Guangzhou
22/02/2005
Li and another Chinese guy took me a a small van, a 12 places tourist vehicle, and we went to the hotel.
The hotel is quite big, but most of the customers were either Chineses from other citiess or Taiwaneses. Li pointed at the hotel rate board and told me that she even gave me a cheaper price then what I should be paid (which is true), so thumb up for Li!. Nobody spoke English at the hotel, but I had a lot of fun at the end. The weather was very bad, grey sky, raining and cold, it was about 5 or 6 celcius degree (I didn't expect this at all). My plans were not to have a lot of sightseeing but having a relaxing day...It was only 11am, and it was raining quite hard, so I decided that I would find an internet place to check and write e-mails to you guys, also post some stuffs on the blog. I went downstairs, to the reception, there were several Chinese girls there, they were giggling when they saw me, probably because they had fun seeing me with such a big backpack, and did not speak any Chinese. I asked them in English, where can I find internet, e-mails, nobody understood, eyes just opened, looked at me but kept on giggling, then they brought a girl, who I thought was a manager and would speak some English, but no!! I brought my China lonely Planet guide book and read the sentence in Chinese which meant where can I get online? They were just looking at me again-nice try, Thao!!, so I just showed them the sentence in Chinese...A big satisfied "aah", the manager girl understood, she said it's very near, 2 min walk..So, I went to the direction she showed me, and didn't see any internet shop, went back to the hotel, she asked a young guy to bring me there, it was quite close but it was in a building on the second floor...Ok, I went in, one woman said 10 yuen for 3hours (of course, she was using her body language and calculator to make sure I understood what she meant). So I paid 10 yuen, got a ticket of my machine, sat down, and hehehehe, on the screen, everything was in Chinese!!!! I looked for the Internet Explorer, went to hotmail, internet connection was really slow, and while I was waiting, I noticed around me there were only guys who were either chatting or playing games. The keyboard was rather dirty, and most of the keys were faded, I could hardly see which one was "A" or else, but ok, if we are used to typing, that shouldn't be a problem.
I finally got into my inbox, read messages from Sofia, Cristine, and Patricia. I decided to write a big e-mail to everyone about HK because I couldn't get on my blog to do that. When I had about a page long, the mail suddenly disappeared. What the heck!!!!! I was so pissed, disappointed and so gave up. So, I went to the woman's place, gave her the ticket, then got some money she gave me back since I didn't finish my 3h, walked back to the hotel...
I went to my room, called Xuan to say hi, but some Chinese guy was talking on the phone, and then hang up. The girl who cleaned the hotel rooms helped me in speaking Chinese with that guy but apparently, nobody knew Xuan! (well, the phone number was correct, and the other day when I e-mailed Xuan about this, he told me sometimes the phone didn't work!), So I tried to reach Steven in Guilin to let him know that I would be arriving in 2 days. Then I went downstairs, asking for my way to Shamian Diao where most of the attractions I wanted to visit, I took a bus to the subway station...Public transportation in Guangzhou is old but very efficient, and the people were very helpful even not a lot of people speak English on the street.
When I told one of my friends that I would be Guangzhou, he told me that Guangzhou is big and there weren't a lot to see, I didn't believe him. But really, the city is quite industrialized, there wasn't much to see, and VERY big. I think it is about haft size of VN, but the the population is about the same, so it is rather packed. And btw, people spitted on the street alot here, there were some areas, where was a sign "No spitting", and the rate of how much the fine would be if someone was caught spitting. Traffics was just the same as it is in VN, cars, bicycles, plenty of taxi (rate is 7 yuen, less than 1E), motorcycles...people just go as they want. Vehicles just run over us, here in South East Asia, you have to watch the cars drivers and not they watch you, pedestrians. Hey, I am from VN, this is no big deal! ;-0)
I went to visit a place called "The Temple of the Six banyan trees", it wasn't impressive for a me, but one thing I enjoyed was just follow a group of Italian tourists to listen to the history of the place, about Buddhism from the guide ;-). There was a big copper/bronze vase where everyone was trying to throw coins or money into, it is supposed to give you luck (yeah, we are also very superstitious, theVietnamese), and the temple also has a statue of a famous poet who I happened to know his poems when I was student, so that was nice...
The guide took her group into the temple and explained about the position of the 3 big Buddha, that represented The Past, The Present, and the Future...She was explaining why they were called like that by their postures, hands..etc. I left the temple around 3pm, and felt a bit hungry, so I walked the area, went to a small place that sold different dishes: noodles, rices, fried duck, dumplings...etc.
After I finished a big bowl of noodles-with green vegetable, chinese mushrooms.., and local rice that was cooked in a pot that made out from earth, tasty tasty ;-), I headed to the Yue Tomb museum. BTW, I wished you guys could smell the smell of fresh, hot rice earthenware pot, and the taste of roasted pork together with vegetables is just undescribed, not so sweet, so salty, the meat is just juicy and tender, the colour was a bit pinky hmmm, gorgeous!! It looks so simple, yet the taste is refined.
It is the tomb of the emperor Wen, the second ruler of the southern Yue kingdom (Western Han dynasty AD 206-220). The tomb was discovered in 1983, quite recent, on the Elephant Hill, it's about 20m under and there were 15 bodies including 4 concubines. We do not how much a Chinese King is rich until we see the object he owns. They were shown in the museums, pieces of jades, refined Chinese furnitures, Chinese ceramic or porcelain vases, cups, bowls, very thin, well-made in high quality, also objects that were made from ivory incisors of mammals. ..
I walked around the museum small shop, and bought a necklace with a piece of low quality white jade, horse is my Chinese sign, so I chose it...The girl was a good commercial, she was showing me many stuffs, asked me to buy including some very old postcards ;-), I asked her as a joke, are they antique those cards? ;-) She laughed so much...
After the museum, I wanted to visit the Peaceful market, where apparently they sell exotic stuffs like snakes, spiders, scorpions, and semi-toxic mushrooms, but it was already 5.30pm, and the girl at the museum told me that the market closed at that hour, so, I just walked on the street, looking, watching people rushing home in the rain, cold, and the pupils finished their classes, rushed out from their school, reached by parents who were waiting to pick them up, groups of young girls gathered to go home, and passed by snacks shops to buy snack together, walked, talked...
I went inside a small supermarket or nightshop to buy a bottle of water, cookies, and took a cap back to the hotel. It was about 9pm when I got to the hotel, so I just showered, and got some rest, turned on TV, there was a Kungfu movie, in Chinese but that doesn't matter ;-), I watched it and fell asleep...
Li and another Chinese guy took me a a small van, a 12 places tourist vehicle, and we went to the hotel.
The hotel is quite big, but most of the customers were either Chineses from other citiess or Taiwaneses. Li pointed at the hotel rate board and told me that she even gave me a cheaper price then what I should be paid (which is true), so thumb up for Li!. Nobody spoke English at the hotel, but I had a lot of fun at the end. The weather was very bad, grey sky, raining and cold, it was about 5 or 6 celcius degree (I didn't expect this at all). My plans were not to have a lot of sightseeing but having a relaxing day...It was only 11am, and it was raining quite hard, so I decided that I would find an internet place to check and write e-mails to you guys, also post some stuffs on the blog. I went downstairs, to the reception, there were several Chinese girls there, they were giggling when they saw me, probably because they had fun seeing me with such a big backpack, and did not speak any Chinese. I asked them in English, where can I find internet, e-mails, nobody understood, eyes just opened, looked at me but kept on giggling, then they brought a girl, who I thought was a manager and would speak some English, but no!! I brought my China lonely Planet guide book and read the sentence in Chinese which meant where can I get online? They were just looking at me again-nice try, Thao!!, so I just showed them the sentence in Chinese...A big satisfied "aah", the manager girl understood, she said it's very near, 2 min walk..So, I went to the direction she showed me, and didn't see any internet shop, went back to the hotel, she asked a young guy to bring me there, it was quite close but it was in a building on the second floor...Ok, I went in, one woman said 10 yuen for 3hours (of course, she was using her body language and calculator to make sure I understood what she meant). So I paid 10 yuen, got a ticket of my machine, sat down, and hehehehe, on the screen, everything was in Chinese!!!! I looked for the Internet Explorer, went to hotmail, internet connection was really slow, and while I was waiting, I noticed around me there were only guys who were either chatting or playing games. The keyboard was rather dirty, and most of the keys were faded, I could hardly see which one was "A" or else, but ok, if we are used to typing, that shouldn't be a problem.
I finally got into my inbox, read messages from Sofia, Cristine, and Patricia. I decided to write a big e-mail to everyone about HK because I couldn't get on my blog to do that. When I had about a page long, the mail suddenly disappeared. What the heck!!!!! I was so pissed, disappointed and so gave up. So, I went to the woman's place, gave her the ticket, then got some money she gave me back since I didn't finish my 3h, walked back to the hotel...
I went to my room, called Xuan to say hi, but some Chinese guy was talking on the phone, and then hang up. The girl who cleaned the hotel rooms helped me in speaking Chinese with that guy but apparently, nobody knew Xuan! (well, the phone number was correct, and the other day when I e-mailed Xuan about this, he told me sometimes the phone didn't work!), So I tried to reach Steven in Guilin to let him know that I would be arriving in 2 days. Then I went downstairs, asking for my way to Shamian Diao where most of the attractions I wanted to visit, I took a bus to the subway station...Public transportation in Guangzhou is old but very efficient, and the people were very helpful even not a lot of people speak English on the street.
When I told one of my friends that I would be Guangzhou, he told me that Guangzhou is big and there weren't a lot to see, I didn't believe him. But really, the city is quite industrialized, there wasn't much to see, and VERY big. I think it is about haft size of VN, but the the population is about the same, so it is rather packed. And btw, people spitted on the street alot here, there were some areas, where was a sign "No spitting", and the rate of how much the fine would be if someone was caught spitting. Traffics was just the same as it is in VN, cars, bicycles, plenty of taxi (rate is 7 yuen, less than 1E), motorcycles...people just go as they want. Vehicles just run over us, here in South East Asia, you have to watch the cars drivers and not they watch you, pedestrians. Hey, I am from VN, this is no big deal! ;-0)
I went to visit a place called "The Temple of the Six banyan trees", it wasn't impressive for a me, but one thing I enjoyed was just follow a group of Italian tourists to listen to the history of the place, about Buddhism from the guide ;-). There was a big copper/bronze vase where everyone was trying to throw coins or money into, it is supposed to give you luck (yeah, we are also very superstitious, theVietnamese), and the temple also has a statue of a famous poet who I happened to know his poems when I was student, so that was nice...
The guide took her group into the temple and explained about the position of the 3 big Buddha, that represented The Past, The Present, and the Future...She was explaining why they were called like that by their postures, hands..etc. I left the temple around 3pm, and felt a bit hungry, so I walked the area, went to a small place that sold different dishes: noodles, rices, fried duck, dumplings...etc.
After I finished a big bowl of noodles-with green vegetable, chinese mushrooms.., and local rice that was cooked in a pot that made out from earth, tasty tasty ;-), I headed to the Yue Tomb museum. BTW, I wished you guys could smell the smell of fresh, hot rice earthenware pot, and the taste of roasted pork together with vegetables is just undescribed, not so sweet, so salty, the meat is just juicy and tender, the colour was a bit pinky hmmm, gorgeous!! It looks so simple, yet the taste is refined.
It is the tomb of the emperor Wen, the second ruler of the southern Yue kingdom (Western Han dynasty AD 206-220). The tomb was discovered in 1983, quite recent, on the Elephant Hill, it's about 20m under and there were 15 bodies including 4 concubines. We do not how much a Chinese King is rich until we see the object he owns. They were shown in the museums, pieces of jades, refined Chinese furnitures, Chinese ceramic or porcelain vases, cups, bowls, very thin, well-made in high quality, also objects that were made from ivory incisors of mammals. ..
I walked around the museum small shop, and bought a necklace with a piece of low quality white jade, horse is my Chinese sign, so I chose it...The girl was a good commercial, she was showing me many stuffs, asked me to buy including some very old postcards ;-), I asked her as a joke, are they antique those cards? ;-) She laughed so much...
After the museum, I wanted to visit the Peaceful market, where apparently they sell exotic stuffs like snakes, spiders, scorpions, and semi-toxic mushrooms, but it was already 5.30pm, and the girl at the museum told me that the market closed at that hour, so, I just walked on the street, looking, watching people rushing home in the rain, cold, and the pupils finished their classes, rushed out from their school, reached by parents who were waiting to pick them up, groups of young girls gathered to go home, and passed by snacks shops to buy snack together, walked, talked...
I went inside a small supermarket or nightshop to buy a bottle of water, cookies, and took a cap back to the hotel. It was about 9pm when I got to the hotel, so I just showered, and got some rest, turned on TV, there was a Kungfu movie, in Chinese but that doesn't matter ;-), I watched it and fell asleep...
posted by Vagabonder @ 9:13 AM
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