Blogs from Guangdong, China, Asia - page 9

For the past two days, I learned about why there was a high ranking Tibetan official continuously visiting the compound. I’ll discuss why in a bit. Kate’s father was hosting an awards banquet to celebrate the history of Taishan on the second and third night. Apparently, I learned that China government officials have tried to stop other companies from doing business by delaying permits, interfering with local festivities to stop the promotion of Taishan’s heritage. They do this because the officials may come from another town or village and wants to direct the attention to their hometowns. Her father finally got the permit and with the help of local businesses, will be hosting their first cultural banquet. The second night consisted of dinners with government officials, but I’m just gonna skip all that boring stuff. The ... read more

Norway, Lapland, Finland and Estonia, and Shanghai – Tom, Pam & Sheryl, 3-23 December 2017 We were really looking forward to this action packed itinerary begins with a seven day cruise through Norway’s majestic fjords, visiting remote islands and coastal communities not normally accessible by other means. Your adventure continues by taking you deep into the heart of Finnish Lapland where you will delve into the rich culture of the region’s Sami people and explore pristine Arctic landscapes. We will be stopping off at Shanghai on the way home for 3 nights. Sunday, 3 December: Leaving home at 6.00am by uber taxi, we went through the usual international airport routine and departed on China Southern (flying KLM airlines) at 9.55am, on time. We arrived in Guangzhou, China after a 9 hour flight for our 7 hour ... read more

Hot and Spicy is Chengdu, they are very proud of the fact that no other region of China can match them. When taken out for the infamous Hot Pot, the really nice people have a section in the boiling cauldron of Chengdu spices, chillies and numbing peppers, that is relatively spice free. Secretly though and I would be no different, they like to watch the snot run, the eyes pop out, the face turn red and the sweat run, by KKs third Hot Pot she was handling it like a local, AAh she’s no fun anymore. A very big favourite is the lamb kebab at the small shop front BBQs and street stalls, it is such a joy to be amongst the full spectrum of Chengdu society, sitting, queuing, young and old, revelling in these tasty, ... read more

I've written before about how I glean nostalgia and romance from the old names of colonial Indian cities. The same applies to China. Names such as Peking and Nanking. OK, perhaps not Nanking. But I was now heading to old Canton, now known as Guangzhou. And as you might have guessed, this is why people from Guangdong province and the language they speak is known as Cantonese. Cantonese by blood and one of China's major cities, it would have been remiss of me not to visit the place. Getting there from Macau was pretty straightforward, starting with a free shuttle bus to the mainland Chinese border from the Sofitel across the road from my hotel! Hotel-casinos put on these shuttles for Chinese coming over the border for a flutter in order to get them to flutter ... read more

Thursday the 28th July. The last day of term, my last teaching day in China. At 9a.m. one of the Chinese teachers came to the foreign teacher’s staff room and told us that our ten o'clock lesson was cancelled as the whole school is having a water fight. She tells us we can join in if we'd like to. As none of us had known about this no one had any spare clothes or anything that could be used as ‘a weapon’ in a water battle. I asked one of the Chinese teachers that I knew lived on site if she had anything I could borrow and she lent me a dress. I found a bucket and I was ready for battle! The children loved it and for over an hour we ran around the playground ... read more