Tempest7: Blogger

GuangZhou Day 2

Woke up tired. Lou Yan came and brought breakfast. We played around until about 1:30 and then left a bit later. I saw a good view of GuangZhou today, from the bus. The traffic is rough here, and dangerous. I can't figure out the system, as far as I know you just do whatever works. We stopped by a McDonalds which is a pretty safe spot. The menu is so cheap about $20 RMB for a crispy chicken combo, and an extra $2 RMB for a supersize. It is a bit strange though,they have people willing to take orders directly from the tables. Additionally there is a security guard that hangs around. I heard that in most McDonalds in GuangZhou this is the case.

We headed over to Central Mountain University and dropped by a few shops. Some of the "official" looking shops actually blatenly sell fake goods. I saw a pair of "Conwerse" shoes for sale and other similar fake brands. There are several familar looking shoes with different company names, a pair of shoes that look like the typical Converse goes for about $30 RMB. Pretty cheap. Fake t-shirts are about $25 RMB, much cheaper than the fake t-shirts in Hong Kong which can run about $60-$70 HKD. The material I saw in Hong Kong is a little thicker, maybe better to the touch but at the price of $25 RMB you can't complain. Some of the typical cell phones are avilable here but there are quite a few clones as well. "Konka" has many designs similar to Nokia for example. They seem cheaper in construction which suits the environment, GuangZhou, I feel, can not compare to the wealth of Hong Kong. I stepped into a Lenovo shop to look around. I don't think it was quite complete but the majority of the computers I could not recognize as IBMs except for the LCDs.

The culture shock was a major annoyance today. I was a little annoyed that I spent so much time on the bus as well instead of seeing the city. I can't blame Lou Yan though because she has only really been there for a month. Even after a month in Hong Kong I really did not know much of the city. I've seen some absolutely crazy actions though, bikers that drive the opposite direction of traffic. Bikers who cut across pedestrian walk ways to cross over to the other side of the road. Also the traffic lights don't mean anything here. I've seen so many cars run red lights, and people jay walk like it is going out of style. The air is really bad here, you can notice the difference right away.

I insisted that we see the subway and to my surprise it is very similar to Hong Kong's subway system. The doorways resemble most of the KCR light rail doorways. There is some sort of card that people can buy here that resembles the Octopus card, except it seems to be rarely used here. Most people are content stuffing dollars into the bus slot. At $2 RMB the buses are really cheap here, except there are no transfers and you have to bus about everywhere since GuangZhou is so large. The GZ MTR is very comfortable which is a well needed change from all the buses today. We headed to the train station and saw there was a ton of people outside of the train station. I think I saw a few migrant workers just wandering about but I didn't really find any big group of them. I was very aware of my belongings though, not giving anyone a chance to stand too closely to me without my eye on them. We headed back to the factory where Lou Yan's mother made some delicious dumplings for dinner. Aside from the bus rides it was still a good day. My trip to GuangZhou has been a real eye opener.

The power just cut out because of a fuse here. This is the second time today that I had to use my flashlight. I'm lucky that I brought my maglite along.

Labels: China

posted by Tempest7 @ 11:00