Eventually, after wandering around with my backpack on for ages, and being stared at by everyone, especially one guy who refused to stop staring at me and whom I eventually lost my temper with and said 'What you looking at?!' to, I managed to buy a bus ticket to go to meet my friend in Humen. The traffic was awful and the trip took an extra two hours more than it should have but I made it to my host Rosie's house and settled in for the night.
In the morning we went to Guangzhou city to the hostel I would stay at that evening; Sunshine Home, and dropped my bag off. Luckily it looked very nice, the staff were very welcoming and spoke extremely good English. Probably because they weren't originally from China!
Next we took a bus out of the city to see some scenery and go walking:
It was so wonderful to get out of the city and see some of the China underneath all the chaos. See set off up the 9999 steps to the top...
It started with a walk past a lake, then we started following the river up...
...and up...
...the view was pretty impressive. We made our way back down in time for the bus and headed back to Guangzhou city for some well earned dinner and a walk up Beijing Road. At the hostel I met two English guys and spoke to them about their travels. It was great to hear where they'd been and give them some tips for Japan.
In the morning I took a strole around Lai Wan Park, next to my hostel. There were so many people out doing their morning exercises; Tai Chi, Kung Foo, Badminton, and many others using fans, bat and ball and weights with feathers attached.
Then it was time to meet my friend Niya, who I had met while travelling on the Trans-Siberian railway and would be staying with.
Her apartment was on the outskirts of the city and the area had been built in a very European style. It had a great view and was really spacious; to me it felt like luxury!
First on our list the next day was Breakfast Tea; a traditional Cantonese meal. It should be treated as brunch as it is quite a long affair. We went at around 11 am and the restaurant was packed. Niya ordered the food and the plates started to arrive. I lost count of how many plates there were but it was far from breakfast food. We had something between a meringue and a doughnut, pork and vegetables, dim sum, dumplings, coconut milk pudding, sweet pork in pastry and all sorts of other delights. There was no kind of order to it, the food came when it was ready and you ate sweet and savoury food. I enjoyed it though!
After we took a trip to one of the temples:
...and walked off some of our breakfast tea around the courtyard:
...before heading to Up Down Nine Street; a long street full of shops. Strangely they all seem to sell the same things. After walking around it was time to 'treat' ourselves to a massage. However, Chinese massages are not for the faint-hearted and and you should not expect to feel relaxed during the massage. For a whole our two girls dug out the knots in our muscles and left us feeling bruised and in pain, but much less stiff and tense.
That night, turning over in bed was not an easy task and I wasn't sure I would be able to put my backpack on in two days when I would leave.
The next morning we went to Yiexiu Park to see the five goat statue:
Apparently five celestial beings brought five goats carrying rice to the people of Guangzhou so they would never suffer famine, and now they are worshiped here.
We also took a trip to the tomb of emperor Nanyue before visiting another temple with a pagoda; traditional to the south of China:
Soon it was time to leave but I felt ready to go. The streets were crowded, there were plenty of beggars with various deformities, people openly spat in the street, bikes piled high with rubbish shared the roads with buses, cars and scooters, every taxi ride felt like it might be my last, people on bikes and scooters didn't care if they went the wrong way down the road....and people were still staring at me! It was great to see my friend but Taiwan was definitely calling.
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