Guangzhou
Trip Start
Nov 01, 2005
1
89
95
Trip End
Nov 01, 2006
Guangzhou,
China
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
eating in Guangzhou
.... then it's taxi to the hair salon.
I got my first hair cut in a long time,
a hair wash, scalp massage, shoulder arm and hand massage all included of course.
I didn't get a hair cut so far in China because like many massage and karioki places, many hair salons are just disguised brothels. This time I was with local friends so I could be sure the place was legit.
then taxi to get coffee,
coffee is terribly expensive (relative to other things) in China, so awfully posh.
then taxi to the snake resteraunt for dinner.
Yes that's snake, mmmm.
Conforming to the chinese idea of freshness the snakes are alive in cages untill just before you order them. You have a big boiling pot in the middle of the table where you cook the raw snake yourself, because everone of course knows the exact optimum cooking time for each part of the snake. Each part of the snake is quite different, raging from tender fillet to chewy skin, to parts just for the broth.
Oh and you get frogs too of course.
then lift home for a bit,
then lift to nightclub.
This is where someone orders all at the same time an indulgent quantity of overpriced cans for the table, and everone sits around and plays dice drinking games.
Then lift to late night barbeque joint.
Not your typical chicken hearts (really tasty) or pigs penis (really long and curly)
or even the flattened rat which was a sceciality in yangshou,
but the tastyist oysters, muscles and cockles I ever had, mmmm,
Other cullenary dellights from my time here include turtle, crab, fish, the list goes on.
posted by conor at 11:19 PM 1 comments
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Guangzhou
So it turns out that a friend that i made in yangshou was also going to Guangzhou and invited me to stay at their families home. What a stroke of luck.
An overnight bus to Guangzhou then a 40 minuite bus to a suburb an we're there.
Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong provence which is one of the richer in china.
It's built up pretty continuously for 40 minuites on the moterway.
The people here speak cantonese.
My host come from hong kong and have a holiday appartment in Guangzhou to live the good life at a lower cost I guess.
ahh the good life, the hospitality is unbelievable.
After catching up on some sleep my first day here consisted of,
taxi to posh resteraunt, posh in china means you eat in your own room and there are so many dishes that you don't need rice
posted by conor at 4:22 AM 0 comments
Yangshou
So arrived into Yangshou and everthing is crazy buisy.
The is "golden week" the big chinese holiday week where everthing touristy is packed and everwhere increases the prices 4 times.
The first people we met were unplesent accomadation touts.
I had been recomended an english language school which provides free accomadation and food in exchange for speaking english for 2 hours twice a week and a 1 hour speach. Well this is the sort of thing i like to do anyway, you know talking in english, so kind of a cushy deal. So with all the trains booked solid for the week this really is a great place to relax a little bit removed from the tourist mayhem but still able to enjoy the holiday nightlife and wonderfull scenery.
the landscape here is a bit inbelieveable, impossibly steep peaks stick up all over the place, there's even one with an imposible cave making a whole to the other side,
difficult to describe but beutiful.
The china hazy (fog or smog?) means skys are never fully clear, and some places are a bit over developed, but there are lots of nice cycles and walks.
The people at the school turn out to be really nice, helpfull, the food great, you get free beer while on duty speaking english. The students are really sweet and interested in the differences with "western culture".
It's amazing all the differences that you just take for granted, you can spend ages just trying to explain why people spend so much money on engagement rings or discussing whether those prot ests in tainmen sq ever happend (note: paranoid censor avoiding spelling).
Another big celibration is mid autumn day.
This is celebrated by eating outside and enjoying the full moon, the school had a nice bbq by the river bank.
So I met loads of really cool people, loads of foreign teachers and students on holidays for the week came to find other western people,
loads of chinese english students come as it's a good place to learn english.
I hung out for the week with a nice american guy, going to the bars nearly every night. Great fun.
