Weekend Wash Out

The BYU teachers from both Guangzhou universities decided to take a weekend trip to a National site just outside of Guangzhou to the North. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site about two hour train ride.

 The Danxia landform refers to various landscapes found in southeast, southwest and northwest China that "consist of a red bed characterized by steep cliffs". It is a unique type of petrographic geomorphology found in China. Wikipedia

During the week we picked up our train tickets both going and the return this time along with a hotel reservation.  On Thursday I teach at the South Campus so the bus ride takes about an hour longer to get back to our apartment.  As soon as I arrived at 1:15 we took a cab to meet the others at the Guangzhou East Railway station.   Our train was a 2:13 departure so we barely had time to grab a McDonald’s sandwich then to the escalator for the train waiting area.  All eight of us had arrived, small miracle in and of itself.  We found a spot to sit for what we thought would be about 10 minutes until boarding.  One glace at the train board told us the train had been delayed from 2:13 to 4:30.  All that rush just to get a train delay, oh well.  We can always find interesting things to entertain ourselves in China.   

 A storm was brewing outside, a downpour was beginning.  We watched as the cloud cover darkened and it became almost black as nighttime.  We could hear the downpour on the ceiling of the train depot and before to long the leaks began to appear.  The water dripped from the light fixtures to the floor and anything in its way in the waiting hall.  We were moving seats rapidly to find a spot that wasn’t already wet or wouldn’t become wet soon. Two hours later the board registered yet another delay, it was now pushed back to 5:30.

Our Chinese is very limited and we began to wonder if we needed more information than just the delay time.  The Chinese people are great to try to help the foreigners out, but our limited language abilities became pretty humorous.  At first they speak in a normal tone, a few gestures and pointing to the Chinese signs, then a little louder and vigorously pointing to specific words on the Chinese sign, then they are yelling very slowly the Chinese so we will be able to understand.  It always makes me smile when the Chinese speakers get frustrated with our lack of language and begin writing Chinese characters first on their hand then they always take our hand as if they are spelling it out for us to understand. Unfortunately, none of that helps when you do not read or speak much Chinese. 

We found a student that was able to explain that the storm had washed out parts of the road and train track to Danxia.  The delay was an indefinite one until it was safe to leave. 

We decided it was time for us to leave and not take any additional chances in a location that was compromised.  So we are all back in our apartments for a rain soaked weekend.