While you shopped on Black Friday, I saw Jackie Chan!

That's right folks. For one night and one night only, I was a VIP in China. I, along with 50 of my closest teacher friends were taken to Guangzhou to attend the opening ceremonies of the International Culture and Tourism Festival. We sat in a special section, row 2, yes that close! We travelled to Guangzhou on coaches that were lined up with police escorts on all sides, man I felt important. We had dinner in town and then came the ceremony...think Olympic Games Opening event folks, there were fireworks, there were lion dancers, there was flamenco dancing, there were pop-stars, there were the finalists for the Miss World Model Contest, there were men beating water drums, there were acrobats, there were unbelievably ostentatious costumes......and best of all...there was Jackie Chan! He was wheeled in on a big float and sang a song. It was awesome and totally made my night. So yes, I can truthfully say I live in China and I have seen Jackie Chan. Though, the most entertaining part might have been the giant 150 foot long dragon that shot off fireworks b/c it was being carried by a battallion of fellas wearing....well wearing only little white boxers. I couldn't quite understand it, maybe it was because there were sparks flying everywhere and they wanted the carryers to wear fire-retardant clothing, but one would think they could have made a little more a covering garment with said fire-retardant cloth.