In transit!
Trip Start
Jul 03, 2009
1
4
12
Trip End
Jul 21, 2009
Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
Sunday, July 5, 2009
yesterday was a day full of travel! we started the day in HK in pouring rain and heat....(yes, rain AND heat)...caught the subway to where we thought the bus station was, asked for directions about six times...and either their directions were a bit vague, or we were a bit vague, or they were just making fake directions up..because it was very hard to find the station!!! eventually we did find it though. We booked tickets and then tried to find somewhere for lunch out of the rain!
We found a lovely little place and ordered up a feast, fried and steamed dim sum things, mapo doufu (my FAVE!) and fried noodles! so yummy. the people were lovely too and wrote down the dishes in chinese so that we could order them again.
by the time we'd finished it was time to catch the bus.
We travelled through HK, crossed a bridge and found our selves in Shenzhen (mainland China)...where we hopped off the bus and went through customs...someone pointed a gun at our heads (to check our temperature) which was very strange...and then climbed back on the bus to Guongzhou...when we got there we were completely culture shocked...we were asking for directions and trying to find a bank (we couldn't - it was a Sunday), ATM (we eventually found one...after going around a masssive block and coming back to where we started from!) or an internet cafe so we could write emails, blogs and most importantly sit down and put our luggage down....but anyway...we were culture shocked because we coudn't find any of the things we wanted and no one could speak a word of english. In HK people were fairly good at speaking english or had at least a good grasp of the basics...here...nothing! we spoke gibberish to each other for a while with a few locals...until we eventually gave up, hailed a taxi...and after using some expressive sounds and gestures - explained that we wanted a shhoooommm......(that's the universal sound of an airport apparentally!) and got to the airport with about 31/2 hours to kill!
By the way...these cities are MASSIVE. absolutely. it's overwhelming. but very cool.
And so, we spent our 3.1/2 hours playing cards, sitting around, looking in 7/11 at the products there...and other stuff...
finally got on the plane...eventually took off after more delays...and after all this...arrived exhausted but still excited in CHONGQING!!!! (will write that blog soon!!!)
