Tuesday, June 30, 2009

The Real Deal

The next day, with slightly sore heads, we headed by train to Guangzhou. Only slip up was me listening to Adam that we could walk to the station, the reality being an hour long walk with rucksack in blazing heat through parts of the docks where I can assume several triads burial sites lie! Not great on a hangover but we got there in the end! I felt excited about going to China “for real” but also really nervous. I have sporadically studied Chinese for an embarrassing amount of years but spent little time on it in the last couple, and yet here I was, about to be the main communicator in a country I remembered being difficult to navigate last time round. Could I man up to the task I wondered?

First task when we arrived in Guangzhou was to try and buy some overnight train tickets to Chengdu for the next day. Bizarrely both the guidebook and my friend Wendy (who is from Guangzhou) said to purchase tickets from the Guangzhou East station we were arriving in, even though we would be travelling from a different station, because this was apparently easier.

Getting off the train I think we were both excited, but I was also bricking it to be honest. Upon entering China officially we were temperature tested via a laser gun which was a bizarre experience, or as Adam said “this is when they start controlling your thoughts”... oh the communist humour you can come up with...!

Anyway, I digress. So... I managed to tackle the ticket booth which was exactly as imagined, fairly incomprehensible. However I did manage to pull the language out of the bag and get us two tickets. It wasn't until I got back to Adam that we realised it wasn't the train we wanted, it instead went from Guangzhou East and took a further 16 hours!! As tempted as I was to just assume this was our fate and leave then and there, Adam persuaded me to have faith in my abilities and go back. Sweating buckets and slightly shaking I did manage to get through and achieve my mission! So we ended up with two soft-sleeper tickets for the next morning on the train we wanted. I was very glad I had gone back as it bolstered my confidence which no doubt helped going forward.

We then headed into Guangzhou proper and found a hotel near the station we were leaving from. I mentioned my friend Wendy earlier, who is from Guangzhou... we had chatted and I had arranged to meet up with her Brother and his wife for dinner, Kevin and Nicole (I am afraid I am not able to write their Chinese names- rubbish I know!!). K and H very kindly came to collect us from our hotel and took us to one of their favourite Cantonese restaurants. It was extremely interesting to say the least! We started off with four different soups, one was snake! N explained that the focus of Cantonese cooking is on healing, and therefore medicinal ingredients are often included and they eat a lot of vegetables. N also explained that noodles are generally eaten in the north, and rice in the south of China. After the soups we had dishes of pigeons (heads still on and everything!) tofu, and lots of vegetables. It was fascinating because we would never have been able to walk into that restaurant on our own and order those foods... not in a million years! We were also in a private room (I think this is a popular way to eat in china) which was a definite novelty for Adam and I.

Sadly the battery on my camera had died so I did not manage to get any photos of K and H- a definite regret! After dinner they drove us around Guangzhou to various sites so that Adam could get an idea of what it is like, they were extremely welcoming and generous so thanks v much for putting us in touch Wendy!!

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