Passing through China

Hi everyone! Long time no blog!

We thought we would finally upload the photos of our stop-over in China.

For those of you who were not aware we went back to Australia over Christmas time to see family, and on the way back to Canada we had a long layover in China. 

This blog shows our short adventures in GuangZhou, China. 

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Shown on the map below is where we landed in China. We landed at ~5pm local time.

We had a 15 hour layover while traveling with China Southern Airlines. The experience was positive, and the aeroplane food was pretty good (at least for me)! 

We arrived in GuangZhou Baiyun International Airport, and it took almost 3 hours just to get to the hotel - between being processed, waiting for other people, and actual travel time. We spent a long time waiting for the transit bus to the hotel which looks after China Southern stayover customers. 

The hotel was almost 40 minutes drive in chaotic Chinese traffic. 

There didn't seem to be two clocks with the same time - which lead to confusion for exactly how long it was taking us to get to our hotel. And what the time was when we got there.

One clock said it was 9pm which felt about right, but when we arrived at the hotel it seemed to be more like 8pm. The night was young! So we put our stuff in the room and then went for a walk down the street, and the following photos are what we saw at night.

With our pre-downloaded Chinese Google Translate packages, we set out to find some food at the various restaurants located near the hotel.

The first step was to obtain Chinese cash (Yuan) as it seemed that was all anyone was willing to take (EFTPOS is not a thing).

Once we got directions to an ATM and bet our security on the hopes that we would get our card back with money once the card was inserted into the machine, we set off trying to ask if any one had any food without animals in it. 

My initial joke was to say no "woof woof" or "meow meow" but Kyran suggested that they might have different noises that animals make in another country. (They do! look up "Onomatopoeia" - the chinese say 'wang wang' instead of 'woof woof'.)

So, tired and very hungry we managed to find a little place that assured us they could make food without any animals in it. 

 The next issue was how much food do we get?

"Fried noodles one for you and I'll get something else".  

Look at what we ended up getting!

As we were ordering the waitress girls looked surprised that we wanted more, but we were so hungry that we had to make sure that we had enough food and since it was so cheap we got a few plates.

Our eyes were bigger then our bellies and the food was falling off the sides of the plate there was so much of it.

We also worked out that they had no idea what we thought was a spring roll was to them rice paper and you wrap your own spicy cabbage in it like a wrap. You can see that in the third picture of the food.

Fun Fact: Guangzhou is supposedly the originating place of the classic "Dim Sum" food item. (Dim Sim are big ones, in Australia, and are not really traditional Chinese food at all).

The chef even gifted us with two big glasses of fresh orange juice which was nice. The entire massive meal cost only about $12 Australian. We were satisfied with the huge amount of food, and took some home with us.

< Some of breakfast the next day

The above photo was taken from the window of our hotel room, it shows two things.

1. Chinese park their vehicles wherever they want .

2. You have to watch where you are walking at all times as there are potholes you can break and ankle in!  

The photo above and below were both taken from our room window. 

'Just having a chat while we drive down the road'  

From our window I could also see what looked to be a local market so we set off to see if we could see what they were selling. We had to cross a pedestrian crossing, which was ridiculously dangerous and I would not recommend it to other travelers!

Above: people rode their bikes through the markets and just added their shopping as they went. 

Welcome to the Chinese Markets:

 

 

Made in China!

"School Kills" on the back of her jacket. What!? We actually bought some stuff from her after this picture, she had learned enough English to be reasonably useful during our transaction, so school can't be too bad!

Mmmm... Mushrooms!

Noodle stall!

Dried everything and below elite box stacking

The photo below is what we assumed was a Chinese Council worker, he was actually nowhere to be seen. But his equipment seemed very state of the art.

As we walked around there were all these sketchy little alleyways and you would see kids standing with a cup of water and brushing their teeth, spitting on the ground.

Above: Random what seemed to be abandoned buildings were everywhere!
Below: See the Scaffolding? look closely!

It's all bamboo! every single building project that we saw that had scaffolding was using bamboo!

Below: This is a photo of the front of the hotel we stayed at

Some more of the markets!

This is me (Kyran) at a firecracker stand! They were selling all sorts of crazy explosive material, looks like these guys know how to party.

I've never had the chance to play with firecrackers/fireworks/pyrotechnics, probably because I grew up in a country where fun is illegal!

Big baskets of eggs for sale in the market. It says on the label 15 Yuan, but I'm not sure if that is the price for the entire basket (~$4) or if that is for some smaller quantity. Some stuff in China is pretty damn cheap, so it could conceivably be the entire basket for that price.

This is a tofu and bean-curd related product stand, a vegetarian's favourite shop!

Yum look at all those tofu slabs!


The photo below was taken on our way back to the airport in a taxi

Below: This was a crazy piece of art work in the middle strip that we encountered on our way surrounded by phoenix roebelenii.

Well that brings us to the end of another blog and the end of our short time in China!

So until the next Blog I will leave you with this Chinese joke I hope it doesn't offend too many people!

Q: How do Chinese people name their kids?

A: They drop a broom out the window and see what Sound it makes. That's why your name is Ching Chang Chong.