Mon 9/7
Left Randy's this morning to head back into China. First over land border crossing on our own so a little bit nerve racking! Lol. Sad to leave Randy's and Hong Kong but we have to move on! Randy gave us a pineapple sponge cake each as a leaving gift which was really nice! He is our favourite host so far! Headed back to the airport to catch a bus to Guangzhou in China, the airport has free wifi so stopped to sort some stuff out and ended up spending 5 1/2 hrs there!lol. Time flies when your online! Our bus journey consisted of a taxi from the airport to the border, it actually drove us straight through which was great as we had no hassle and got the stamps we needed!lol. Then at the China border we caught our bus which took us straight to Guangzhou! We got dropped off at a random hotel and had to find our way to our next couchsurfing hosts house. People in the street are not to keen to help, found the tube in the end without too much trouble! Unfortunately you need a card to work the pay phones and they take no money at all so we were unable to contact Alex to meet us at the tube station. Again people were reluctant to help even tho we had his address in Chinese but we surprisingly found his place quite easily and only got sent in the wrong direction once! We were very proud of ourselves! Alex stayed with two roommates so there was a few people in the flat! They were all nice! They were watching back to back Big Bang Theory and left it on for us when they went to bed. Not seen it since we left home so were reluctant to turn it off and go to sleep! Love it so much! So funny!
Tue 10/7
Bit of a later start than planned today after staying up and watching tv for so long last night! Luckily there ain't much to do here! Alex took us out for a nice local lunch and then we headed off to do a bit of sightseeing that he recommended to us. Had to stop for some coffee along the way as the car ride had made us sleepy! By the time we got to the Chen Clan Academy the ticket office had closed so had a nice relaxing stroll around the park instead! Next we headed to Beijing pedestrian street. Lots of hawkers there but luckily they are no where near as persistent as they were in India! It was a nice walk and Cam had his day made when we found transformer statues!lol. Went back to meet Alex afterwards as he had invited us along to the couchsurfing gathering. It was great! We all sat in the street like the locals and had an all you can eat chinese barbecue with an endless supply of beer! Not bad for 30 yuan each (£3)!! Met some interesting people from all around the world. Most of them were working in the area! Ended our night with a McDonalds at 4 in the morning, beats the kebab shop any day! Lol.
Wed 11/7
Well after another very late night this time it was 1pm afore we got up the day! Got eaten alive by mosquitos last night. 45 bites on my legs, just want to scratch my skin off! Gona have to wear trousers for a few days coz it looks like i have some sort of disease, not cool when it is so hot and humid here! Had a late lunch with alex and then he toke us to book our bus to Guilin. He did all the talking for us which saved a lot of hassle! Luckily there was still seats on the evening bus but we had to get the 11:30pm bus rather than the 9:30pm! While we still had time we went off to see the Canton tower, the tallest tv tower in the world (doesn't everything seem to be the biggest in the world in some way or other!lol. Suppose it sells!) If we had realised there was so much to do here we would have been earlier! They had a sky drop, bubble tram, spider walk and revolving restaurant. Never mind it was very pretty to look at! They love their lights over here! Even the dingiest building looks great at night all light up! When we went to catch our bus everything was in chinese! Luckily there was another english couple there too and their son spoke a little chinese so we managed to get on the right bus! There is no organisation here! Every so often there is an announcement and everybody rushes through the gate! Unfortunately we have had to learn to leave our manners at home, otherwise we would get no where! 13hr bus journey here we go! Luckily its the most spacious bus we have been on so far so hopefully we will get a good nights sleep!