Steve's Day 3 - On to Guangzhou

(Steve)

Time to leave Hong Kong! Our train from the island to Guangzhou was in the morning, so we had to be up sorta early (boo). We were all a bit nervous on the way to the train station because our bags didn't really fit in the back of the taxi, so the trunk was only half-closed. Nothing fell out, though, and the drive was a little less roller-coasterish than some of the other ones we'd had. Unfortunately, Candice realized on the way that she'd left her jacket in the hotel room, and we didn't have time to go back. Then Jill had trouble finding the sheet she needed to get through customs. Then I lost my train ticket somewhere between the waiting hall and the train itself. Despite all of that, though, we made it on the train alive and with (almost) all of our stuff. We were finally on our way to China! (I know Hong Kong's in China, but like I said it's not really China)

When we got to Guangzhou, our guide was waiting for us. His name was Thomas. He was nice, but he seemed a little... slimy. The first thing we did was lunch, and it was our first Chinese meal. Too bad the food wasn't all that good. Plus the fish still had its head. Yum. After that we went to the Sun Yat-Sen memorial auditorium. It was very big. It looked pretty cool from the outside, but a little tacky on the inside. Just a little; performances there must still be pretty impressive. The next stop was the Folk Arts Museum. Oh my God. It was amazing. And my camera's batteries died. After my first circuit of the museum I discovered that as long as I let it recharge a bit in between pictures I could squeeze a little more out of the camera, so I went around a couple more times doing just that. My favorite stuff was the sand & stone paintings and the bone and wood carvings. It was all so amazing! It really reminds you that this is a culture that's been around ten times as long as our own. I may have gotten a little carried away, because I was about ten minutes late meeting up with the rest of the group.

Finally, Thomas took us to... a souvenir shop. See: a little bit slimy. The owner of the shop first showed us how they get pearls out of oysters (Jill was appalled when she realized the one she'd picked had just been sentenced to death). He had us guess how many would be inside. I was the closest: I said 15, it was 14. We got to keep the pearls. After that he showed us around the shop. And by "showed us around" I mean "cornered us whenever we were alone and pressured us into buying stuff". I succumbed. I got a couple of very small, very plain porcelain vases for much more than I should have spent on them. None of us was very happy with Thomas for bringing us there, but it definitely opened up our eyes as to just how harrowing bargaining can be here. Fortunately we've gotten better since.

We checked into our hotel, and Candice decided she was too tired to eat so Jill, Molly, and I went out. We found a little Thai place that looked good, and it was our first meal with just chopsticks. That was fine for me - I'd lost my appetite and I only had steamed rice - but the noodles Jill got were too hard to eat without a fork. Eventually we got back to the hotel and, exhausted, we went to bed. *End Day 3*

Impressions: Guangzhou wasn't anything special. Really, the only reason we were there is that it's cheaper to fly from there to Guilin than from Hong Kong. We were all a little relieved the next day to leave, especially when we discovered how much better Guilin, and Yangshuo, and Lijiang all were. I loved the Folk Arts Museum, though. They should probably just move it to one of the nicer cities.