Monday, February 12, 2007 . 12:40 PM
Woke up at 7am. And that's terribly early by MY standard. Previous day already woke up at 5am, super lack of sleep. But have to go on.....if not i'll be wasting money and time being in Macau sleeping.
Vanessa always able to wake up when the alarm goes off..whereas i'll stay in bed for another half an hr. I gez she saw herself as the motivator who needs to motivate me to get moving whereas i saw myself as another lazy bum who needed more sleep. Anyway she would bathe in the morning after she wakes up, so since i can't use the toilet anyway i'll sneak in more sleep.
We still didn't manage to go to the casino, the previous night we were too tired. We said we would try to go in the morning but in the end we didn't bcos time was taken up when we packed out luggages and went for a breakfast at a nearby small eatery shop.
The breakfast was nice, a nice way to warm urself up when the weather was too cold.It was 12 degrees, we saw the temperature displayed on local Macau tv channels.
Boarded the coach that came to bring us to Macau's borders. We tot there would b other pple going but it turned out there's only 2 of us on board at that timing. We bought a 9.15am coach to the border, we were scheduled to reach Zhuhai's side (china..after crossing the customs) before 11am and leave on the 11am bus to Guangzhou.
It happened to b a saturday morning, so there were many pple wanting to cross the border. Bcos Macau and Hong kong is SAR, leaving and entering these 2 places to and from CHina or to each other requires your passport to b checked and chopped, and departure cards to b filled and submitted. So we joined the thousands of pple queuing at Macau's side. It was the 1st time...i've seen THAT many freaking pple in my WHOLE entire life. And i tot that's bad. It was WORSE when i got to Zhuhai's side of the customs. But im impressed with how China are so equipped with handling large no of human traffic. Both sides of the customs building are new and clean, neatly organised , directing the flow of pple to different counters. I was expecting a huge big mess but well everything is fine once u start queuing up at the right places. At Macau's side, we didn't Q really long, it was at most 15 mins. 
At Macau's customs. I was tryign to take a photo to show how many pple were around but i only managed to capture an area where it looked like the crowd were acceptable...
Then we dragged our luggages and walked like 5 mins to the Zhuhai's customs. Ok that was the worse part. That was the place where i've seen so many pple in my whole life. There muz b thousands of pple at the same place at the same time, competing with me of my oxygen supply. But anyway like i said, they were very organised, clean and new. I gez now things are really looking good for China esp when they are preparing for Olympics 2008. I juz have this impression that all these places are renovated or newly built for preparation of the Olympics. As many pple would b travelling in and out of China esp through Hong Kong and Macau, it's appropriate to invest upgrading in these areas. Not to mention that Guangzhou houses the largest train station in China,and has trains connecting southern provinces to ALl parts of China.
Anyway sway sway we queued behind a group of vietnamese(tour grp). The chinese officers are really strict nowadays about fake passports, corruptions etc. They practically scanned through everyone who wants to go into China, so it took a really freaking long time to get pass the customs. In fact, it took me 1.5 hrs. From feeling cold, my anger and impatience made me feel so warm that i eventually took off my coat. Seriously speaking, im not a person who gets easily afraid of things. Lack of confidence yes..but not like scared. But at the customs i was feeling alittle scared. There were too many pple. All those stories abt how pple can just rob you was like lurking around my head and i guarded my luggage like mad. But luckily, the customs serperated the chinese residents (some of them u see aldy u know they are the lower kind of workers and more tendency to do bad things) from the foreigners, so i felt pretty safe after we went into the correct Queues. A Japanese couple were like behind us. ANd then the mad waiting began......... I had to apply for a chinese visa to enter China and it' a single entry visa. It cost mi $80. I had the visa done in Spore aldy. Apparently the viets had more paperwork? I saw them carrying another peice of documents...i think the chinese officers also more fussy with them.
By the time it was my turn, i was seriously super siansified. Some pple told mi this can b compared to crossing over to m'sia...but come on..i can cross over to m'sia in 5 mins, using my IC or passport, don even need to Q. Yes im saying this to spite you singaporeans :p. Don't go m'sia lar....hee... ok lar seriously speaking if im the ones queuing up at m'sia customs...seriously...seriously i think the situation is worse..than in china. This is quite an irony isn't it. The onli difference is that in China u see def MORE pple.....
The female chinese officer took a few look at my passport photo and at my face, i felt like my face was being inspected at every corner, and she said to me sternly, ' your photo doesn't look like you' in mandarin. I was keeping calm. But it did freak me out alittle...come on man...don tell mi u suspect im holding a fake passport! I'll b stuck in a foreign land..ok lar drama. She asked mi to recite out my passport no. M'sia passport has a different no from their ICs...not as if i remember my m'sian IC no actually, neither can i rem my passport no wat. I was thinking if i tell her that it would sound absolutely ridiculous, im doomed liao. So i explained to her that i've stayed in sg since young and i seldom use this passport, i don't know the number. She looked at me for another 5 seconds, which was terribly long in my opinion. And she asked mi to tell her my birthdate. Then commented that i don't look like the person in the photo again and let mi off..........phew..
Then we joined another few thousand pple exiting the building, there was a huge square infront of the building, and naturally speaking, flooded with pple lar. I always find it hard to absorb such a scene whenever i encounter one. Then now wat? WE were standing around trying to figure where to go when a beautiful lady, dressed in her nice smart winter coat approached us and told us that she saw our stickers on our coat, she would bring us to the coach. That was pretty amazing. OUt of thousands of pple she spotted us. WE must have really looked like a sore thumb sticking out of the locals.
As i said, officers are really strict on corruption and briberies nowadays. I saw many small cameras at the customs itself, zooming in on every officer on duty to make sure they are not accepting any bribes. The lady was actually offering another male officer beside us some nuts, but he got very anxious and said,' No. Don't give me that, they are looking ..they would think im accepting bribes...' That concludes our theory about the government being really strict nowadays.
We were brought to the underground mall, dragged our luggage through the area till we reached the bus terminal waiting area. We were told that we can only board the next bus, coming at 12pm (see how long we have been trapped at the customs..) if they have enough space for us since we were supposed to b scheduled for the 11am bus. -_-
Turned out there were MORE than enuff space for everyone. We asked many pple regarding where we should alight(bcos the bus onli stops at certain places in Guangzhou city) to get to our Furama hotel at 316 Changdi Road. None of the pple from the coach service knows much about Guangzhou...not even the bus driver..-_- then eventually some person told us that we could alight at the last stop, which is at Haizhu complex. 
The interior of the bus, very comfortable, enought leg space and most importantly very clean.
After another 2 hrs journey on road, we reached Guangzhou city. Im quite impressed just by looking at the city itself. The skyscrapers not only occupies such a big land area, they are also built really high, it beats seeing anything like these in sg. In sg, the skyscrappers are thin but tall, but over there, the buildings are so huge and tall. Even the flats are really tall, average 30-40 storeys. I counted, don ask y i so boliao. The highways are built high up, and many highways going all over, it's a city that's growing at a really fast rate. It's so modernised that every corner that's some construction of some mega big sky scrapper going on. Mayb the pple are not catching up as fast as the city is growing....Anyway as usual, traffic jams were so common. By the time we reached Haizhu, it was around 2.30pm. I wished i have a bed then. So that i can just rest.
When we reached Haizhu complex, we knew that the hotel is not very far away. But there was a traffic jam along the road that would probably lead us to the hotel. Nobody seems to b certain about the hotel's locations, in fact they looked like they don't really know there's such a hotel. It's called fu li hua hotel in chinese lar (direct translation of the hotel's english name). Anyway hailling a cab was also of a problem. We were just beside a major road, there's no where the cab can stop, not that there were any to stop, all that we encountered were occupied. And so we dragged our luggages along the streets, continously trying to get one unoccupied one. I really felt like shit. I can't believe im here, in a foreign land, wishing that i am not on the street draggign the luggages like these, the hotel is so near but yet so far, no cabs stopping and van urgently needs the washroom. When she says it's urgent it means it's really freaking urgent. There's no public washrooms in sight, and anyway i didn't entertain the idea of me guarding the luggages while she goes toilet either. WE managed to stop a red cab. There are red,yellow,blue and green cabs in Guangzhou. The green one is driven my many kinds of pple that may not b that decent...i was told. Red,yellow and blue ones are driven by locals..i meant the green ones are sometimes driven by pple as in immigrants from other provinces trying to earn their keeps in guangzhou. So try not to take green cabs.
I was anyway so relieved we managed to get a cab, put all our luggages at the booth, opened the door ......and....jpg)
Yes im very amused with the inside of the cabs in guangzhou, after all the horrible stories i heard about how unsafe the place is..i gez the bars was still a ..surprise....jpg)
Apparently only women and children allowed to sit in the front, not men. Hmm so the security in this place really that bad meh?
The taxi fares starts at 7 RMB. Actually it's really not far from to the hotel, about 15 mins walk.IT only cost us 9RMB to reach the hotel. And that...less than $2. But still it took a while to get to the hotel bcos of the jam. The cab driver didn't wan to stop at the right side of the road (since they drive on the left, everything is in the opposite direction..so supposedly shd stop at the right side of the road) where the hotel is situated, he said if he stops there, he would continue to b stuck in the jam in front, he wants to turn into a small road on the left and get out of the jam. SO we said ok..took out the luggages. Looked the at situations of the road, all the cars were ignoring our presence on the ZEBRA CROSSING, which we realised it's the norm there.
TRAFFIC IN GUANGZHOU
Traffic is terrible horrible, it's almost an understatement to use these 2 words to describe but i can't find other words liao.There are traffic jams everywhere bcos everyone seems to have their standard of living improved, everyone wants to own a car , but unlike SG, they don't need to pay COE. So relatively affordable. There are still a small lane for bicycle, if i were the cyclists, i think i'll b scared to cycle on roads like guangzhou since there are so many cars. I heard everyday there would b 300 new cars driving on the road, so every month it would b ..hmm a few more thousand cars. And each year...hmm...u get the pic.
Jams are everywhere. Esp peak hrs, morning and evening. And i oso think even if it's not peak hrs u still get jams somewhere somehow lar. PPle practically ignores rules. As long as pple can cut in or out, they would just cut. Whenever the traffic lights turn green, all the cars infront would all do funny funny things like cutting in and out of lanes, most of them!!! How do u expect traffic to flow when funny pple do funny things like that, thinking that the lane they cut into or out into will b faster. Hmm... NO cars would stop on the zebra crossings for you. That i kinda expected. I was told by my dad that the traffic is horrible in guangzhou. Well i think i understood wat he meant when i saw it for myself. Motorcars have been banned a couple of months ago in Guangzhou city. I think also in Shenzhen city. That's cos if you have seen the current traffic condition, i really can't imagine how it was like with the motocylists around, muz b a bigger mess.
Back to the story...as long as you dare to step out and walk on the zebra crossing, cars would stop for you...but rather impatiently. Like i said, pple don follow rules, they have their own set of rules, it called chaotism in an orderly way. Somehow, there's still orders. Just as cars don stop where they should stop, humans don't cross where they should only b crossing. They cross anywhere they want. We have also learnt that skills after hanging around for sometime on the street. Anyway the cars aren't travelling v fast, cos they are all stuck in jams.
WE finally finally reached the hotel, and to another sway encounter, there was a chinese tour group in front of us. The tour guide was trying to get them rooms, and i saw a whole pile of passports waiting to b processed. OMG. van went to find toilet and she finally relieved herself. Even after a whole commotion i was still waiting for my turn to get a room. KAOZ. As my impatient nature goes, i was all ready to shout and demand my way already then someone cut me and talked to the other receptionist. -_- best. Don't care aldy ah! IN china u don cut pple means u gonna lose out! Anyway got a room lar finally. And we specifically requested for non-smoking rooms bcos it's common for them to assign u to smoking ones.
FInally Finally finally a room to rest, a room for mi to just catch my breath.To tell the truth, i felt like shit. I wrote in my diary that i was thinking about wat the hell i was doing in Guangzhou. It was ...kinda like a culture shock to me. I gez i didn't prepare for such things since i wasn't really thinking much about this trip before i boarded the plane. We kinda settled down abit. It's around 4pm. What else can we do since we reached this place so late? I kinda dreaded the idea of actually still going out....i was just so drained by everything.
We decided to head downstairs, found a tourist information shop, bought a Guangzhou city map for 8RMB. The map was so packed with information and names we couldn'r find our present location. The beautiful lady (if u notice..many beautiful and gdlooking pple in the service industry) was very kind and helpful, she helped us circled out all the places we told her we wanna go. So it seriously made our lives easier.
Then we grabbed our things and headed out of the hotel. WE wanted to go to Shamian island, the nearest stop to it besides Shamian metro station is another station...and the nearest station to us in that direction is YIDE station. The other metro station is at Haizhu complex, called Haizhu metro station (duh).
SO from the map, we followed the roads that would lead us to YIDE station. WE unexpectedly, went into the dried food wholesale area. Its like rows n rows of shophoues, each shop selling their dried food. I've seriously never seen that many dried food in my whole life either. There were things like dried mushrooms,oysters, sea cucumbers,cuttlefish,all kinds of nuts,prunes,sweets as well. Oh even whole shop selling shark fins. WOnder how they got all the shark fins. They usuaully use big transparent plastic bags to hold the dried food, it can b as tall as up to my waist. Seems like everything in China is big scaled. 
We stumbled across this gothic church while looking for food as we passed through the dried food wholesale area...stunning architecture. Seems to b built to look like Notre Dame?It was closed to visitors on all days except sunday where there would be mass. It would be SUnday the following day =) yippee
Since it was a weekends, the streets were crowded, pple pushing carts with goods running about, crossing the roads anyhow, cars honing at pple and other cars. And the streets themselves were full of pple. From what i see, i look like a local to them. Pple speak in cantonese. I can't understand most of them. I wanted to take pictures of the place, but i didn't dare to since there were too many pple and too chaotic, wouldn't wan pple to know im not local. We stopped by to buy some cuttlefish..to eat. It's so cheap..i think we can buy like 1 kg of them but wat for buy so much! WE had some problems communicating abt the weights even in mandarin to the guys. Eventually we reached some common understanding. The things are so cheap, it's like they even sell it to you at huge quantity, bcos they do not have another idea of a pricing they could give to you if you wan small quantities.
After the dried food sections, there were the prunes and nuts section..then the sweets. WE finally found YIDE metro station. But it was still being built. Yet it's stated in the map. -_- that's juz one of the funny things in Guangzhou. We were truly amused. So amused that it was the bottom of our jokes for the whole day. Then we had to go back to haizhu complex, from the map we could just go all the way down. But we all stuck on our way to Haizhu complex, we passed by many pple selling v local stuffs like smelly toufu,freshly steamed corns, fruits,sweet potatoes roasted chestnuts...we wanted to eat all of them!!There were VERY cheap lor. And super nice. We had some smelly toufu, then moved on to getting a really big sweet potato that the person juz baked for us. We sat down and somewhere and enjoyed our food. That was a really pleasant experience, bcos we were sitting and enjoying our very simple meal in the midst of all the busyness and commotion around us. It's nice to experience their local lifestyle, abt nice to have something so simple but yet so enjoyable. 
Smelly Toufu. The look of happiness all over my face.
The street vendors
After eating we carried on walking towards Haizhu complex, eventually we found the metro station. WEnt down, saw again floods of pple queuing up for the ticket machine to get single fare tickets. It's the similar kind of machines where we top up our ezlink in sg MRT stations. Well, since it's a normal thing to Q up in China and cut pple, we also joined the Q. They have a system equivalent to ezlink card system in Guangzhou too, but we figured it's not worth getting the card. So we decided to get single fares instead. It was the 1st time we came into contact with the machine. Thankfully, there's english version. The machine prompted us to choose our destination stop, and once again the map has wonderfully fooled us into thinking there's this station near Shamian island but we couldn't find it on the machine's map. -_- Van and i exchanged the super siansified look, thinking NOT AGAIN!! how many times does the map want to bluff us. Since we were so puzzled, we asked the 2 ladies behind us about the station but they do not knw that there's such a station existing. SO van and i have to check the map again to see which is the next nearest station to shamian island. IN guangzhou, the pace of living is so fast that everyone is always in a rush, and pretty impatient. I know that even in sg, pple demands things to b efficient and fast. But in Guangzhou, when they get impatient, they practically just cut you and get to the machine and buy their tickets. WE were confused about how to get to Shamian Island anyway so we went to the control station to ask the officer on duty about the legendary station that existed only on the map.I was trying to get him to speak to me in Mandarin insead of Cantonese.He did speak to me in Mandarin. I was asking him how to go to SHamian Island, there were like a Q behind me, in fact i queued in order to talk to him. Then pple behind me were impatient, some were telling me 'Eh you can go take a bus from here' and i was like 'wat bus?how i know wat bus?'So i have to take the metro to Shamian metro station? ON the map the metro doesn't look that near to shamian island lor. The chinese characters ontop of the control station wrote something like 'Purchase of tickets' So naturally i tot i could buy the tickets there? So i kept asking about buying tickets, the guy either didn't answer or tell mi about other things, pple cutting in to ask other questions and pple cutting in to change their notes to coins....then the guy decided to go count all his coins and put a sign that says out of service. WHILE I WAITED INFRONT OF THE COUNTER. Then they changed shift. Another female officer came...ask n ask...she didn't really ans..tell mi cannot buy tickets here took my cash and changed to coins. Fine lor. Then i went to buy tickets at the machine lor.
The metro system is very clean and modernised and i feel even betta than ours. ONe stop away from Haizhu complex is Gongyuanqian interchange station, like our cityhall, it's built in such a way that the right side of the train will open up to allow passengers to get out to change lines and the left side will open up when right is closed, to allow passengers to get onto this train.Human traffic is smooth. No impolite shovings etc that you always encounter at city hall -_-. Wah lauz. Their seats do not have those raised up stuffs to tell u tis particular section is onli allowed to sit one person's butts. very often in sg, u see some idiotic men who prefers to sit across two seats, with the raised portion in the middle of their butt...i really wonder if that doesn't hurt meh? I don't know ..im not a man. ANyway in Guangzhou and SHenzhen's metro, it's juz a flat seats, you can adjust yourself according to how many pple sitting on the row together, fat,thin, etc. ANyway our trips always cost 3RMB. that's...$0.60. SO yeah we saved alot travelling on metros. Not that cabs are expensive....but the jams will make the travelling time longer and yes more expensive.
We finally got to Shamian Island. It used to b an area where the caucasians hang out...i meant like 1920s etc...so the area has really nice colonial buildings. It's very peaceful area, where some of the companies and big banks have their offices in the area. SOme angmohs also prefers to stay in hotels there and i can see y, it's really peaceful, it's like a small world of its own, sheltered, unlike my hotel, situated in more local areas where u meet the locals, i do prefer my area, bcos i see alot of things that angmohs won't get to see especially when they stay in such touristy place. The shops there even sell such touristy stuffs...it's such a turn off lar. 
Shamian Island
We walked ard the area, managed to stumble upon the Pearl River, lit up beautifully at night. We were lured there bcos we saw lasers being shot around in the skies, but by the time we reached the river bank, the laser show has finished. I knew it. IM always this sway...
The building at the back was flashing words, we waited for the 'fu' character to be flashed before taking the photo.
Video of the Pearl River, featuring Van.
From pearl river, we took a cab to get to shangshajiu street (upper and lower ninth street), not very faraway but it would b difficult for us to look for the place by foot. WE were aldy really drained. it's a major shopping place. It's huge. I mean rows n rows of shops, and most importantly things are cheap and gd. As you walk more n more into the area, the things get cheaper. I got myself the white sweater for a cheap $15, it would have cost more than $40 in sg, a scarf at $1 bcos my mom refused to let me bring my white scarf, she said it's useless, more like an acessories rather than keeping u warm.I think she was more wrong than ever man. The scarf was so useful lor.
Shangxiajiu street
Bought macau's portugese eggtarts from the street and went home to pig out again with the roasted chestnut we bought earlier, eggtarts and strawberries. Strawberries cost 8RMB for 600g and was very sweet *grin* Took cab home bcos the nearest metro is pretty faraway and still need to walk 15 mins from haizhu complex to hotel.. Not that safe.... plus..we were ..exhausted beyond words.Cab home cost ...15RMB. $3.
Another amazing thing abt the city is that i found the city pretty clean. Of cos cannot b compared to Singapore lar, how many counties in the world are able to compare themselvs with Singapore in terms of cleanliness? I've seen sweepers start cleaning up the streets at night around 11pm and in the morning. I've not encountered any rats nor cockroaches anywhere in Guangzhou during my 3 days there nor in Shenzhen. Are they all hibernating?hmm..Come to think of it, neither have i seen any of those creatures in Hong Kong. So could it b the weather?
I'll tell u guys more abt the toilets and how you should eat in restaurants over there.
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