Blogs from Guangzhou, Guangdong, China, Asia - page 59

I am officially one year older - I'm finally 24. Those of you who know me may be thinking. "How did you skip a year? We thought you were 23!" But here in China I was 23 when I got here so now I'm 24. However old I may be I am, and always will be, a day older. So what did I do on my birthday? I went and did a bit more shopping - as that's what Hong Kong is best for. But unfortunately I wasn't feeling good for the most of the morning. I checked my e-mail in the morning but haven't really had a chance to respond. I decided to go to Guangzhou even though I didn't feel good as I wanted to be there a day early in case anything bad ... read more

Had dim sum with the whole family at the same restaurant as the night before. We made the rounds, visiting each aunt and uncle’s house and her aunt’s small garment factory below her house. We went into Changping town with Felicia’s cousins, Yee-ling and Wai-ling, and hit a couple malls. We had tea at OC Revolving Restaurant, 30 storeys up, and traditional Chinese small fare and sweets at a dessert shop. The whole family had dinner together at the restaurant and went back to Dat-suk’s to visit. Felicia played mahjong with her aunts and uncles.... read more

People running here and there with luggage. Men sitting and simply staring at me with no intent in their eyes of stopping, smells of entire chickens being eaten on a stick, signs flashing here and there "Guangzhou is our home. Come back soon" even though buses are being loaded. Announcements going out almost every second in both Cantonese and English but the roar from the crowd is too loud for me to make out anything aside from "Ladies and Gentlemen. May Ihave your attention please?" Followed by a lot of mumbling. TV screens the size of a normal house TV announcing boarding times and departures. They seem so tiny in this huge hall that all I can do to know whether I'm supposed to leave is continue standing up and showing my ticket every time a ... read more

It has been almost three weeks since I have last been able to put together an entry. The activity level has increased, we have each made some out of town trips, and we have had some more visitors to help us out in our efforts. This past weekend I went to Hong Kong for some professional visits. One of our students was presenting the outline of her research at a conference for Hong Kong and Mainland students. She worked with Ellen on the project (a small bit with me as well) and won the award in her category. She was very pleased, as were we. I also paid a visit to the research center on suicide attached to Hong Kong University and met with some of their staff. They have researched suicide in HK and offered ... read more

Team extraction complete, the elite members of the Beertjie Brigade, Beertjie (Andy), Chewy (Wayne), Nicns (Nic) and operations specialist Crocodile George arrived in Hong Kong to little fanfare. The beginning of this mission however has not been straightfoward stealth tactics. In the first 24 hours the team almost lost Crocodile to a brief encounter with the Third Kind.....but that's another story. Awaiting Nicns arrival at 3:30pm, Beertjie, Chewy and Crocodile landed in Hong Kong at 8am and decided to hit the town, or the island in this case. Jet-lagged from 6 crappy 4x6cm movies, off-the-shelf DIY sleeping pills, and that smell that is so quintessential Asian, we headed straight for the oldest British pub in Hong Kong, The Old China Hand in Wan Chai district - we figured we could grab a bite and even catch ... read more