Guangzhou again

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After the two village nights we were due to head out and continue north. James and Macey brought us back to the bus in Taishan city, and then we were on our own.
The bus trip back to Guangzhou was fairly uneventful. Of course not without slightly nerve wracking moments in the driving style, and a little quick worry about whether we were meant to get off at the place where the bus initially stopped (we weren’t, we stayed on and it continued to where we thought it would go!)
Our accommodation in Guangzhou this time around was much better, a YHA so with English speaking staff and nice communal area and welcoming feel to it... washing machines etc, it was much better. (Although, couldn’t figure out the heating so room was chilly, and also shower didn’t drain properly so even with super speedy showers the bathroom floor was flooded to the door! So still not perfect but all good for one night.)
For the afternoon/evening we went to a different shopping street, with smaller scale shops and less people, which we preferred . We had Pizza Hutt for dinner! Hahaha. Pete was quite excited by that, and although not very dramatic considering Guangzhou is meant to have great Cantonese food, I didn’t mind, as we both often crave something more Western to contrast the usual.
The following morning we checked out and left our bags at the hostel while we went to look at the Chen Family Ancestral Hall. It was great, really cool building complex with rooms and courtyards etc, and interesting museum exhibits inside. However, it was not really worth what was to come:
This is the most dramatic part to our Guangzhou2 trip... we missed our plane to Shanghai! Which is rather ironic considering I missed my plane to Nelson for Christmas, but Air New Zealand was awesome and just put me on the next one. I was very impressed with their service. Spring Airlines (budget Chinese airline), however, didn’t have a bar of it!
Ok I will back up a little, we missed the plane simply because we didn’t allow enough time to get there. We went to the Chen Hall in the morning, and our flight was in the afternoon. Here you have to be at the airport 90 min before the flight, and we allowed about 45 min to get there on the subway. In the end we were running behind time, and the subway took about 1 ½ hours. When we were about half way through the subway I knew we were going to be late but thought they might still be able to rush us through, but by the time we finally got there I think we both knew we wouldn’t be able to make it. SO, we had to buy a new ticket. Which was rather sad as it meant parting with a fair amount of money for no good reason! But I try to tell myself that I have learnt my lesson and that its only money and so really not such a big deal.
The new flight was ready to check in so we moved on past our lateness stresses and made it to the chilly air of Shanghai safe and sound.
Hannah+Pete

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