Guangzhou Trip and more

            So Friday we were off to the train station to Guangzhou.  We were all very excited about this trip.  There were seven of us going: Robyn, Amanda, Brianne, David, Mike, Shane and myself.  It was probably the best group of people that we could have gone with.  We all get along very well.  Anywho, Amanda and I have our last block off on Friday and David didn’t have to work that afternoon (he doesn’t work at the school, he’s Brianne’s boyfriend) so we decided to leave a little early to get to the station to tell the others where to go, since we were going to cut it close for time.  We are out of school at 3:40 and our train was leaving at 5pm.  The train station is about 45min away with traffic.  So we get in one of the ‘black cabs’ arranged for us outside of the school and start driving.  Halfway to the station the cab driver takes a second look at our ticket and starts yelling at us in Chinese.  We have no idea, but he get saying Wuhan.  I translated it as we’re going to the Wuhan station right now and we need to be at the other station across town, and we had already been driving for 20min in the wrong direction….great :s  He keeps shaking his head and pointing at the ticket and pointing at the time, pretty much saying that we are not going to make it.  It was awful.  Meanwhile we are on the phone with the others and the cab and they are now about ten minutes ahead of us even though they left 20min after us….great.  So, they call at 4:50 saying that they are at the station, we start to freak out a little.  We then see the station and start cheering to ourselves, but the cab driver shakes his head and kind of signals that we have to go around to get to the station, and to boot the road had massive craters throughout it so we had to go super slow and still ended up bottoming out several times.  We finally get there at 4:55…and SPRINT through the station, David looks at me and say, “It’s like we’re in Home Alone!”  We made it with literally 1min to spare and the other half of our crew just hanging out in the door to see if they could kind of hold off the train if we hadn’t made it.  Haha, as soon as we got on the train the whole thing was just hilarious, but as it was happening it was not fun at all. 

            The train was a crazy experience.  It had a speedometer inside the train.  The fastest it went was 348km/hr.  It was nuts.  You didn’t realize it when you were sitting down, but if you got up and looked out the doors while standing you really noticed how fast you were going.  Guangzhou is approx the same distance as going from Vancouver to Saskatchewan.  We got there in just over three hours, without any hassle (besides the cab ride). 
            The city was a nice change from Wuhan.  As we were driving through there were more lights, nicer roads and a more modern city in general.  Our hotel was nice on the outside but a little sketchy on the inside.  Once we got our rooms all settled we were off to wander.  We were right by a little boardwalk by the river so we took a little stroll.  We were all super hungry so we were also really anxious to find a restaurant.  We ended up finding a place that had dim sum!  They don’t have that here.  The whole meal felt like home to me.  It was like going to Popo’s for dinner, or out with the John family, so it was really comforting to me.  Robyn kept laughing at me because I had a huge smile on my face the entire time, it was that good.  Haha. 

            After that we didn’t really want to go out, but we did step into one club, they put us in this VIP area.  We weren’t really feeling it, but there was this crazy bartender doing crazy juggling which entertained us for awhile.  Like I said, we were all pretty pooped and wanted to get up early and explore the town so we headed to bed.  I got to share a MINI twin with Amanda.  I have no idea how we fit on that tiny bed, it was ridiculous.  I’m not making this up, this bed was the tiniest thing I had ever seen. 
            The next morning we got up nice and early for an all day adventure.  The front desk led us to this street with a whole bunch of shops. In-between these shops were these little bargain mall/stalls with people calling you over to buy all their stuff.  We learned very quickly that you could basically pay whatever you wanted for anything no matter what the initial price they gave you was.  For instance, Robyn and I got sunglasses, he asked 80 kwai, too expensive…I think in the end we paid 20, haha, it’s pretty fun to bargain with them.  In the end I bought 4 pairs of shoes, a tiny asian cell phone, watch, sunglasses, socks, belt, bunch of clothes, Chinese dress and more for about $300 Cdn. 
            After the shopping we went to get pedicures and our hair done.  They do a really good job here and we love getting our hair washed and done.  It was kind Mike and I’s birthday going out weekend so we had to do it up.  So all the girls got their hair washed and curled so we were ready to go out on the town. 

            Mike saw a good seafood restaurant earlier in the day so he took us there.  It was a crazy experience.  You got to get up an pick your live seafood that you wanted to eat.  The boys really wanted to have crocodile, so we ended up trying it.  It tasted like really meaty white fish.  We had tons of food, and way too much beer at dinner.  The club that the hairdresser suggested turned out to be just around the corner so we went there.  It was kind of weird because at first they didn’t want to let us in because Mike and Amanda were wearing sandals, but they seriously took two seconds to change their mind.  Once we got inside they brought us to a stand up table and gave us a menu for bottle service.  The boys treated us for the night.  The music was awesome and we danced it up.  What a fun night.

            The next night was extremely rough.  We went out for lunch and didn’t really want to move.  We shopped around a little more and then took a rickety van back to the train station.  Well, let’s just say that just when we thought we weren’t hungover we were immediately reminded of it.  Once we got to the train station we were all in a bad state again.  The actual train ride was good, and we were very glad to get back to Wuhan.  I had already thought about this before we left, but I knew that once we got back I was going to be anxious to get ‘home’ which is now Wuhan.  We all felt a little weird about this, that we have now accepted this place as our home for now. 

            The last few days at school have been a little rough.  I got to school being very very sick (not from the drinking mom…don’t worry) but like cold sick.  My sinuses were all clogged up and I had the worst head cold ever.  The next day at school was even worse.  I kept getting light headed while teaching and had to take moments to sit down and get myself together.  Not fun.  Today I felt a little bit better. 
            We finally booked our trip to Sanya.  It’s on an island and is super pretty and there’s a pool J  I am so excited about it.  I can’t wait to finally relax.  I know that we’ve only started the year, but the last few weeks have just been so crazy it is going to be a much needed vacation.  It’s been awhile since I’ve had a real vacation. 
            We work on Saturday this week in order to have an extra day of vacation.  So we leave for Sanya on Sunday night!  I really cannot wait.  Three more teaching days and then we will be off to paradise.  There is a tropical rainforest and hot springs around the resort we’re staying at so we can go explore there as well. 
            Whoa, long one this time.  That is all for now!  I will update again soon.