Saturday in China started with a forage for suitable food, unfortunately everything was either based around awful white bread or contained some sort of meat product. I thought I had hit the jackpot when I found a tasty looking roti, unfortunately upon breaking into it I found it laced with meat.

Guangzhou had a more western feel than I anticipated, and we managed to find some great coffee (although it took the guy about 10 minutes per cup, don't think he gets to make too many) and I settled on a breakfast of a Portuguese custard tart.

You get to see a lot of babies bums in China, the nappy / diaper is seen as a cumbersome inconvenience and most simply opt for a slit in the trouser garments. Luckily we didn't get to see any faecal protuberances (as is apparently more common in the rural areas), but it's strange to see so many bottoms.

Josh and Brandy arrived at about 10AM, and after checking out of our hotel we availed ourselves of a couple of taxis and made haste to the Guangzhou TV tower. At night it's lit up with a full spectrum display and by day it's no less impressive. At 150RMB (£15) it's an expensive trip to the 418m viewing platform, but the views are stunning. I was brave enough to set foot on the glass-floored viewing platform (Chris and Andy watched from the safety of the building proper, Andy adding this to his growing list of things he regrets not doing) despite the written warning: "Visitors with following diseases are not recommended to enter the glass bridge: acrophobia, high blood pressure, heart disease, labrynthitis, headache, nosebleed, slimy doom", this superb bit of Chinglish providing much amusement for the remainder of the trip.

We then pootled about Guangzhou for a few hours, the Chinese don't seem to have much concern with the way they treat animals; lots of fish and other sea creatures packed into small tanks, killing time in discomfort before the end up on someone's plate. They also don't seem to have any comprehension that someone could choose to be a vegetarian. Thankfully Brandy was on hand to guide me towards less meaty options, I don't think I've felt as much of an inconvenience anywhere else. I did put my vegetarianism aside at lunch as we had the option to try some weird stuff, I can now say I have tried chicken's feet and cow intestine. We also had Chinese tea each in ridiculously small cups (smaller than a shot glass) which was a nice novelty.

The language was a bit of a barrier to our communications. In Hong Kong they speak Cantonese and I have picked up a few phrases to lubricate social interactions, Chris has picked considerably more in his 3 years here and of course Brandy is fluent. However despite Guangzhou residing in the Canton (Guangdong) province it comes under the Chinese language policy of Putonghua (Poo-ton-wah) which Brandy can understand pretty well but not speak fluently, the rest of us being pretty clueless. There is a bit of arrogance from the Chinese in that they will only speak Putonghua, even if they are fully versed in Cantonese. So at every interaction we had Brandy speaking in Cantonese, with a reply coming in Putonghua. Often people would pretend to not understand her and she would be ignored, very strange. The day was littered with many mini battles as Brandy was generally treated as inferior because she was unable to fully articulate herself in their chosen language.

After lunch we went to our next hotel, this time in Panyu, just south of Guangzhou. This was more expensive and very plush. It's part of a huge complex which was like a large town; busses and buildings all adorned with "Clifford", it felt a bit like Potterville and I imagine there was a wheelchair-bound megalomaniac twiddling some switches in an underground control centre somewhere.

After check-in we got to experience something I was definitely a bit dubious about; the circus. I had been informed that since SARS the use of animals in the circus had been dramatically reduced so I wanted to check it out (especially as I plan to start circus training next year). The tent is a permanent installation with the floor recessed into the ground to expand the available space, the main stage is surrounded by a mini moat and there's an array of scaffold-like devices around the ceiling for performers to hang from and display their various skills. The choreography was very slick and there was a wide range of acts, although we did feel that they stretched some things out longer then necessary. I was definitely nonplussed with the use of animals; storks, flamingoes, tigers and elephants were all just on show, but getting bears to jump through hoops and ride motorbikes made me feel very uncomfortable (especially when the minder hit one of the bears in the neck when it wouldn't jump through a high hoop), the crowd loved it and everyone was laughing and clapping which really just heightened my unease. The highlight of the night was a large "big wheel" type device with 5 compartments, each containing a performer. It's hard to convey why it was entertaining, but they span this device with their bodyweight and used it to perform strange feats, very entertaining.

We finished off the day with a few JD and cokes courtesy of Chris, Darren and Andy continued to chase the buzz in their room with some beer deliveries until the early morning but I was spent.