Guangzhou, China
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
We joined a group of 16 others, plus our tour guide Lisa, for a guided tour of mainland China. This was like a vacation from our vacation. We didn’t have to worry about any logistics. Transportation tickets were handed to us as needed. Hotel rooms were ready for us when we arrived. When we met for meals at the restaurants, Lisa did and excellent job of selecting a variety of delicious local foods for us to sample. Unfortunately, it enabled us to be so lazy that we didn’t need to practice the mandarin that we’d spent 2 semesters learning back in California. But we do believe that being able to say “water”, “cold beer”, and “thank you” gave us a bit of an advantage.
The map and itinerary of where we went and activities we participated in are listed on the Imaginative traveler web site, so I’ll try to just summarize some of the highlights here.
Our first stop in mainland China was Guanzhou, which we only saw briefly as we transferred between train stations. After later visiting Macau, and learning more about the historical significance of Guanzhou, I’d wished we’d stayed longer. First impressions were of a very hectic, crowded city. Since this was our first city in mainland, it was major culture shock. Unlike in the crowded cities of Japan, people don’t form lines here. Getting onto buses, and in and out of train stations was pure chaos with people pushing and shoving their way in. Another shock was the way people handle the accumulation of phlegm inside their airways. Most people (men, women, and children) have the habit of clearing their throats and sinuses, and spitting the resulting oysters out, wherever they may be. Perhaps it’s considered bad to keep that nasty stuff in.
