travel journal: part 2

I'm home safe and sound after a month-long trip. I'm still a little jetlagged, as I keep passing out before 10pm and waking up early in the morning... I'm trying to find time to see what the damages were to my finances from this trip, to unpack and to organize myself. Starting work right away and not giving myself time to recover from jetlag was a bit of a bad idea, but still, at least I have an income again! Here's the second part of the travel journal. Going to try and write what I can before I leave to get my braces taken off... Monumental day!!

Day 4: I can see clearly now the rain will come
Rain day 2. Woke up at 7am. We stayed the night and will be spending our nights at a relative's house in Guang Zhou. As we were leaving, there was a disgusting giant spider that came running across the kitchen. I didn't see it alive as I was putting my shoes on. But I saw our auntie kill it with her slipper and these giant legs, the size of a tarantula, all twitching and shit. So nasty. I couldn't stop thinking about it for the rest of the day...

We took a bus to go to this area of the city where it seemed a lot less run down. There were more streetshops. After walking around for a bit, we went into this four story mall that sold nothing but glasses frames. It was crazy how cheap everything was in Guang Zhou! For the frames that I got, I paid 85 RMB which amounts to roughly $14 USD. I'm going back there tomorrow to get the lenses fitted. I think it'll be around 390-500 RMB ($65-83 USD).

We ran a little late for lunch to meet up with more relatives. We ate at a Japanese barbecue restaurant, owned by a Japanese man, but could also speak Canto and Mando. It was much like the Toronto Korean barbecues, but instead of a gas grill, they used hot coals with a cross-wire grill. Everything was uber delicious. The relatives were great and very hospitable. Some I had never met before, and a few others, I hadn't seen in ten years.

After lunch, our distant uncle took us to a driving range. On our way there, his driving was pretty insane! He made his own lane, drove onto oncoming traffic; it felt like a rollercoaster. Thankfully, we arrived alive to hit some golf balls into the wet grass, as it was still drizzling a little. Afterwards, we went out for dinner at McDonald's with my mom's middle school friend, whom I've met once before.

I've noticed in Guang Zhou that the police here is not intimidating at all, except for the fact that they could be corrupt, but that's all preconceived thoughts. In terms of their uniforms and just looks, they wore no bullet proof vests, they seemed older and less fit, and the uniforms in general were not that intimidating. My cousin was much thicker than most of the officers there. Though I'm sure they could still kick my ass... Another thing is the service here; it's so efficient and great. It's probably due to the fact that the employees are overstaffed because of cheap labour, so they have to provide excellent service due to competition.


Day 5: Guang Zhou, Rain City
Third day in GZ and once again, I wake up to the sound of rainfall. I think it's been cemented in my head now that GZ, ponchoes and bicycles, and rain go hand-in-hand. I haven't truly missed home yet, though I have thought about it a few times, mainly due to the living conditions here. It makes me think about how good we have it in North America. I've realized now that I'm quite a princess for cleanliness. I always thought I'd be able to handle something like this since I've always loved camping, but I guess outdoors dirtiness in is a totally different kind of dirtiness from urban dirtiness. But I think this is only the beginning, as India I'm sure will be much worse. So I guess this will be a nice transition to get my prepared for what's to come.

The sky cleared up a bit as we stepped out to pick up our glasses, but then started to pour again shortly after. Our auntie took us to this park where my parents went to on their first date at Shamian Park. It was beautiful. My dad's such a romantic, heheh. I wonder what it looked like back then... The rain had dissipated by then, making way for a beautiful view of the riverside, though the water could have been less brown and murky. It made me want to hear stores about the details of how my parents met. I've only heard a couple of stories.

We met up with my dad's cousin later and he treated us to a fancy dinner. It was so good... The service again, was excellent. We had a lot of fun in GZ on this last day, although I miss having showers. I say this because I only showered one day while I was here because the heater wasn't working, and also because you had to stand over the squatter toilet to shower. The squatter toilet, you have to manually pour water into it to flush, and after a number 2, you can only imagine the type of smell that comes out of there... Like I said, I'm a bit of a princess when it comes to these things... Oh and GZ was pretty hot too, so the days I didn't shower, I used a wet towel to wipe myself down instead.

We packed our backpacks after dinner and caught our flight to Bangkok to lay over to India. We didn't purchase out tickets beforehand, and it's in the middle of the night, so we have to wait until the next flight and purchase the tickets then. We'll be flying Air India, I believe.

travel journal: part 1

Sine leaving for the trip for Asia, it's been really really fast-paced and I haven't really had a chance to use internet all that much, so I've been writing in a journal to keep track of my observations and events. I'm just going to type it out here.


DAY 0.5: Leaving on a jet plane
I got to the airport 3 hours early since they say that you should do that for international flights. I got to the airport at 6:40am and was checked in, went through security and reached the waiting area by 6:55am... It was quite a long wait from there.

Lift off was at 10:30am and it was a rough flight over. 15.5 hours of air time with 3 meals and barely any sleep. I tried to drink some wine to put myself to sleep but no such luck. So we watched movie after movie. One of the movies was Ip Man starring Donnie Yuen. Amazing fight scenes, highly emotional. Forget Jet Li and Jacky Chan.


DAY 1: Hong Kong
We reached HK early in the morning local time. The subway right from the airport to our hotel area was sweet. It was so clean, well-maintained, and lots of room. TTC sucks compared to this. We walked over to the South Pacific Hotel, checked in, and walked around while waiting for Vincy to meet up wit us. The hotel rooms were a tad small, but pretty good for HK. It was pretty humid and warm there. Cockroaches running around the sidewalk, lots of people, a few stares here and there, but nothing too bad. It really sucked we couldn't read the menu signs for dinner, but at least we could speak and understand quite well. Free internet in the subway is awesome. We were recommended a place by a friend called King's Hotel and it was so weird. It almost felt like a sex hotel... It was one floor, and no hallways. As soon as you open the room door, it's the lobby. These rooms were all pimped out, and the workers weresurprised to see the 4 of us walk in...


DAY 2: HK shopping
We started the day by going to a cafe lounge for breakfast to use their complimentary computers. We noticed that school uniforms are really ugly in HK. We later met up with some friends and went shopping. First stop was at UNIQLO. Great clothing for a pretty cheap price. Felt like H&M but a lot better, though their t-shirts are a bit too wide for my body... Shame... I thought we had already adjusted to the time change since we didn't feel tired much, but by 6pm, it hit us hard. We passed out from 6:30pm til 10:30pm. Then we were wide awake.

We went out to Lang Kwai Fung to party it up with some foreigners. It was pretty crazy. Lots of white people and CBCs, lots of pubs, lots of booze and drunkards. We stayed out pretty late, playing Chinese drinking games (our local HK friends taught us) and drank the night away.

HK has an urban/modern feel, but at the same time, very grungy. Almost like Chinatown, realy. It's humid and hot, and I've decided I can't live here. Too many people and no sidewalk space. It gets rather frustrating when you're in a hurry. I can't even imagine what India will be like.


DAY 3: Arrival to Guang Zhou
Rain. We packed up our bags and went out for breakfast. By 12:30pm, we were on the bus to Mainland China. The coach was uber nice. It was brand new with leather seats, soft head cushions, reclines 5 times more than a crappy Greyhound coach would in North America. Funny how that works. Everything about that coach was superior. It even has a side door in the back to let people in too! Only thing missing was a washroom.

The highways were filled with rather large billboard signs everywhere with large Chinese fonts. The billboards were at least twice the size of North American billboards. It was overpowering...

Guang Zhou isn't what I remembered ten years ago. I don't remember much of it from then to begin with, just that there were a lot of constructions sites back then. Now, it reminds me of HK, with the modern tall high-rises mixed with grungy old buildings. Everything is cheap here, especially the food. The girls are much cuter than Hong Kong girls for some reason. Hannah, if you're reading this, you're right about the toilets in China. Kinda gross...