Great Wall Hotel Guangzhou

i knew it would happen, but only four days in and sarah has chinitis, all the smells, tastes and intruguing aspects of CHina have resulted in symptoms including vomiting in front of a chinese family in Qingping markets. we walked through a really really fascinating marketplace full of kittens, puppies, tortoitses, so many fish, salamanders, chip munks, every manner of claw, dried lizards, mushrooms, fungi and bunny ...

We caught a train from HK to Guangzhou on the 4th. Its a very hectic city. Lots of people, bikes, cars and buses. people riding bike on the road with ridiculous things tied to the back. we are staying on an island in the city named shamian. its very pretty, but a true tourist hub. our hostel is lovely. we thought that we were truely livinh the high life until we visited a hotel across the road that ...

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.

Arrive after 11 pm and my company screws up the pick-up. 20 guys trying to sell me sim-cards are chasing me around baggage claim because I'm clearly not moving out. After an hour and deciding I won't be picked up, I bee-line for the first cab in lineup. The ...

Guangzhou was thankfully pretty uneventful except for this one little episode I thought I'd share...

Because of the 'swine flu' or H1N1 virus most of the border control areas scan your body as you walk through with your passport. I wouldn't have even noticed this had it not been for Ollie getting pulled aside for his very 'high temperature'. He was immediatley carted off while I had to go through immigration and wait for ...

... play a style which is considered "closed hand/fist" play.

The game can be played with up to 9 participants per side (similar to Asian 9 man volleyball, but with variations to the game), or as little as 5. There is no rotation in traditional volleyball, however, in certain east Indian and southeast Asian communities, they do allow rotating as the rules tend to vary from team to team. The court can vary from 30 ...

... bow station to bow station leaving several sticks at each. For those who are happy to find their way through the smoke the Huali Temple is a beautiful place to visit. After leaving the temple I made my way down to Wenhua Park which I think is also known as the Guangzhou Cultural Park. Not much to see except for old men playing checkers or reading the newspaper so I decided ...

... an appropriate chair�C surveying the sipping guys�C while taking care to seem a clean old man. He winks�C to summon us to the fallen fruit of himself that if we've got guts enough we will pick up and eat

... de tofu dans la bouche, mais la plupart du temps, le regarder betement, comme s'il s'eut agit d'un petit crapaud. Le resultat fut qu'au milieu de la seconde nuit (au bout de 20h de couinement donc), j'ai hurlé dans le compartiment "SHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (ce qui n'a guere eu d'effet evidemment, non que le mioche fut ...

... Creepy. One businessman was walking along with me and gawping at so much, that I asked Dom if the guy was staring at me (or was I just imagining it?), and then the man said "Yes" in English. So I said "That's really strange" and he sidled off. Hmm. Had a stress getting to Guangzhou. First we had to navigate the tube system with all our bags, which wasn't easy when there were no escalators. Then there were no signs for the trains so we ...