January 8 China Awaits

Woke up to the horrible sounds of three alarmclocks this morning - funny how one hates the sound of an alarmclock no matter where you are in the world. In order to wake up I jumped in the shower, but then quickly out again as here was no hot water...figures. Oddbjørn, my hero fixed it though with the flick of a switch out in the hallway.
So today we were off to China. New country with new adventures lying ahead. Oddbjørn spent the early morning hours before check-out to figure out how to get to Guangzhou as well as a place to stay. Arriving a little ways north of downtown Kowloon we bought our bustickets (NOK 200 for both) and had about 40 minutes to kill before our bus departure. We tried to find the bus station down the road - later finding out that it was right outside the ticket office - mis-communicaton. As we waited to cross the street we heard someone saying in Norwegian "thanks for the picture" - guess the saw my unmissable flag on my backpack - small world. :) 20 minutes before the bus was leaving I was getting a little irritated because we hadn't found the bus stop and all the people EVERYWHERE bumping into me - my Norwegian attitude towards crowds was kicking in :p This however, was my first lesson in just keeping my cool and going with the flow. There are 7 million people in HK, I'm bound to run into one or two people. When it comes to time, we have 6 months before we have to be in Singapore to catch our flight home. So Kendra, CHILLAX!!!!
The bus wasn't half bad actually, but the driving here is terrifying and loud until you get used to it. Bumper to bumper, honking CONSTANTLY, and crazy lane changing. I was actually a little nervous about entering China. Perceptions are scary things when they're not all positive, and my perception of China hasn't been great with all the focus on human rights, somewhat of a military mentality etc. I was wrong. Chinese people are people as well. They weren't as uptight as I thought and certainly not as "scary" as I thought either. My passport dude smiled when I approached him, laughed when I had forgotten a number of my visa document and said your welcome when I said thank you. People are just people no matter where you are. The scenery along the way didn't change much - banana plantations, run down buildings and miles upon miles of what looked to be dusty fields.
When we got to Guangzhou we took a metro to the east railway station, close to our hotel. The room was three times the size of our box in HK. Two double beds - one for me and one for Oddbjørn, a larger bathroom and HBO on TV - movie time!!! After checking in we headed back to the trainstation hoping to get tickets on to Nanning - closer to the Vietnamese boarder - no luck. We're stuck in Guangzhou for another night - oh joy...

January 9 - Stuck in Guangzhou

No luck with the train ticket to Nanning today either. The train from Beijing was full - AGAIN. To our surprise though, a really nice young guy from the CMPF (Chinese Military Police Force) helped us out in English mind you. He told us to take a taxi to the bus statin and buy bus tickets to Nanning instead - 9 hrs same as with the train. He took us over to the taxi stand and told the driver where to drop us off. Two bus tickets to Nanning 400 NOK - and we're back in the game!!!
The rest of the day we just walked around in these mega underground malls FULL of stalls selling all sorts of clothes. Oddbjørn has been on the hunt for boxers since we were in HK, but being the hard-core optimist that he is, knew better boxers awaited around the next corner - he is still stuck with the same pair he had on when we left Norway...