My China Trip, part 4

I'm sorry about my long post of the tour. I just wanted to get it all finished in one post so that I don't post too much about the trip. I hope I didn't bore you guys or anything with it.

So, after the Shanghai trip, our next stop was Guangzhou. However, we did not receive our flight times until the the night we were suppose to pack so that we could leave at 5 in the morning the next day. I know. 5 in the morning. We didn't get to eat at the breakfast buffet that we had paid for when we paid for the tour. They didn't refund the money for it. What made it worse was that we did not have time to search the weight and luggage limit for that certain airline.

We arrived at the airport at 6, while the flight was at 7. Imagine that. They told us that our suitcases were overweight and that we had too many. We'd have to pay extra. We ended up throwing away some things, and still had to pay the extra money. They should have told us about our flights earlier, but what's done is done. By the way, they didn't give out any snacks or water or anything during the flight. Then again, I didn't really pay attention since I fell asleep right when the flight started.

We ended up arriving in Guangzhou around 10 or 11, but didn't get to the hotel until 12 or 1 pm. Not having eaten breakfast, we were starving. So, we walked around the area, which happened to be Beijing street, I think. We ended up going to this one restaurant and ate a decent meal. We went back to the hotel and then my parents signed us up for a local tour of Guangzhou. It was a bad choice. But, hey, at least we went around the city. I even got my hair straighten, well, a straight perm. It has held pretty well after 2 or 3 weeks. My hair is naturally wavy, frizzy and a little curly, and it has stayed pretty much straight. It looks better than when I straighten my hair with a straightener.  Anyway, my mom's aunt lives in that city and she and her husband and grandson came over to our hotel and then we all went to a restaurant to eat dinner at around 7. We had eaten McDonald's as a snack (where I got a delicious taro pie). Anyway, my mom's cousins also came to the dinner too, and the dinner was delicious. I also noticed that their son was quite..stubborn. That's all how I can describe him, even though he's just 6 years old. Apparently, they had walked for at least 30 minutes to eat dinner with us. That was so nice. Then again, it has been around 20 years since my mom has seen her aunt.

We only spent 2 days at Guangzhou. That was the first day. At the 2nd day, we went on tour. We at the breakfast buffet, which was pretty decent before leaving for tour. But, the tour was ehh. First of all, it was such a small group. 2 people even left early since they didn't like the tour. There were only two families and they arrived half an hour late to pick up the other family and they were mad. It was such a hot day and no one wanted to go out of the air conditioned van. The first stop was a river or lake or something, but it was not beautiful at all. There were people fishing and the water was dirty.

The next stop was some sort of news/satellite tower. But, none of us really wanted to go see it since it was so hot outside. There was barely any shade and for most of the time, we were trying to find some shade. We did take some pictures, however.

I don't remember the order of the places we went to. But, I do remember going up this one hill/mountain. They even had tablets with rules of the mountain written on then. Then, then we took this thing to go down. I don't remember what it's called, unfortunately. I always forget the names of the electrical transportation devices. Oh yea. I remember now. It's a cable car! Yes. We took a cable car down. It was so much fun seeing down the mountain and seeing the school hidden in the mountain.  I had fun looking down but my mother was scared to look.

After that, we went to a jade shop, where the lady trying to sell the jades commented on my jade, saying it was a real good piece. Anyway, we didn't stay that long and then we went off to lunch. The lunch turned out to be at a real cheap place, where there weren't any doors, windows or anything. It was out in the open. All the dishes they made were cheap and the Chinese white carrot soup was spoiled. It was almost all vegetables and the meat dish was mainly just bones. No one ate much.


We went up another mountain after and we saw this goat sculpture thing. I forgot what the place was called, but it happens to be a tourist place. The tour didn't last much longer after that. We went to this palace place where the rich used to live back then. It was more like a museum, but I forgot what the place was called. There was so much to see though. The bad thing was that most of it was outside in the heat. We took tons of pictures there though. The tour ended after going to that museum.

We went back to our hotel. But, we were still hungry since we hadn't eaten much. We walked around the streets and then we went to a family owned small restaurant. It was decent. That was our dinner, even though it was around 5 or 6 pm.

Anyway, around 7 or 8, we walked all the way to my mom's aunt's place. It was across the river! But, it was such an amazing site. First, we took a ferry across the river. The bridge on top flashed colorful lights and everything. The whole city literally lit up. My mom's aunt's place was amazing too, since it was at a rich place and there were even swimming pools outside in the apartment place. They're so rich and the family is so modern. They even have high tech stuff. Anyway, Guangzhou really has a nightlife. We had to walk back to our hotel, and it was 10 at night. There were so many people out and I saw people my age going out to clubs. You should have seen the way they dressed. And to think I thought the Chinese were conservative.

Anyway, the walk took about half an hour to 45 mintues, but the site of Guangzhou made it unbelievable. I even say people exercising at night, jogging, runnning, rollerblading, riding their bikes. I guess it's a good idea, since it's not as hot at night. People also dance too. Ahhh. Guangzhou. I miss that place.

That was our adventure at Guangzhou. I will tell you guys what we did after Guangzhou in the next post. I hope you guys enjoyed  reading this.

再见！