Weekend Trip to Guangzhou

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On Friday, we got done teaching our two classes at 9:45am and were on a bus to the Louhu train station by 10:15am. We then got some lunch at a western grocery store deli, Ole. Next stop Louhu train station.

There is a high speed train(200kph=124mph) that goes from Shenzhen to Guangzhou every 15 minutes and it is only a hour long train ride. So we can get to the capital of our province faster than we can get to our own neighborhood in Shenzhen.

Our main goal was to get passport pages added to our books before a proposed fee increase from FREE to $82 that will be voted or approved on March 11th. It may not sound like a lot but that is over 10% of our monthly income here in China. Our options were either go to Hong Kong or Guangzhou. I decided on Guangzhou since I hadn't been there yet. Our other "couple" friends also joined us as some of them got more pages added to their passports also as we have all been blessed enough to travel LOTS since being in China.

After all 4 of us couples met up in Guangzhou we set out to find a hostel or cheap hotel for the night as it was around 3:45pm. The first 3 or 4 places we went to were sold out, we started to get a little worried but then Staci pointed out a hotel that 5 of them went to inquire about, while Pete, Kris and I headed to Starbucks to use our netbook to check out the internet for a place to crash.

Staci found a great deal for 3 rooms/190 per couple: 1 double and 2 triple rooms. They all decided since Pete and I were newly engaged we got the double room(Hulli Room) while the other 3 couples split the 2 triple rooms into Boys & Girls rooms. Once we got settled into our room we were called down to the "Girls" room.

When we walked in we were surprised with a variety of beers, Pete & Elyse hats for everyone to wear for the evening, a bottle of wine and dinner at an Italian buffet with all you can drink. This was such a surprise and what a great Surprise Engagement Party.

We got to the buffet around 7pm and didn't leave until 11pm. We were stuffed and drank tons of beer. It was well worth the 98 kuai/person=$14.36 that our friends covered for us. THANKS GUYS...

Once we rolled out of the restaurant we were headed to a bar but the metro closed at 11pm so we headed to 7-11 for beers and headed back to Wan Cai Hotel. Pete & I crashed at 1:15am while everyone stayed up until 3am.

Saturday we all gathered back in the "Girls" room and headed out for the day around noon. We went to Subway to get some food then decided to take the subway to a large park. After the park Staci & Martin headed back to Shenzhen as Martin was battling a cold, that Staci gave him earlier in the week. WINK..

Jimmy, Cali, Kris, Kelly, Pete & I then decided to go to the Musuem of the Nan-Yue King in the Western-Han Dynsasty/Mausoleum. It was only 12 kuai=$1.75 per person and it was quite entertaining for an hour or so. By now it was 4pm and we all were hungry again. The group decided we really wanted Mexican food, go figure, we are always wanting Mexican food.

Once we got back to The Mexican Restaurant(that is the real name) we joked that when we got off the elevator it would be a pile of rubble and not open. Well I think we were all psychics as that is exactly what happened. So we decided to go back to the 3rd floor to The Italian Restaurant, same one we went to last night.

We told the fuwuyuan(server) that we really wanted Mexican but they were closed. She opened the cai dan(menu) and BAM there was a Mexican menu instert. YES!!! We can have Mexican food as we all had HUGE smiles on our face. We rolled out of the restaurant full again.

It was 6pm so we headed to the metro to the train station. Guangzhou has 2 train stations and they both are on the same line headed back to Shenzhen. So we decided that the Guangzhou Station was closer on the metro than the Guangzhou East station. Once we arrived at 6:10 there was a 6:20 train to Shenzhen but all the tickets were sold out, the next train to Shenzhen was at 7:10 bummer we had to wait a full hour in a PACKED Chinese train station.

Hint if you ever have a choice go to Guangzhou East Station not the Guangzhou Station as it is FILTHY... We saw all kinds of Chinese people some in shorts, some in winter coats and some that you just felt sad for cause they were just filthy and wanting a better life in another part of China. We talked how some were just on a day trip and others were headed to Northern China as it is still cold in the northern part of the country.

We got back to Shenzhen Louhu station at 8:31. Pete and I raced to the metro and were on a mission to catch the last E5 bus to Longgang that leaves at 9pm. We made it to the bus terminal with 8 minutes to spare and were some of the last people on the bus as only 5 others got on after us(no standing on this bus). We got home by 10pm and were excited we still had Sunday to relax(Monday for me since I don't teach on Monday).

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Photos

1st attempt succesful
Martin, Pete & Kris

8th attempt this is as good as it gets
Staci got tired only 1 leg up

Staci, Martin, Kelly, Kris, Cali & Jimmy
in the park

with our Chinese Tour guide
no we didn't have a guide but it was an inside joke as our hats were like Chinese Tour Group hats

What???
Why would you have salad on the butt of your skirt. HMMM

Kris, Kelly & Cali
train ride back to Shenzhen

This man decided he would just sit up with the luggage
he probably didn't buy a ticket and hopped on the train. The police asked him kindly to get down.

Comments

[staci]

haha, excellent blog to cover an excellent weekend! thanks for taking pictures since the rest of us failed:)

[Mom]

weekend trip
That was a very nice surprise party for you and Pete!!!! Sounds like another good trip...it did not say if you got your passport pages without any trouble or not....hope it was not a problem!