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Published: February 13th 2006
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It's been a while since I've had a chance to update so there's lots to say. From Beijing we flew to Guangzhou in Guangdong province. Guangzhou felt like being dropped into paradise after Beijing.... it was sunny and warm and pretty and not insanely crowded. We are travelling with two of Caroline's students: Yang Yang who's from Inner Mongolia and Xiao Sheng who's family we have been staying with in Guangdong. Their english is pretty good and they're both super nice and so eager to show us everything and make everything wonderful. In Guangzhou we stayed with Xiao Sheng's aunt and uncle who actually had a new apartment that wasn't being used yet for us to stay in so the four of us had our own place which was really nice. We spent our days wandering around with Xiao Sheng's cousins. We went to a massage place that ended up being kind of a "men only" kind of thing so that was a little awkward but still, a nice massage so can't complain too much.
On the 9th we took a five hour bus to Zhan Jiang which was also lovely... here was stayed with Xiao Sheng's parents who have a
Lightshow
At a park in Guangzhou beautiful apartment. We went out to a bar and played a fun drinking game and made our way through quite a few rum and cokes (they didn't know what rum was so i got to go through all their bottles until i spotted a bottle of malibu for us to enjoy). On the 10th we started off the day with Dim Sum, had a private driver take us to a beautiful beach where Caroline rode a camel, we went strawberry picking and after an afternoon nap, went for an amazing seafood dinner (more on food below), a long walk and amazing two hour massage (one hour foot, one hour body and all for only 50 RMB = 8 CAD). So as you see... life's been difficult.
On the 11th we had to Sanya on the south end of Hainan (the island province in southern china). This part of the trip's been a little rocky (compared with the ease of the last week I guess). We've been trying to work out details for how we're all going to get to where we're going after here and it's been pretty hard to negotiate the system here. the six hour bus to sanya
Zhan Jiang (i think)
Yang Yang, Xiao Sheng, Caroline and me ended up being a 10 hour bus ride. We did manage to get a great deal on a hotel by the beach though (not the nicest place but clean and well-priced and located). We spent a nice day at the beach too. and then we started running into troubles getting back to Zhan Jiang were we're supposed to catch our various further transportations (and were most of our stuff is). Turns out the bus company decided to change the schedule but hasn't finished changing it so it's day-to-day whether there'll be a bus or not. very screwy. anyway, we'll have to deal with that tomorrow. This place is also much more expensive than what we've been doing so far (first time we're paying for accomodations) and the boys are a little more willing to part with their money than we are.
Driving: the driving system here is totally nutso. the millions of bikes have been partially replaced with millions of motor bikes and the motorbikes, bikes, cars, buses, trucks and people all think they have the right of way all the time. Honking is used to say "I'm passing on your left", "I'm passing on your right", "you're in my
Fireworks
celebrating spring festival in Sanya way", "get out of my way", "i'm not going to get out of the way" and occasionally "hello". driving is not limited to any one lane or even to one side of the road. and of course, every now and then a cow or goats decide that they want to sit on the road. yesterday we even had a guy decide to lie in front of the bus for 20 minutes and pretend the bus driver hit him.... which he didn't but easily could have. it's all rather frightening and amusing.
Food: food's been a challenge. mostly just because Xiao Sheng's family tried to feed us every five seconds and we're talking huge quantities of food too. so we're constantly stuffed. Mostly there's been lots of food i was happy to eat so the rest i just politely avoided. sometimes that's a little harder so i've tried some pretty interesting things. Most interesting include: Ox tongue (deep fried in batter i think), jelly fish and some wierd mystery fishy deepfried ball that was pretty gross. there were also some big shrimp things that were kind of gross. there's also been good stuff like crab and of course, in the south they eat dim sum for breakfast EVERYDAY!!!! The rest of the time there's different noodle and rice things... lots of meat and the occasional veggie.
k.. time's running out on the internet so that's it for now. pictures will be added later.
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anonymous
non-member comment
sounds like fun....better figure things out cause if i come to meet you i want everything organized and orderly, and that includes the traffic. Hope you make it back in time to make your flight! T