welcome *spit* to the people's republic of *shove* china

ni hao, greetings all the way from china. first thing i have to mention is the cool weather we have experienced over here. judging from the local's reation, we are not the only ones fazed by the chilly temperature. day temperature is anything from 18-21 degree, and when dask falls its from 10-15 degrees celcius. not very cold for some of you, but for us singaporeans, the only time we come close to these temperatures is in cold storage.

first impressions of guangzhou is nothing new. generally it is difficult to get help/directions as people are not very friendly. we tried asking some policeman for directions to the train station. and without looking into our eyes, he just told us to walk straight. we then asked him where exactly is he referring to, he just told us to walk straight again, and then he looked away. his action might have been forgivable if he gave us the correct directions.

of course, there're exceptions. family-run restaurants have very nice owners that will recommand us dishes. talking about dishes, the food here is very good. canto food everyday, never failing to excite my palate. maybe a little too oily, maybe a little too salty.. but still delicious.

we spend most of the day lazing around. walking around the city, the parks, memorial parks. scouring for good place to eat. struggling to reach for the camera from the bag as fast as possible to prevent the palm from freezing. pretending we dont speak chinese so that we get better service. but it doesnt work that way, here's why:

we wanted to buy some bananas. the shopkeeper's daughter overheard us speaking in english and approach us and told us the bananas were 5RMB/kg. not very cheap we thought, but we were more encouraged by her effort to converse with us. a local just beside us asked about the banana pricing too. " yi jing liang kuai ban " - 2.50RMB/kg. we were butchered!!
we walked away... disgusted.

of course, there're lotsa reason to love china as well. you can smoke anywhere, you can spit on the streets, you dont have to look for a dustbin, and you dont have to queue up.

so 3 days already in guangzhou, and its just another city. good introduction to china though. we're going for dinner after this, then heading to the bus terminal for our night bus to guilin. no not the xiao guilin that you can find at bukit gombak. this is the real deal guilin.

there is a saying in chinese "do not go to guilin when you are young" because you will like the place so much you never want to leave ..

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