Rocky Day, Fantastic Night

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For my National Day adventure this year, I and two friends (Toni and Abby) headed out by train to visit 2 towns in the province. First up: Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong, for 2 days. Then, off to destination number two.

We met up at the train station around 2pm and got seats on the next train to Guangzhou. One of the reasons we decided on this trip instead of going somewhere else was the availability of tickets. Since we couldn't buy anything until we were paid, and many Chinese travel during the 8-day holiday, getting tickets anywhere was difficult. Luckily, since Shenzhen is so close to Guangzhou and Guangzhou is a major train hub, there are trains every hour.


We arrived at the station after about an hour of travel and hopped in a cab. From the pinying address on hostelworld and the map in LP, I knew our hostel wasn't far, but we weren't about to venture on foot while carrying our bags. The directions on hostelworld were from the airport, 42km outside the city, but we figured we'd be fine. We had a name, written in pinying so we could actually pronounce it, and we had phone numbers. But even after translating our hotel name (Lilac) into Chinese, our cab driver still had no idea where it was. The phone numbers didn't work. We tried everything. We gave up. Our driver felt so bad he wouldn't even accept a full fare. Luckily, I had my LP with me and, while standing on a street corner looking pathetic, we looked up lodging, found a place, called, and got the last triple room.

Our new and existant lodging was on Shamian Island, which I had thought would be a bit outside the city, but it was well worth it. The island used to be the foreign concession after 1859 for the British and French. As a result, the buildings are all European in style. Combine that with old trees and it's a bit of heaven. It was more relaxing that I imagined. Our hostel was right next to the water. And with a Starbucks and two 7-11s withing walking distance, both our morning and evening beverages were cheap and easy to come by.


For dinner we went to an expensive German restaurant on the island. But how could we resist--it was a train car! Our food was excellent and the people watching was even better. Everyone was in a couple fitting one of two categories:
First dates where the men order too much food in order to impress women who don't look impressed.
Married couples who order too much food so they don't have to talk to each other.

After our pricey dinner (mine was $10) we bought some cheap beers and ice cream at 7-11 and sat down in the local park. (One of the main roads has a park in the middle of it.) We watched children skate and spin and be silly while we ate our ice cream. They watched us, too. Beneath the trees and almost full-moon's light, I already felt at peace. It was nice that relaxing didn't take a few days.

Then we headed back to our hostel room, beers in hand, ready to swap stories into the night.

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