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. 

Mushrooms, Square Dancing and Airsoft

 

 Hello again, and welcome to another blog with the Findlaters in Canada!

This last few weeks have been eventful as we moved house from a small little studio into a two bedroom condo. 

This activity in and of itself was time consuming as we had to search for furniture and order it in. 

Some furniture arrived the day after we moved in (which is good) and the other will be arriving later this month.

Then there was the field component of the mushroom course that I mentioned in the last blog. 

Kyran got up to some Airsoft tournament that he will tell you all about later. 

Lastly we were invited to go along to an open night at the local seniors hall in this little retirement community we currently call home, in order to try "square dancing" and see if they could get some new younger blood in the group. 

SQUARE DANCING

We arrived to the location that we had been given only to find that we were at a seniors hall, I personally felt a little out of place as a 25 year old walking into a senior hall. But nonetheless we ventured in to see exactly what we had signed ourselves up for. 

There were a few people crowded around the door greeting the new comers and to my relief there were a few other new people and even a younger couple one of which was Australia.  

The men were absolute gentlemen as they took lead and smiled as I stepped on their toes, and the women I could over hear gently teaching Kyran how to hold a ladies hand. 

I felt the whole experience enriching as the elderly glided around the dance floor in their custom made dresses to ensure maximum skirt movement through out the dance. 
I watch the couples with their matching costumes, and clearly the men had no say in the design, but still wore proudly with his partner. 

More rewarding was watching the smiles on the faces of people enjoying every moment they have to dance, to walk, to hobble to a rhythm. Who know one day soon they will be unable to walk, dependent on others for everyday activities - but just now, just for the moment they were enjoying what movement they had left, the moments and the music. 

Because it was such a pleasant experience, we are now learning to square dance and will be attending classes every Wednesday night!

MUSHROOM HUNTING

I guess I will just show a bunch of photos and explain them as we go!

This first one is a Lobster mushroom - It is edible!

The place that we went to search for mushrooms was in a forest that had branches covered in Mosses and lichens, something like this i had never seen before but it was everywhere!

Next up these mushrooms are a type of "coral" mushroom. Some species of these are edible and some not so much. From what I was told the worse side-effect you can have from eating these is a good case of the runs (laxative)!

I know that I have shown a similar growth to the one below in a previous Blog but it actually now just occurred to me what is going in this photo. 

I believe but can not substantiate that the trumpet shape things are actually part of the moss life cycle.  Please tell me if you know otherwise (a quick google didn't show what I was looking for).

Alrighty some more mushroom photos, I'm not sure what these are but they were nice to look at, and they are not edible.

This one above was purple! Amazing!! The one below is poisonous DO NOT EAT it but it was weird!

 
This one below is a false chanterelle fungus, not edible but similar to edible Chanterelle that is worth a bit of money if you can gather and sell enough!

Now for the good photos my handy dandy mushroom carrier Kyran!

The mushrooms above are edible ones called Honey Mushrooms, and we indeed did eat them in the end!!

During our foraging we came along a giant slug!

Isn't it cute?!

We put the honey mushrooms and one or two other random edible ones into a stir fry!




We got a huge amount of Lobster mushrooms, but ended up not eating any as they were mostly old/rotten and stayed in the fridge a bit too long before we got around to doing anything with them. They literally smell like fish/lobster, and was kind of gross. Supposedly they make a good mushroom soup.

Kyran will take it from here:

The wild mushroom identification course that Mercedes did (and dragged me along to) seemed like a lot of fun, and we actually have one more field trip left to get another chance to gather and identify (and eat!!!!!!!!!) some more mushrooms. I think these sorts of small courses held by the local community college (TAFE equivalent) is awesome, and I reckon more people back home in AUS should see if there are any short courses they find interesting. 

New Apartment

The new apartment is coming along nicely, we have furniture and still more to come! The place seems nice so far, no trouble with the neighbours and the internet is nice and fast (which is of course the most important thing next to running water and electricity). 





Kyran Airsoft stuff
For those who are vaguely interested, I'll show some pictures of my recent Airsoft adventures. 

Here is a picture of my friend Clay and I. We both enjoy shooting little white plastic balls at eachother while keeping fit and running around.

 There's me, trying not to get shot while advancing up a road to the objective

 Operation Urban Uprising

On October 3, I went to a big event in the local area held by one of the airsoft supply shops, to support the community and bring the local groups together into one large event. One of the local car wrecker yards was converted into a battlefield, and 56+ local airsoft players (within 2 hours drive in all directions) converged for a big day of games.

Ken (my former colleague, an intern who has returned to finish university now) and I standing around after a battle, waiting to see what happens next. 

 Here I am again, looking fancy with my toy. You can sort of see the little black box on the front part of my gun, on the right side. That is a custom designed 3D printed enclosure for my Sony Action Cam video recorder! I am still working on the video editing, but I think there is enough useful footage to make a little video from. The only downside of only have a camera on the gun is you miss alot of what happens when i'm not actually aiming at anything, so i'm going to make a head strap/mount thing for the camera next.

I have lots of fun, meet lots of new and very nice people. Despite what it looks like (lots of guns and in theory, violent behaviour) the games are well run, everybody shows good sportsmanship, and it's all very innocent. It's literally just a ranged version of "tag" with fancy clothes and equipment, and lots of teamwork involved. 

Mercedes doesn't want to get involved (yet..) because she abhors guns and anything related to them (despite having played paintball at least twice before) and has not given into my requests to join me for a day of fun in the sun. 





Maybe one day!











That's it for us this time, we hope you enjoyed reading our blog and we hope you are all having a good time and being safe, healthy, and growing economically.