Tian Da Business 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 ...

... place that had no english menu, and we got what we wanted, dumplings! we are going to a black market today, were we could buy puppies and monkeys if we wanted! and we do! tonight we are catching a sleeper bus to guilin.

ohh and simon got in trouble from the police for taking bananas across the border, and got a special stamp in his passport for disobeying the law!

zai jian!
good bye

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

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 ...

Hey Hey and a Big G'Day toya, Whirly windy things that spin. They come in an enormous amount of colours and designs. They flash, they spin and they mesmorise both Chinese adults and children. For the last few days every where I walk I see people of all ages walking with only one arm at their side. The other is before them with a whirly windy thing that spins in the wind. I am serious, it doesn ...

... blogia paperille etta voin sen kirjoittaa koneelle sitten. Ei tarvii muistaa niin paljon. Huomasin matkalla etta Kiinalainen tie ei ole mitaan silkin sileaa... Aika moisia vankyroita mulla paperilla ku sita kattelen. Jossain vaiheessa tuli pimeeta. Muut ihmiset katto jotain elokuvaa ni en viittiny sit laittaa valoa paalle. Otin repustani otsalampun jatkoin hommaa. Pysahdyimme jonnekkin ihme ruoka/marketti alueelle. Ma en tietenkaan ymmartanyt mitaan ...

... in them. People were burning 3 incense sticks in front of a buddas then bowing three times then putting the incense in a pot to finish burning. We walked up a 8 storey high temple and the stairs (160 of them) were really high and the roof low so it was more tiring to walk up than normal stairs and every time you got near the end of the flight of stairs, you'd hit your head m- it was so annoying. Once we had reached the top it took about 7 minutes to ...

... people and gazed up. It was a huge bookstore. It was then that we realized - what can we do here, anyway? We can't really purchase things to read, since we can't read Chinese characters. We did some looking around and they had a small section of English books for surprisingly cheap. I ended up getting a copy of Faust for about U$D 2. After that, the Penn kids took cabs back to the hotel and the PolyU kids stayed to continue browsing for cheap books.

... 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 ...