Fitting in: Turkey and South Africa
Finally posting this - the hotel in Cannakale had wifi, but blogger was having issues!
So this hotel in Cannakale has wifi in the room, and Pickle Deli Square isn't on hiatus for the moment!
The only thing our tour did today, besides a lot of driving, was to visit the battlefields and graves at Gallipoli. I wasn't all that excited about this part of the trip; probably the battle here has more resonance among the Australian and New Zealand troops representing the Allied forces, and the Turkish (and German) troops on the other side.
It turned out to be a more interesting stop than I anticipated, because of the hordes of Turkish tourists, who were also visiting the site. Tour bus after tour bus created big traffic jams. And since I think they were from all over Turkey, it was exciting for some of them too to see foreigners. Some of them practiced their English with me, giggling when I responded. Others took pictures with other members of our group.
Turkey is definitely the first stop on trip where I think there is no way to fit in, since East Asian people just don't live here. In Argentina, I think there were some. In Brazil, there are lots of Japanese especially in Sao Paulo, so people assumed I was Brazilian (once I dressed the right way).
And actually the place where I met the most Chinese people was in South Africa. The flight from JNB to CPT was packed with Chinese people, specifically mainland Chinese (though a lot of them didn't speak any English and were rather obnoxious to the flight attendants, so I was a little embarrassed to be sitting among them). On Table Mountain, I came across a large group of Chinese people too. They turned out to be from Anhui province, and were working at a factory in town. Indeed, I was surprised that Chinese cars are already on South African roads, like the Chery brand. And the proprietor of a really cheap internet cafe I went to was Chinese too. There are truly Chinese people from rich to working class living in South Africa.
