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Published: December 13th 2015
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Wednesday 4th November 2015 Today we were on the move again and we had a fast train booked for 12:20 from Guilin North train station direct to Guangzhou. We jumped into a taxi after checking out and then sat down into our fast and comfortable journey on the train. Leaving Guilin offered some stunning countryside views through the train windows, so the journey out was something special too. We'll miss this scenery of Guilin.
Arriving at Guangzhou station, which is just outside of Hong Kong (well, about 2 hours), we were met by my other flatmate from University who lives here. Like Michael, I hadn't seen Ryan in a long time so it was good to see him after all these years. He had arranged a hotel for us and drove us straight there to check in. He was quite apologetic about the hotel before we arrived explaining that it was just basic but handy as it was short drive to his house. This hotel was 100 times better than any where we had stayed so far and we were over the moon that Ryan had even paid for us. We then drove to his house which is on
a private gated estate and is HUGE. It also backs onto a lake and a golf course. Ryan is the CEO of his fathers company and I guess we can say he is doing well for himself. We then went to his parents house (next door but one) where his nieces were playing with the house maid!! We then relaxed in his parents garden watching the sunset over the lake. Later we had food (Turtle soup - they told us it was chicken until we'd eaten it) with his wife, daughter, nieces and his mother. Later in the evening we retired to the garden where he brought out a collection of scotches. We drank 30 year old, 28, 20 and 18 year old scotches but had to call it a night before it got too out of hand. Ryan then drove us to the hotel where we showered in a great bathroom and then had a relaxing sleep in the most comfortable bed. It was a great night of not 'travelling' but just having a drink and food with a friend like we'd do back home.
Thursday 5th November 2015 We woke at 7am and went to the
restaurant in the hotel for our buffet breakfast and was then collected by Ryan at 9am. He drove us, along with his daughter into central Guangzhou and we went up the Guangzhou Tower, which is 108 floors and the highest tower in China. Travelling up in the lift at 2 floors per second was almost ear bursting and I was glad to reach the top. The lift shaft is glass and the whole way up its like you are outside of the building. I didn't realise until this point that I had a mild fear of heights, Gem seemed fine though and so did Ryan's daughter.
At the top we saw some amazing views of Guangzhou and the surrounding area, despite it being very smoggy. We stepped out onto a glass walkway with nothing underneath us other than solid concrete 108 floors and 480 metres down. We then went to the top level viewing section where we rode in bubble like compartments (think London eye) slowly around the outside of the building. Again this was quite a scary experience and I had to put a brave face on, but also quite enjoyed it. After this we took the fast
lift back down to solid ground which was a great feeling and then drove back to Ryan's town. We went for lunch at a seafood restaurant. This was quite fancy looking and its the sort of place you can select your food before they kill it and cook it. On offer were lots of different fish, shrimps, prawns, turtles, ducks, snakes, snails and worms. Ryan went all out and bought a fish which was fried and tasted like battered haddock from the chippy, snails which strangely tasted quite nice, vegetables and some worms. The worms were very rubbery and i found it difficult to eat them, but as the guest had to show manners and swallowed quite a few. Urrrgh!!!!
We left the restaurant and Ryan drove us to a travel agents were we bought 2 ferry tickets to Hong Kong for £20 each. We then drove to Ryan's office/factory where he showed us round the showroom. His company produce some beautiful mosaic tiles and Gemma got carried away selecting what we were going to have for our bathroom not remembering that when we return to England we're homeless. After a good nosy around and Ryan beating me at
table top football in the staff kitchen, a driver arrived to take us to the ferry port. The ferry left at 3pm and it was now 2:35pm but Ryan said it was fine as the terminal was only 15 mins away. It is a good job that the driver floored it because sticking to the speed limit there is no way we'd have made the ferry. We arrived at the port at 2:55pm, grabbed our bags, ran through to security only to be told we had to fill out a departure card. We'd forgotten that we were actually leaving China so this was an immigration check point. Gemma quickly scribbled on the cards, we got our passports stamped and we ran to the ferry after having our bags scanned just as the doors were closing. Its about 30 degrees outside so we arrived into the busy ferry as the only westerners and sweaty ones at that. We then had a 2 hour journey to Hong Kong.
Next blog is Hong Kong!!
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