Impressions from Guangzhou in the Pearl River delta (21.-23.10.08)

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The border crossing from Macau China to Mainland China was surprisingly smooth. The bus brought us directly into the customs building and an efficient system guided us to the many immigrations gates. Everything was modern and tidy. Most surprising was the feedback button at the desk of the immigration officer. While the officer was busy with it stamps, a sign asked in Chinese and English to rate the work of the customs officer. It was an electronic system displaying the employee number with rating options fast/efficient - good - moderate - poor. We both pressed the fast and efficient button. We entered after the border a maze of a huge shopping mall with multi levels. This was obviously the cheap shopping paradise for the Macau citizens. A girl held a sign with “bus to Guangzhou” and accompanied us along the countless stalls to the bus gate. We bought a ticket and were on a bus to Guangzhou. What followed was a three hour bus ride along the Zhuhai ocean promenade and later the endless factory areas until we reached the 3rd biggest city of China - Guangzhou also formerly called Canton. About 10 million people live in the greater area of the city. I fortunately remembered the city layout from last year and could direct the tax driver to the apartment building of Klaus. Klaus, is a friend from Taiwan times and we would stay with him for three days. He lived in one of 6 huge blocks with more than 40 floors having nice views on one of the bigger rivers flowing through Guangzhou. We had a welcome beer and headed for a small and tasty muslim restaurant. There is unknown to many people a big West Chinese muslim population and muslim food Turkish style can be found in almost every city in China.

The next day Yuki and I spent with a stroll along the city center. Yuki finally found a hairdresser with some English skills and spent 2 hours with hair coloring. I ventured into narrow lanes with thousands of belts and later underwear shops and relaxed some time in a temple watching people until I returned to the hair dresser. Yuki was happy and we spent the afternoon watching people in the park playing card games, ball room dancing or some other activities. We were impressed how about the modern appearance of Gaungzhou and the good subway system. Meanwhile also traffic education was enforced. Some kind of low grade police officer was at almost every big traffic crossing, directing the people in one row and paid attention that they would obey the traffic lights. We found this all over China.
We went the evening to a Russian restaurant for some more solid food and enjoyed afterwards some rum ginger shoots in a new bar called Ping-Pong. The bar was only recently opened in an old factory area and turned to be out one of the places to be in Guangzhou. The bar had huge windows and red brick walls with the two Chinese characters for Ping Pong on the wall. An area and place to come back!

Bus Border - Guangzhou 130 RMB
Taxi Guangzhou mid range 15-20 RMB
Hair wash and coloring 200 RMB
Subway ride 2 RMB
Rum shot Ping Pong 10 RMB

Exchange rate: 1 Euro = 9 RMB

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