Lonely Hearts

As if yesterday wasn’t enough, Guangzhou keeps getting crazier and crazier by the day. It’s almost as if God was making fun of me for even thinking that yesterday was an eventful day…but again, I’m getting ahead of myself so perhaps I should start at the beginning.

Well let’s see, I woke up. Michael, master of maps, had found a map and came to the conclusion that our hotel wasn’t on it. In fact, our hotel isn’t even “technically” in Guangzhou. That ignited a desire for a quest to head into the city by foot: a quest which was accompanied by the presence of Wes, Tiffany and myself.

It’s days like today that I wish that I had a pedometer handy to see exactly how far we walked. I guarantee you that in total it was somewhere within the 14-18 mile range. We paused for lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant, walked around some backstreets, took pictures of the city, yadda yadda yadda…

…Sorry, I’m rushing, I just really want to get to the good part of the story. You see, we had found ourselves wandering and hoping to find a Starbucks. Guangzhou is a really westernized city of approximately 15 million people, we found one in no time. Tiffany went to the ladies room and when she came back she had a message: “Kayla, there’s a woman over there who looked really happy to see white people, maybe you should talk to her.” Tiffany had no idea what she had set me up for. For the next 45 minutes of my life I had a lovely chit-chat with my darling new friend, Stephanie from Newcastle, England (oh goodness, my inner monologue is sounding British already. Blimey!) We had such a lovely, genuine conversation, laughing and sharing stories instantaneously. I left, feeling like I was walking on clouds. My teammates, who were patiently waiting and happy to use the free wi-fi, asked if I had invited her to dinner. Why didn’t I think of that?! So I turned around and that’s exactly what we did.

Three hours later our whole team met Stephanie and her friend Niel at that Starbucks again, and headed to a yunnan food restaurant. We sat and chatted for hours, sharing stories, China stories, culture things and greatness. Neil works outside the city teaching English to a variety of students, and Stephanie works in a kindergarten, teaching 2 year olds. Both came here on a whim, not knowing a soul and have only been in the country for 3 ½ months. [Pause: Lets talk about brave.] Both are having a hard time finding community and feeling connected in this great, huge place. It broke my heart to hear that such wonderful people were having a hard time finding genuine people to share life with in this city. It made me thankful for my team, thankful for my organization, and thankful for all the real relationships that I have in my life, both here and 7,000 miles away.

We closed out our evening by heading to a Cowboy Express a few blocks away to grab some fro-yo’s [frozen yogurts for those of you who aren't up-to-date on snack slang]. The owner(from Utah, p.s) was happy to greet us and inform us that the fro-yo was imported from Australia. Let’s talk about a cultural night, people. Inside we talked some more, watched Taylor Swift music videos, and laughed until we cried {well, at least I was crying…I can’t speak for everyone else}.

I was really sad to leave our new friends. Who would have thought that Guangzhou would have so much to offer? It began off the radar in our travel plans, but then we had a connecting flight here, and then we booked a hotel, and now we’re here, and I’m so glad. Stephanie, the entire evening, was cracking me up. As we closed out the night, she said to me “you know, your blog could be a place for all the lonely hearts of Guangzhou to connect and find each other!” This one goes out to you, Stephanie, and to all the other lonely hearts in Guangzhou, looking for somebody real, friendly, and loving life! Leave a…comment? I’m so glad to have met you and truly and genuinely hope that our paths will cross again, someday. Preferably soon.

Yea buddy... the sign above says "There's a little cowboy in all of us."