mean, we were dripping the second we stepped outside.
His beard attracts a lot of attention:
At lunch there were the most vegetarian options we had seen. It was all just so, so good! We encountered a strange mushroom.
It’s called “wood ear”, or something like that, because they cut wood from a tree and then grow these mushrooms on that wood. It has a very rubbery texture. The flavor was good, but most of us don’t care for it because of the rubberiness.
That evening was our second show in this city, so call time wasn’t until 5. This was especially nice for Phil. The tech crew had been pulling 12-14 hour days. They need to get to the theater as soon as possible each day (about 11am) to learn the sound and light boards and get everything set.
The show starts at 8pm, ends about 10:00. Then tear down, packing and loading the truck take some time. Then we load the bus and go straight to dinner each time. By the time we get back to the hotel, it’s 12:30am.
The theaters we go to are the same chain, so there are many similarities, but also differences that give each one a little character.
This one is shaped like some type of flower. They didn’t know the English name for it. Phil thought it looked like Space Mountain.
Since Phil was able to nap that afternoon, and only worked 5pm-12am (haha), we felt up to going out. We went with a group to a chill bar that was owned by a Canadian. We encountered only Westeners. The atmosphere was relaxed and welcoming. The weather had cooled down considerably, and it was very pleasant to sit outside. The drinks were so cheap for us, too! We’ve found that drinking cold beer is much more refreshing than even water in this heat and humidity. The beer is rice beer, and very light in flavor. It was just such a great night.
