Nanguo Hotel Foshan

... we haggled for some jewellery and sarah is ruthless. we sat down at a table in a long hall of Chinese restaurants and tried duck and chicken bone dishes, then it hit, whitewash face of sarah dissapeared into the horizon of black bobbing cuts, she returned in a matter of seconds to only say a few words 'i vomited, in front of a chinese family, they ran away and squealed'. I looked perplexingly at her but we quickly ...

... 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.

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 ...

... glow from outer space.

The next morning a walk along the river saw us come face to face with a totally different city. When the light pollution wasn’t in full swing then the air pollution was. Of all the cities we have visited in China – this one has been the worst! Apparently the food capital of China, we really didn’t get to see this or any other part ...

... on a horse in Inner Mongolia and spent the day so tense that I was sore for days afterwards, but it was more than worth it as I got the see Luo Wei in extreme happiness. She had total trust of her horse and spent the day giggling and laughing while cantering here and there. I on the other hand sat upon my horse in extreme fear of the many bees that were buzzing around its body. When on the back of a motor ...

... Japan and China they really have been no good at goodbyes (a handshake, a bye bye then they turn and walk) oh, bye then! Lulu's mum wouldn't even let us buy her flowers and chased us out of a shop mid-purchase. We did pay her a lump sum in a red envelope the day we met her but the amount of things we have done, particular food wise must surely have been more than we gave her - it would have been nice to say thank you properly but i think she knew how grateful we were and still are...

... slowly was better than rushing around ticking off sites from a list. He was full of vaguely useful and interesting anecdotes and information, although he didn't like my question about the typical API (Air Pollution Index) in Guangzhou, but I already know the answer (high!!). Officially, Foshan is a small town south-west of Guangzhou. Actually it's a city of 3 million people and the Guangzhou connurbation and the never ending ...

... out the food vendors started plying up and down the aisle.

Arrived about lunchtime, but couldn't find my guide. Ended up walking up and down until all the other visitors and arrivals had left, and there was one Chinese girl waiting for the one lost guest. She only had a sign with a number on it rather than my name and she didn't know the name of the person who she was meeting.

Whisked away in a taxi for an afternoon tour of Guangzhou. Shown the ...