Belly God Hotel Guangzhou

... before we became too familiar. We recovered at a coffee bar and 7 eleven with a couple of slurpies and would be retail threapy but sarah packed too much stuff alreadly... WE all told her so. now were sucking on a sugar cane stick and she insists she feels alot better, but thats what she said this morning about the 'fresh' air, and it indeed is ''fresh''! pictures to come, wish sarah well, the poor little dumpling...

... ride to guilin today, the tourist mecca of zhong guo, thats china for all you non-chinga people. simon got his hair cut by the barber at our hostel, its looks great, he is a true asian now. they were pasting black stuff on the guy to my right and i asked for it too, so i now have black hair. simon has had lots of chances to practise his mandarin which has been exciting. yesterday we went for lunch at ...

Enjoyed our meetings and colleagues. Went to dinner at a typical Guangdong/Canton restaurant. Menu was very creative. Plenty of exotics - baby pigeon, sting ray, fish guts, beetles, snakes, chicken feet. Was a bit naseous, but likely because of jet lag.

... doesn't speak English nor does the lead of the sim-card mafia, but he jumps in the front seat after I negotiate 200 yuan for the ride into the city using the hotel's chinese character address. Guess he just made commission on me. 30 minutes to GZ city center

... As you can imagine I nearly had heart failure worrying! I had visions of him being turned back from China (this might have been a blessing in disguise!) and just when I thought he was gone forever a load of chinese people in white suits from head to toe (think astronaut) appeared from the room he was in......thankfully Ollie appeared a few minutes later looking unharmed but with a white mask clamped to his mouth...hilarious sight!

... Family Associations Organized according to family surnames, such as the Wong Family Association, etc., are social clubs or lodges which were first set up in Chinatown to serve the social and personal needs of Chinese workers. Flowers Flowers are an important part of the New Year decorations. In old China, much use was made of natural products in celebrations as well as in ...

... Massacre precipitated by citizens of Boston pelting British soldiers with rocks. The word that was the hardest? Rock. Turns out I should've said stone. That translates easily in their little electronic dictionary but not rock-go figure. But the Revolution was easy compared to the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. This section is just riddled with words that are ********federation, federal, equal representation, proportional representation, direct election ...

... s mission: a phonecall. Few things in this world are as difficult as making an international phone call from China. I already had a phonecard I'd bought in Shenzhen a couple weeks ago and never used. I just needed a phone. I tried payphonjes, roomphones, landlines, everything I could find. Nothing worked. It took two hours of searching to find out that the card only worked in Shenzhen inside the store where I bought it. I haven't called ...

... Zenhai Tower and Yuexiu Park. After being dropped back at the hotel I ventured out for a walk by myself and arrived at one of the first McDonald's in China. Ordered a Big Mac meal by pointing at the placemats, did the calculations in my head, and came up with the theory that a Big Mac meal was about the same price in Australian dollars anywhere in the world. Had a surreal moment when sitting outside McDonald's I realised that I was listening to John Farnham singing.

... br>
The next 2 days we traveled through the rugged mountains to the northeast populated by the Hakka people around the Tingjiang watershed, then we took a bus to Amoy (Xiamen), the prosperous sea port.