Airport delays, Guangzhou and tropical rainstorms to Shenzhen and Macau

On the 13th we had a plane to catch from Chengdu to Guangzhou. We chose to take a flight because by train it would have taken us 35 hours to reach the south of China where we had to make our way to Hong Kong - where we depart. The flight was scheduled for 10:35 am and we got to the airport at 9:00....Well, lets just say that instead of arriving in Guangzhou at 12:20 as scheduled, we arrived instead at 7:30 pm...yep, we had a 7 hour delay!!!! If we were in Europe we would have been able t o argue, get our flight rerouted, get our money back, whatever...but here, we just waited and smiled :) Every hour I would go to the nice lady at the gate and ask in mandarin "what time flight leaves" which she would then tell me "no time" meaning they had no idea because the plane, due to extremely bad weather, was still stuck in Chongqing. It was amusing however, after 4 hours wait, to see the Chinese passengers get up and start shouting and pointing at the stewardesses (I think I would be screaming too if I could speak fluent mandarin hehehe) We finally were told " in 20 minutes" which actually turned out to be another hour and half of waiting and at 5:15 we were off :) I also had the bright idea to call the hostel we had booked and write them an email to make sure they didnt away our room...they kept asking "you are sure you arrive today" :)

We made it to Chengdu and we got on the airport express ( I was hoping for a nice spiffy train but no it was a regular bus) and on the way to the hostel we witnessed some mighty rain - lets just say that when the bus drove through water holes every other car around it got soaked :)
Our hostel was quite nice (also brand new) and it was facing the river on the other side of Shamian island - which used to be clsoed off to chinese (literally, during the 18th centure they had gurads to keep them out) and it was where the foreigner merchants had their warehouses and lived. The street of the hostel was also littered with bars and clubs, all with at least 3 pretty chinese girls dressed in ball gowns in order to entice people to come in :) We arrived sooo late that we were unable to do anything so we just took it easy and watched Star channel which had Prison Break and Seinfeld hehehe

The next day we visited Qinping Market - much to my hesitation as the Lonely Planet did not reccomend it saying we saw some pretty disturbing things such as dogs, monkeys and cats that were sold for consumption...well, we did see some disturbing things but not as bad as that. The Chinese are big believers in their own medicine and they use some pretty strange and exotic ingredients to create it, like tigers teeth, claws and bones so we saw a couple of those - like a leg still connected to its claws!! They also sell starfish and seahorses by the bags (big bags!) and although that is all forbidden now they still sell them because Chinese people find it a lot more exotic to use tigger bones instead of rat bones for their medicine - can you believe it!!!! There were also thousands of different mushrooms of all shapes and sizes, ginger roots and fish scales and much much more. We did see live animals as well, such as plastic tubs of scorpios, big and small, and turtles, big and small and different shells - some I believe are on the endangered list :( As for cats and dogs, there were plenty of them but they were all for sale as pets not as food and they were sooooo cute :) There were also thousands of fishes, some exotic some not, also for sale as pets, so I left the market a little more happy than I thought I would be :)

We had planned to see more of the city and its sights but the tropical rain storms did not help and we ended up being stuck in a commercial street - oopppss...when in China, shop, shop shop!! There was actually a store called "Why pay more"!! hehehe

As for the food, as I already knew, you cant go wrong in the South. The food is great!! It also reminds you a lot more fo the chinese food you get back home because most of the overseas chinese come from the Guangdong province (although it is the richest in China - so a bit of a puzzler!) Again, we headed back to the hostel quite early in the evening becasue we still needed to check out hostel in Hong Kong and Macau - our next destinations after stopping for a mad shopping fest in Shenzhen - shopping paradise!!

Shenzhen:

There is not much to say to be honest - we arrived at 2:30, stored our luggage in the bus station, bought our ticket for Zhuhai where we had to cross the border to Macau and after a nice meal made our way to the shopping plaza where we had time and money to spend :) We still managed to almost miss our bus but by 7:30pm we were on our way to Zhuhai.

Zhuhai:

We arrived at 10pm and made our way to the border crossing ( Jo would have been happy to stay the night so we could still do more shopping the next day - we only had a one-entry visa to China and once you enter Hong Kong or Macau it is considered as leaving China and you would need another visa to re-enter) Luckily, after much convincing we made our way to custmos...Leaving China was a bit tricky for Jo - the woman just did not want to believe that his passport was real!!! She checked her country list, she looked carefully at each page of his passport and then she even passed some special binoculars (that must see the electronic reading or something)...she did this at least twice before finally stamping his passport and letting us go on our way :) We were a bit weary because we did buy quite a few fake dvds in Shenzhen and the penalty is quite high for that if you are caught but no worries, we made it to the Macau border where Jo this time got done faster than me :)

After trying to find a hostel that I had seen on the internet and being sooo dead tired we decided to splurge out in Macau and are staying at the Sintra Hotel :) We arrived quite late so most regular restaurants were closed - no luck for Jo that wanted his pastel de nata hehehe.

Today - after an alarm scare ( When I woke up I saw 1pm on our clock when I had put thealarm for 9am!! But luckily it was the clock that was wrong and not me) It was still a lazy start with an even lazier breakfast. We headed to a Portuguese cafe and had pao com chourico, 3 pasteis de nate, um guardanapo, um sumo compal, a coffee and a hot chocolate (for the portuguese reading this you understand :) By the way, for those that dont know, Macau was a Portuguese colony - we were actaully the first foreigners to get a concession in China and it lasted for about 500 years until we gave it back to China in 1999. There is still a lot of Portuguese influence in Macau and you do find some Macanese and Chinese people speaking it. There are also architectural left-overs such as cobble streets, squares, gardens and churches. Today we visited the Ruins of St. Paulo, the Fort, Largo do Camoes and the Garden, Barra and the A-Ma Temple, the Macau Tower (where we saw a guy bungee jumping) and of course, Leal Senado and its surroundings. Unfortunately for us while we were on our way to Lou Lim Ioc Garden, which is my personal favorite in Macau, it started to downpour and so we have hidden ourselves in shops and now the internet cafe!

I havent been to Macau since 2005 when my dad passed away. First impressions, well, next to Hotel Lisboa, which was once the biggest building in Macau Stanley Ho is now just finsihing is second Hotel Lisboa which is just huge. The Wynn Casino in front is also finished and there is also now the MGM Grand. We have yet to see Fisherman's Warf - we'll probably go tonight...Not sure if we'll make it to Coloane and Taipa but I would have loved to see how the "Las Vegas" strip is coming out - Macau is now a paradise for gamblers!!!

Anyways, that is all for today but hope to give you some news soon...We'll be in Hong Kong by tomorrow night in any case :)

Lots of love,
Jo and Fil