China

Well, we’ve been having a bit of a weird week.  The place that we were
staying at in Hong Kong didn’t have wireless anywhere except right
beside the elevator, and half the time it didn’t work.  Now we’re in
Guangzhou, offically in China, and we can’t even access our blog!  The
thing about communist China is that they control pretty much anything
they want to.  They’ve blocked us from accessing our blog (Because
it’s free speech) and we also can’t look up anything on Tibet, or any
other controversial issue here.  Oh well, what can you do?  So now
we’re writing out our blogs in wordpad and sending them to a friend to
post for us so everyone can still keep up.

We had a pretty good time in Hong Kong, a lot of people spoke English,
they were reasonably friendly, and the area that we were staying in
had quite a few western restaurants around it.  There was also an
interesting street market, but we didn’t really buy anything at it
because we heard mainland China was cheaper.

We booked our train tickets a couple days in advance out to Guangzhou
without too much problem, just a bunch of waiting at the travel
agency.  It was pretty easy to get down to the station and get on the
train as well, but we had to go through customs before we could get on
the train, and had to clear customs again once we arrived!

When we arrived in Guangzhou we were a little overwhelmed.  We’ve
never been stared at so much in any country we’ve ever gone to.  It’s
really unnerving, and in addition to that, there were armed guards
everywhere, people sitting in the streets, and little to no english
signage.  We barely figured out how to get on the subway so that we
could get to the central train station even though we asked a couple
different people.  When we got to the central station, we booked our
tickets for Lhasa – luckily we got probably the only English speaker
in Guangzhou to book it for us.  Then we tried to find our hostel and
that was a process in itself, but eventually we made it.  This hostel
is probably one of the nicest we’ve been in on our trip so far, and
it’s also probably the cheapest.  It’s not in a very desirable area of
town, but I’m sure that there are worse.

We found a really tasty Japanese/Western food restaurant near us that
we’ve had two dinners at now, and it’s a little like being in Japan.
When you walk in, everyone yells out, “Irrashemaseeeeee”  (Welcome in
Japanese), so it’s a little like being back in Japan (which is
somewhere we already miss).  They are really attentive when they’re
serving you, and we had one waiter last night who Mike tried to tip,
but the waiter just giggled and patted him on the back and sent him
off.  It was pretty funny.

Today we went out shopping on an open market shopping street.  We
didn’t end up buying anything expect shampoo and conditioner, but
we’re going to try again tomorrow.  We have a strong feeling we’re not
going to like China very much, so after Lhasa, we’re going to try to
get back to Hong Kong as quick as we can.  Everyone is just really
rude here, and they stare at you like you’re a tv show and you can’t
see them.  Even if you smile or wave at them they still stare at you
blankly.  We were buying tickets for a ferry today, and I gave the
woman at the ticket counter my money, and she pretty much threw my
change and the tickets back at me.  A bit of a culture shock coming
from Canada and Japan where politeness is the norm.

What can you do?

Carolyn