My trip to Guangzhou, China

[Bamspeedy]

Post #1 The Flights

As you may know, I just took a trip to China, which was my first trip overseas (actually first time leaving the country except briefly visiting a Mexican border town as a child/teen).

This is a picture I took from my front door while I waited for the taxi to the airport to show what I was leaving behind.



It snowed quite a bit the previous day and up until 3AM, but the weather was clear by the time I left La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA. The La Crosse (LSE) airport is a very small airport because there is only 3 gates (usually only one is used) and I was the only person in the airport when I arrived at 8:30 AM. I had to ring a bell at the counter to get someone to check in my baggage as the staff person was in a back room doing paperwork.

I left at 11 AM in one of those 'puddle-jumpers' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commuter_aircraft or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_340, (a really small passenger plane that seats only 30+ people) for a half hour flight to Minneapolis. The 1 hour layover in Minneapolis was nothing as by the time I got to the gate there was already a couple hundred people in line to board the plane to Tokyo.

The plane from Minneapolis to Tokyo was on the largest plane Northwest Airlines has. The double-decker 747-400. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747-400
I had an aisle seat, and a 20 or so year old japanese woman had the window seat while the middle seat was empty, so we had a bit more room. The girl was hot, but seemed a little too self absorbed in her appearance that I didn't make any attempt at flirting with her. That and her long fingernails kind of scared me...

We couldn't take off right away as there was a change in the actual flight path so they had to get clearance because our new path would take us into Russian air space. (Of course this is when all those nasty thoughts come into my mind about air disasters in the past where passenger planes went into some country's air space and ended up being shot down because they didn't have clearance or miscommunication about the clearance...). So instead of what I had imagined would be a nice shot straight across the U.S. and the Pacific was now more of an arch going across western Canada, Alaska and the eastern coast of Russia. We still arrived a half hour ahead of schedule.

The 12 hour flight wasn't so bad as there was a couple of movies to watch, I slept for a couple hours, and the food wasn't as bad as what I was led to believe it would be. Sure, the food isn't the greatest, but there are many TV diners that are far worse. I flew economy class the whole way, and while I can see where business/first class would be more comfortable, I don't see it as being worth all that extra money.

I arrive in Tokyo and have to go through security again since I was arriving at and leaving another country (thankfully you don't need a Japanese passport since you aren't leaving the airport). Since there was also many Chinese people there now going to the same connecting flight as me going to Guangzhou, I got my first taste of the 'there is no lines in China' thing. Before we got to the actual security machines where there was narrower barriers to form a line, you kind of had to force your way through in order to keep your place in line, otherwise someone will quickly and easily cut in front of you. You had to stay pretty close to the person in front of you so you don't lose your place in line.

The Tokyo airport was easy for me as my connecting flight was the first gate I came to. I had a two hour layover and when I got there I was the only caucasian at that gate, so I got quite a few stares. But it also got interesting since there was so many attractive asian stewardesses and airline staff compared to the old women I seen on the previous flights. Eventually more caucausian businessmen showed up, but they were all flying business/first class.

I think in Economy class there was only me and two older women that were caucasian, the rest was Chinese/Japanese. I get to my seat and then a younger woman with a toddler comes up and asks to switch seats with me since her family had three seats, but they weren't all in the same row. Since I didn't want to sit right next to a crying baby and to be nice (since she was cute), I agreed and ended up in the middle seat one row back. A young chinese girl (18-19 years old?) ends up in the window seat next to my new seat. She seemed more shy and conservative than the girl from the last flight (not as hot, but not bad either), but she also had those really long fingernails. The aisle seat ended up being empty, so I scooted over and once again had some extra space.

The five hour flight from Tokyo to Guangzhou wasn't that bad. There was an American movie playing, but it was spoken in Japanese or Chinese (with no subtitles), so it wasn't really worth watching for me. I did get a copy of the China Daily translated in English to read and it was quite interesting. It had the usual serious news, but also some silly news (like admittedly there is also in US media, but the non-serious news seems to take up more space in the China paper).
Story on the bottom of the front page was about how Americans are using Facebook to find love. Page 5 (first section of paper is 12 pages) is devoted almost entirely of 'News from the Weird'/'This is news?' type stories. "Man thinks daughter cares more about dog than him" "Man offering reward to anyone who can get his money back that he lent to a friend", and "Man trying to shoot bird breaks window of luxury car", "Grandma swallows gold ring man had hid in birthday cake", and "Woman changes name so she can get married".

While on the flight I had 3 forms I had to fill out to prepare for the customs/immigration when arriving in China. The stewardess at first made a mistake and gave me one form that was completely in Chinese so I had no idea how to fill out that one. For 'address/contact' you just put the hotel you will be staying at. Customs/security at the airport was easier than I thought as it was mostly just handing the forms off to the security people (one form at each checkpoint). You pick up your checked luggage before you go through the final checkpoint.

 

[Bamspeedy]

The Translator

The girl I came to China to meet really doesn't like traveling when it gets dark, she lives an hour from the airport and she also worked that day so both of us would be really tired. And we agreed that meeting each other at 11 PM doesn't really get us much of a chance to meet before we would have to go get some sleep so it would be better to meet the next day.

Since I had no idea where I was going or what to expect, I googled for a translator to meet me at the airport and to travel with me to the hotel to make sure I got there with no problems and be able to check into the hotel alright (this was before I learned the hotel has english speaking staff, had any idea of how much a taxi should cost, and I got some tips of how to deal with Chinese taxi drivers from this forum). The hotel is about 45 minutes-1 hour from the airport. She said she would do it for 300 RMB (~$40), plus transportation costs which would be 20 RMB ($2.71) since she took the bus to the airport, plus whatever it costs to get us to the hotel (taxi would be about 150 yuan or $20). After asking her to do this I have found on google that I could hire a guide for $40 for a whole day and there are others available for much cheaper than that (but also have to pay transportation and food costs), but I wasn't too worried about the money, as I was more concerned about not having any problems on my first trip. I just wanted someone I could count on, and she had an online resume with photo, so I felt more comfortable knowing I would know who to look for and that she will be reliable (she has a reputation to keep). And as you will see in a little bit, I got lucky and this actually turned out to be money very well spent, IMO.

When I first contacted her I must have been looking at the wrong calender as I told her I would arrive on the 7th. A week or so before my trip she contacted me by email just to make sure that I was still going on the trip and that I wanted to hire her. That is when I realize that the date was the 6th, not the 7th. So I write back to her and a day later my email gets sent back to me as undeliverable. I try it again and it gets sent back again with a message about the hotmail server (for her email) being down. I would get her letters, but she didn't get mine. So I finally wrote to the girl I was meeting and asked her to call the translator for me and tell her I had the date wrong, and told her if she wanted to cancel she could because it was my mistake, and I felt more comfortable doing it myself, if I had to, if she couldn't make it. In the end, she was able to meet me on the 6th.

So I leave customs at the airport and immediately outside the door is dozens of guides and translators holding up signs for the person they are to be meeting. Right in the middle of all of them, there she is holding a sign with my first and last name in huge letters.

Since it was so late at night her boyfriend came with her. Her boyfriend is from London.



My plane was due to arrive at 10:40 and it arrived early, but the time going through customs and the fact that my baggage seemed to be the last one unloaded, I didn't get outside until 11:00. The translator thought my plane was delayed a long time, but maybe she is used to dealing with business/first class people that usually get out quicker. We got either the last bus or the second to last bus of the night.

We take the bus and her boyfriend tells me about the city, which was more helpful since it was from a westerner point of view, so he had more knowledge of what would be culture shocks for me and dangers for me as a foreigner. He has lived in Guangzhou for a couple years now and is in the real estate business and works in Citic Plaza building, which is one block from the hotel I was staying at.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CITIC_Plaza

He said something about that building in '97 was the tallest building in China (or Asia?) for only a couple of months before another building was completed. It is still the tallest concrete building in the world. He works for (or deals with) Proctor and Gamble and finds real estate for foreigners. Her other job is teaching Chinese to foreigners.

We talked about a few of the dangers that I asked about in my other thread, and some of them he confirmed and others he just said it hadn't happened to him yet. Street vendor food he said if you are living there, you just eventually take your chances, but said since I am there only a week it is better that I don't risk it. He said he did just go to the hospital for food poisoning not too long ago. He of course said not to drink the water unless it's been boiled first. He said even the locals don't drink it, only the beggars do. He's never been grabbed by the arm and tried to be lured into a shop by someone desperate to sell to foreigners, but he has been overcharged by them. He will see a chinese person buy some food for 2 yuan, but then he will try to buy the exact same thing right after them and then told the price is 10 yuan. He told me that if at all possible, never give a taxi driver a 100 yuan bill (worth about $13.59). Some of them have stacks of conterfeits and will turn their shoulder as if to be taking a close look at it, but secretly switch your bill with a counterfeit and then give it back to you and say it is a fake so you have to give him another one. I started with many 100's, but used them when buying stuff elsewhere so I would have smaller bills for the taxi. The 100s were very often looked at closely by shops, but anything smaller was almost never scrutinized. He said yellow taxis are the best, green taxis are so-so but by far the most common. Another color (blue?, I can't remember) was very good, but might charge a higher rate. When I took taxis with my contact, she didn't care about the colors, so we took the green ones often. I didn't have any problems, but I don't know if that was because I wasn't alone. I did get a 50 cent note one time, which has the number '5' on it, which if you don't know better could be mistaken for 5 yuan. I don't remember where I got that, so I don't know if it was from a taxi or not. Sometimes I gave her the money to hand to the taxi driver, but instead of giving her back the change, they would make sure to hand it to me.

The currency is varying sizes depending on the amount they are worth. The bottom note is the 50 cent (1/2 yuan), but it says '5' on it. It obviously does look different than the rest, but there is also 1 yuan note that looks similar to it but is an older version of the newer 1 yuan notes shown in the photo.



I think the back of the notes are far more interesting than seeing the same face all the time.



The coins from top to bottom are 1 yuan, 50 cent/.5 yuan, and 10 cent/.1 yuan. They are labeled 1, 5, and 1. Vending machines that I used didn't automatically give back change after buying something, I actually had to press 'change return', so I think I forgot to get my change a couple times. And the machines are absolutely horrible at accepting 1 yuan notes (I don't think they ever did accept them once, I always ended up using fives or tens and had to really try to spend the 1 yuan notes so I didn't end up carrying around a huge wad of them).

The translator seemed to be getting annoyed that me and her boyfriend were talking about all the bad stuff about her city so she told him to start saying something nice about it. He did say that the people are very helpful and the scenery at the parks are beautiful and the food is great. But other than that he did seem to have a little trouble listing positive things, but he seems to like living there anyways.

He said that the lines at Pizza Hut is insane and that people will be lined up around the block to get Pizza Hut pizza even if there is a better pizza place with no lines a block or two away. Also at the Pizza Hut for their salad bar it is fruit and you are only allowed one bowl and one trip. So what people would do is spend 10 minutes carefully piling up fruit way higher than the bowl. So then they will be carefully walking back to their table with this bowl with fruit piled 6 inches higher than the top of the bowl. It is like a work of art how much fruit some people could get 'into' the bowl.

He also warned me that they leave bones in the food when cooking meat of anything smaller than a cow, because there is a belief that the bone is an important part of the flavor. So he warned me to watch out for bones in chickens, fish, etc.

The bus stopped something like 8-10 blocks from the hotel and we could have walked, we took a taxi since it was quicker and he had to work the next morning (it was about midnight at this point). And considering I just spent 20+ hours on planes and layovers, we all decided taxi was better than walking. The taxi was a little over 1 USD. She was going to charge me for the bus ticket of her boyfriend too, but he said no, he was just tagging along, so he made sure I wasn't being charged for that.

 

[Bamspeedy]

The Hotel

The hotel was a three star hotel. It cost $32 a night. It was in the financial district so there was more foreigners in the area during the day than other parts of the city. It was on a side street, so there wasn't a constant stream of traffic going by all the time, but was by no means an 'alley', although sometimes it might have felt that way with the low traffic.



Right next door to the hotel was the entryway to a military administrative building, so there was one or two guards posted there all the time.



And across the street there was the entrance to the underground parking of the big Citic Plaza building, so there was a guard there also. And the hotel also had a man in camoflauge who acted like security and helped unload baggage from taxis for the guests. Needless to say, there wasn't a problem with crime in front of the hotel...

The hotel had large clear automatic sliding doors at the entrance and the lobby was decorated for the Christmas season, like most places were at this time of year.



There were always 2 or 3 women working at the front desk, 1-3 older women and men in suits (managers), in addition to the security guard at what seemed to be not a very busy hotel (until the last 3 days I was there when a whole bunch of high school students were staying there). The hotel did have some permanent residents and the hotel did look more like two apartment buildings than a hotel (minus the clothes hanging outside, which was seen almost everywhere else in Guangzhou).

The staff was english speaking, but not very fluently. Enough to communicate effectively I would say in most cases, but not well enough to ask something complicated.

Edit: Forgot to mention I also had to pay a 300 Yuan deposit, so luckily I didn't arrive with the 'bare minimum' in order to save some money on a better exchange rate in China than I get at home. I came with enough money exchanged that I thought would last me through the weekend and then figured I would exchange more on Monday to get me through the last few days. But my friend insisted on paying for most of the meals and taxi rides, even when I tried to pay myself, that the money I came with was more than enough.

The area between the two buildings was nice and the pond would become a fountain, shooting water straight up from the middle and then all four corners would shoot water towards the middle, but it seems like this only ran at night/very early in the morning because I never got a picture of it during the day. The pond had seemingly very dirty water, which is very common in the city and had several fish in it.





The hotel did have a 'restaurant' and 'bar', but it wasn't really what I expected. The restaurant consisted of two large tables (seating 8 people each). And the 'bar' consisted of small waiter's table, with what looked like a 16 year old serving the drinks. Quite often me and my friend were the only ones eating there.
My friend said the food was expensive there, but I think it depended on what you ordered. A meal that was enough to get both of us full cost about $10, but much of that was from the drinks, like many restaurants. I could buy a pepsi from the vending machine for 2.5 yuan, or order a sprite from the restaurant for 10 yuan. So I'm effectively paying 7.5 yuan for the straw I get at the restaurant. The restaurant was only open during the morning and in the evening (6Am/Pm-12am/pm). The breakfast was 20 yuan ($2.72) and was like a continental breakfast you get at many american hotels.

The security guard had a staring problem when me and my friend ate at the restuarant. I saw him many of times looking at us while he was standing outside (he was away from the entrance to get a look at us). I am sure it was more curiosity than anything else. After several days we were walking through the lobby one time and he was also in the lobby standing right next to where we were walking past. I kind of nodded my head at him, like I was aknowledging him and then he gets all excited and happy and starts speaking something back to me in Chinese. The last night there I took this picture to show the 'bar' and to get a picture of him. He kind of half turned around and smiled after the flash went off.



The room itself wasn't so bad, but what suprised me was the gas mask in case of fire.



The complimentary slippers I thought was cute (really cheap, made out of very thin cotton or thick paper, I don't remember as I never wore them, they were new because they came wrapped in plastic and would have been worn out too quickly to be reused).

Then I sat on the bed and found my biggest complaint of the hotel. Instead of a box spring, they have wood!



Then I looked to see what kind of view I would have....



The construction noise wasn't really a problem, as except for the last day we always left the hotel or were awake before they started.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Post #4 Guangzhou



After the administrative military complex next to the hotel was this building, with the business on the right being a really cheap restaurant with only 4 tables. I decided we would try it out on my second full day there (before then we ate at the McDonald's a block away or at the hotel). The menu was entirely in Chinese, but the cost was in english numbers and I found that when it comes to numbers, almost everything, if not everything, is in the english numerals. Most places had their menu printed in both english and chinese, but some of these smaller restaurants had the menu choices only in Chinese. I never got sick on the trip so the food here must have been alright.

This next picture was taken about 3 blocks from the hotel, and as you can see this area being the financial district was pretty nice.



About 3 blocks from the hotel was the metro station where you can get a train (long distance), subway, bus or taxi.

There is four lanes designated solely for taxi pickup/drop off. And from here the traffic can split in either direction so you have taxis from the the far left turning right and taxis from the far right turning left, meanwhile pedestrians crossing the road at all times (mayhem, if you ask me).



If any of these lines are near you, go to them because just standing on the street may take awhile to get a taxi because even with tens of thousands of taxis around the city, everyone is using a taxi, so most of the time all the taxis driving by already has a passenger. Find the spots where the taxis are making frequent drop offs. This was so different than my hometown where if you needed a taxi you had to make a phone call and tell them where to meet you.

This is one of the few times you will see a somewhat orderly line in China, because there is rails to keep people organized. These people are in line to get a taxi.



At the end of the line, these police tell people which taxi to get into. Sometimes the second policeman will be standing at the end of the line of taxis with a clipboard, occassionally writing something (license plates?) down.



We went to the pedestrian mall, and I regret not taking a picture sooner. It was so congested I was very worried of pickpockets so I kept one hand on my camera and another in my pocket on my money. This is at the outskirts of it, so the pedestrian traffic is significantly reduced. At the busier part of it the middle is completely packed with pedestrians, and the stores don't have their goods quite so far out into the street and more inside (but the store is still opened up with no doors that would open/close except at night). Each store was probably about the size of my hotel room. I saw one store that was selling gold jewelry and they had 5 young women cashiers standing shoulder to shoulder with no customers in the store. They probably need that many staff because otherwise they place would probably easily get swamped and there would be alot of shoplifting without all those extra eyes on the merchandise.



The dissappointing part was that I didn't really see anything really 'chinese' (except food) being sold in the stores, just western clothes or cheap knock-offs of the real thing.

Here is a bus station when we were attempting to leave Guangzhou (explained later in a future post), but we started too late in the day and decided the lines were too long.



You can't really see it, but that is probably about a half dozen lines and the lines bend back towards me on the left behind where that guy with the newspaper is. This area was the first time I came across beggars.

This next picture, I don't remember where it was, but I think there is a restaurant off to the right that we ate it. Another Chinese only menu, but had more tables. My friend ordered me noodles since she knew I would like it instead of repeating the whole menu to me. While I figured out my own way to eat the noodles with chopsticks (which I felt was almost as effective, I just took larger bites), a young woman comes up and tries teaching me how. Of course I still couldn't get the hang of it, she finally gave up and we laughed about it. That restaurant was quite a bit busier so I am sure several of them got a laugh about it.



There was also some businesses in the alleyways in between these stores, but I had no idea what they were, and the alleys were way too narrow and dirty for me to want to venture there.

And then China does have a few of those things that I despise and hope I never see much over here.

How I hate to drive in circles!



It looks nice and clean because this was near the entrance to Baiyun Mount, and things always look way better near the tourist areas.

We also went to an indoor mall area. The bottom floor looked like a typical mall with each store being divided by solid walls, but then an escalator took you to the second floor and all the stores were not diveded and kind of ran together. We almost walked right into the grocery store without realizing it. It was like going into a Wal-mart, but each department being a seperate store (or it was all the same business, but each department had a cash register). Every worker was wearing a santa hat. This picture was the least congested and probably shows 3 or 4 different areas/stores.



This next picture is of a school, and I took it because of the clothes on the roof (at least I think the building is part of the school). School uniforms are like the windbreakers that high school sports teams wear here in the U.S.



That picture was taken while I was riding the cableway to the top of Baiyun Mount. I also saw someone doing some welding on a roof and he wasn't wearing any welding mask!

I passed by an area a few times in a taxi that had had dozens of these yellow blankets laid out on the sidewalk with all these trinkets and jewelry that people were selling. Sorry this is the best picture I got that I took from the taxi.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Post #5 Parks

If you want some space from all the congestion, go to a park.

I will say that the parks in Guangzhou are very nice and clean (I never needed to use a toilet except at the hotel, airport and at the resort, so I can't comment on any restrooms but them). But then again we didn't spend too much time walking around as she had a thing for high heeled boots so she didn't want to walk around for hours and hours.

I divided this into spoilers for those that have trouble loading too many pictures at a time.

Skatepark:

Spoiler :

That is a walkway running up the side of that building. I don't know what it lead to. At the bottom was some sort of festivities going on (much more congested) with a band singing and a basketball shooting game for kids and women (the hoop was like 5.5 feet high and they were shooting from only a few feet away, maybe the ball was weighted or something) among other things.

A historical fort:

Spoiler :

A rare picture of me. Don't tell anyone about it

Also note the dirty looking water.



And a picture of her:

Then we went to this place that is place that is like a funland, called Chimelong Paradise that had rides and stuff. It cost 170 yuan ($23) per adult to enter and then the rides were free. Last picture in this spoiler is probably the best action shot I've ever taken.

Spoiler :

Then this marching band comes through...





We went on a simple Octopus ride and she was pretty scared by that so she didn't want to go on the huge roller coaster. I wasn't up to this ride pictured below because I wasn't up to being turned upside down:



So what do we do....We go on this ride that was way worse than either one of them, called the Frisbee (we weren't sure exactly what the ride was going to do). I bet if that ride broke apart (which I'm sure is mechanically impossible) at just the right trajectory when going at full speed, 40 people on that giant frisbee would have been flung two miles. First time I ever in my life remember having my stomach get a strong sick feeling from a carnival ride.

A few pictures from Baiyun Mount (more to come in next post)

Spoiler :

You see these police and security guards in all sorts of different uniforms all over the city, I still haven't figured out the difference in ranks.



Speaking of police, a picture of the side of the police station at Baiyun Mount with the different police vehicles. There was also a motorbike behind one of the trucks.

More (and by far better) pictures of Baiyun Mount can be found here:
http://www.pbase.com/shenss/baiyun_mount

We only saw a very small portion of it, as it would take a couple of days probably to see everything there and requires lots of walking.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Post #6 Pollution

I reached the photo limit in the last post, so this was meant to be added there.

A bird that walked across the path only a couple of feet in front of us:


You had to pay to access an area that was the bird zoo, but we saw a part of it from a side trail (looks like some back pen area not normally seen by the paying customers):



This was taken in the afternoon, so it wasn't early morning fog...

Spoiler :

A few other pictures taken while I was on the cable car thing (not pollution related).

Spoiler :

 

[Bamspeedy]

Post #7 The Countryside

The address that I had for my friend was a room that she rents with her niece during the week when she works. Her daughter stays at her brother's house during the week in a smaller city which is a 2 hour bus drive from her job, so she goes there on the weekend to see her daughter. So to meet her daughter we needed to take a 3 hour bus drive to this small city.

When we first got on the bus there was only like 8 passengers and I was feeling this was a huge waste of a bus trip to carry so few people such a far distance. But after leaving the bus station it made several stops picking up more people and then made several stops at the next town, so it was full before making more stops and dropping people off it was down to about 8 people again by the time we reached this city, which was the bus's final destination.

A city we went through didn't have the traffic of Guangzhou, but it had so many factories that the pollution was just as bad. I did see some lovely crop fields and saw poor people working the fields and this little woman carrying this huge bale of crops on her back that was larger than she was.

Then I saw the human street sweepers. There were people sweeping the side of the freeway with oversized brooms and then I noticed the freeway was indeed rather clean of trash.

Upon leaving Guangzhou I started seeing motorbikes all over the place. Far more people owned motorbikes than cars once you leave Guangzhou. Motorbikes were (recently?) banned within the urban areas, so I didn't see any in the big city. We passed a car manufacturer and the parking lot for the workers was half filled with cars and half filled with motorbikes. When you get to these smaller cities, all the taxis are motorbikes. They are the ones with red helmets and they are just as concentrated as the taxis in the city are.

We get off the bus and right at the bus door is at least 6 motorbike-taxis all lined up trying to get me to get on their bike. My friend finally gets on one, so I hop onto another one and they take us through the city to her brother's house. No helmet for the passengers, so my parents will probably be going mad if I tell them about this. They didn't drive too fast (but I realize it doesn't take much speed to cause serious damage).

The city was obviously poorer, but had lots of little shops, which is probably the type of shops that another poster warned that would have people grab you by the arm and try to get you into their shop, but I didn't walk through the town. Foreigners were much rarer in these parts, so there was alot more staring as I rode through town. The streets and outsides of the shops were much dirtier and and less organized with junk scattered about.

We get to the edge of town and go through an alley like road to her brother's house. There was garbage scattered all over the street and then it seems like the whole neighborhood made a point of walking past her brother's house or hanging around nearby to catch a glimpse of me. It was mostly women and old men as the adult men were probably out working.







Her brother's wife served us some tea (at least I hope it was), but I only took a couple of tiny sips and noticed things floating in it so I didn't drink anymore and just acted like I wasn't really thirsty.

I don't remember there really being a door to the house, but there was a decent bike inside. Of course bike locks are a necessity.



Her bike was a cheaper one like these here, which was parked at the resort, and presumedly driven by the staff. I took this picture to note the license plates are in English.



This was her brother's brother-in-law who happened to stop by for a visit and her nephew.



I don't know if he lived in the neighborhood, but I saw other people walking by in the alleyway with mobile phones.

The kid always seemed so shy and sad, but he was a tough little guy too. Later when we left on her motorbike, another bike carrying plywood or fiberglass was squeezing past us in the narrow alley, and I think he clipped the little kid's hands as there was what looked like a fresh scratch on his hand. But he never spoke a word about it and just kind of looked at it for a second. The only time I ever got a reaction out of him was when I dropped my fork at the restaurant he giggled.

So me, her, her daughter and her nephew all leave on her motorbike and drove through town, which was quite a sight for everyone to see as I got even more stares.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Post #8 Fancy Resort and my worst food experience

So we drive all the way through the city and then a mile or so outside the city is this resort where we stopped to take pictures.

Spoiler :

Then we ate at the restuarant where each table gets it's own room. With what we ordered it was more than enough for me, her and the two kids and the bill came to 120 RMB ($16).

I ordered something and then didn't pay much attention to what she ordered. They bring us the food and place it in the middle what has a turntable to you can try a little bit from each dish. I have some of the dish I ordered and then I try some of what she ordered. It was pretty decent so I helped myself to second and third helpings. Then I looked closely at exactly what it was that I was eating....

Spoiler :

The brown things were really tiny fish, completely intact with eyeballs and everything! I actually held my composure, but suddenly lost my appetite for anything but the fruit dessert.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Ok, you can post now as I start working on filling in the reserved posts, and I'm saving this post for any miscellaneous stuff that comes up.

 

[The Yankee]

Ok, you can post now as I start working on filling in the reserved posts, and I'm saving this post for any miscellaneous stuff that comes up.

Oh okay.

At the headlines in the Weird News page.

And good job on noticing the ladies on your flights. I would, too.

Look forward to the other posts, hope it was a good trip!

 

[Dann]

 

[Birdjaguar]

Wow, great set of posts. You covered lots of stuff in great detail, but said little about your friend. How did it go? Can you tell us a bit more about her? In her picture she seemed quite cute.

 

[Elrohir]

Great stuff! But you aren't done yet, are you?

 

[Xenocrates]

Nice work mate, but why is the lady trying to shoot you with a cannon?

 

[Kraznaya]

Heh, thats pretty cool. A region of China I've never been to, but probably the only one that you can visit this time of the year without risking the same weather experience as what you left.

He of course said not to drink the water unless it's been boiled first. He said even the locals don't drink it, only the beggars do.

This is true. The Chinese and Mexicans are probably the most adamant people about not drinking tap water, and this probably stems from the poor quality in the respective countries for so long. The Mexicans buy bottled water; the Chinese are more economical and boil it and serve it as tea.

Then I sat on the bed and found my biggest complaint of the hotel. Instead of a box spring, they have wood!

Hah, this is a problem I have adjusting to every time I go back to China. Of course, my family's house in Shanghai now has been refitted with new bouncy mattresses...

My friend ordered me noodles since she knew I would like it instead of repeating the whole menu to me. While I figured out my own way to eat the noodles with chopsticks

Yeah, noodles and fried rice are the best bets to placate mei guo ren outside of fast food in the food department.

Motorbikes were (recently?) banned within the urban areas, so I didn't see any in the big city.

Hmm, so the ban is actually being enforced this time? There's been difficulty getting people to follow it..

The brown things were really tiny fish, completely intact with eyeballs and everything! I actually held my composure, but suddenly lost my appetite for anything but the fruit dessert.

Can't quite tell what that is from the picture. The turntable for serving food in restaurants very common for large groups, almost ubiquitous. Hey, at least it tasted good before you knew what it was.

 

[Tomoyo]

The reason behind the .5 yuan note saying "5" tripped me up once in Guangzhou -- a common spoken unit of currency is the "10 cents," so when I went to pick up some batteries from a convenience shop, it took me a while to figure how much "8 hao" was.

I was in Guangzhou about five years ago, but I wasn't on the lookout for anything in particular. (Comparing it with fifteen years ago, it was much, much improved)

I enjoyed reading your report.

P.S. Tiny fish complete with eyeballs are really tasty.

 

[Dann]

The brown things were really tiny fish, completely intact with eyeballs and everything! :vomit I actually held my composure, but suddenly lost my appetite for anything but the fruit dessert.

Aw, that's nothing. The fish are so tiny you won't be able to tell any body parts apart, everything is just like a crunchy snack.

Be thankful they didn't serve you anything more 'exotic'.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Aw, that's nothing. The fish are so tiny you won't be able to tell any body parts apart, everything is just like a crunchy snack.

Be thankful they didn't serve you anything more 'exotic'.

You dont know the half of it. From people using illiciet drugs in there soups, to selling fake (subsitutued) field mice meat to acts of trade war from putting rat droppings in the food resulting in mass hospitolisation

 

[Bamspeedy]

Wow, great set of posts. You covered lots of stuff in great detail, but said little about your friend. How did it go? Can you tell us a bit more about her? In her picture she seemed quite cute.

Everything went well with me and her.

As for her english....The written word, she is pretty darn good at it, but speaking there was alot of stuttering as she tried to think of the word and alot of mispronunciations. A couple nights she said "Sugar", and I was like, "oh, do you want candy, or sweets?" and she kind of looked at me funny. Finally on the third night I asked her to write it down so I know she is talking about what I think she is. She wrote it down and the word was 'Shower'. She had been saying that word every night before she took a shower. Then another time we were showing each other our various IDs just to show what types of IDs we have in our countries. I showed her my passport and my work badge. She shows me 3 IDs, one her national ID, another was her Hong Kong passport and then she showed me another picture ID. So I asked her what it was and she said "De-war". After 5 minutes of trying to figure out what she meant, she wrote it down and it was her Divorce papers.

Her profile picture from the dating service made her look like she was 22, but I was kind of expecting that the picture was either air-brushed or she used alot of makeup. In real life she looked more realistic and closer to her age, but I agree with you that she still looks cute. I'm glad it wasn't like the experiences I've heard from people who used less reputable dating services and upon arriving in China find out that the girl used somebody else's pictures (and so they didn't look anything at all like the pics) because they wanted to protect their identity.

We talked about things there, and then talked about it more after the trip to make sure we understood everything better and had some time to think about it after meeting each other and we decided we will get married.

She hates her Chinese name and wanted me to call her by her American name, but I had to verify with her that I should be using her Chinese name when I fill out the immigration paperwork. And the hospital put the wrong DOB for her daughter which she said should be getting straightened out now because her boss knows the hospital president, so it will get changed. I have to make sure that is sorted out so I use the same date that is in their records so the immigration papers aren't rejected because of different dates.

A couple more pictures of her:

Great stuff! But you aren't done yet, are you?

As for posting more pictures? I have some I haven't posted, but they don't really offer anything new. There were a few times I wish I took some pictures, like of the countryside during the bus trip, but maybe I will get those shots some other time.
Or are you asking about a possible return trip there? Yes, I will be making another trip there sometime in the future and then get those pictures.

Nice work mate, but why is the lady trying to shoot you with a cannon?

It was all a trick! She lured me to China in order to kill me!

P.S. Tiny fish complete with eyeballs are really tasty.

Yes, they were until I noticed what I was eating...It wasn't just the eyeballs that grossed me out, it was the one or two that had enlarged stomachs like they were pregnant...

I was in Guangzhou about five years ago, but I wasn't on the lookout for anything in particular. (Comparing it with fifteen years ago, it was much, much improved)

I was very impressed with the parks and I'd say they are better than in the U.S. The financial district by the hotel and other tourist areas was almost the same as U.S. cities (except with alot more pedestrians). The rest of the city wasn't as bad as I was expecting.

You dont know the half of it. From people using illiciet drugs in there soups, to selling fake (subsitutued) field mice meat to acts of trade war from putting rat droppings in the food resulting in mass hospitolisation

You forgot the street vendors using cardboard as food....

 

[sourboy]

Very interesting read. Nice to see culture from a new perspective, especially one like China's - where there's western bias, general lack of sources, yet lots of attention.

I'm curious though, are you seriously considering marrying her? Isn't that high risk? Who's to say you aren't just a 'free-pass' to US citizenship? (no offense).