Trip Daily Diary - 04/26/04

TRIP DAILY DIARY: ASIAN-AMERICAN CULTURAL EXCHANGE

04/26/04 - MONDAY - Flower market in the morning, lunch with the students, afternoon in Western Hills, banquet in the evening

At the flower market, the largest in China, there are all kinds of flower vendors and food vendors as well.	Retailers and distributors come from all around to purchase flowers for their shops.
	The boy, above, is grilling meat and the man is waiting for his breakfast. This Ji (pronounced Yee) minority woman, left, is selling decorative cabbage, ferns, and carnations.
Flowers are sold in bunches or singly.	Along side the market are acres of greenhouses. This one had a shipment of porcelain tubs waiting for decorative trees which they grew there.
These bunches of orchids caught our eye!	This Ji woman is clipping the stems of statis before she bundles them.
Bonsai trees were offered as well.	Much of the transportation of flowers is done by pedal power. We also saw similar rigs powered by rototiller engine.
Summer (L), our lovely translator and guide (a Yunnan Normal University student) bought a big bunch of forget-me-nots and gave them to our group asking us not to forget her. How could we?	Here we all are on the bus leaving the market with our flowers and on our way to the school to have lunch with the Experimental School kids.