The dragon boats

I'm having breakfast this morning at a place called Tsui Wah. Is a chain restaurant popular all over Hong Kong. It's kind of like a chain diner. Think Denny's serving a pan Asian/Western mix with a focus on Cantonese. The food is alright, the service is abysmal, and the Hong Kong is turned up to 100%. So it's the air conditioning.

Later today I plan to watch the dragon boat races, which are a big part of the dragon boat festival. In China, dragon boat is the holiday that marks the beginning of Summer. So it falls on exactly the same weekend as memorial day in the US and serves the same function.

Unfortunately, this is the line to get to the dragon boat races I don't know how long the line takes, but I imagine large crowds there and difficulty getting back to the train station on time. So unfortunately, no dragon boat this year.

A day in Hong Kong...

I was able to do a bit of wandering around today while I was waiting to be able to check into my hotel. I didn't really get to see anything new but I'm also aware that I haven't posted many pics from previous trips to Hong Kong, so I wanted to put some up. As usual in HK, my phone was running low on battery, so I didn't get as many as I would like. I'm still ironing out the posts for this blog, which I would like to make more photo oriented than the first blog I started when I came to China. I may even buy a real camera so the pictures are a higher quality. Right now, I make most of my posts from my phone so the photos are slapdash and I haven't been explaining much, but I hope to iron that out before I take a major trip like last year's trip to Vietnam and Thailand. (I so wish I could have posted on the go during that trip.)

Also, I should probably try and make this blog more interactive by asking the following question: what do you want to know about the places I go? Do you have things you want to see or questions you want answered? I regularly travel to and around the Pearl River Delta and I assume they seem pretty exotic to my friends and family, though they are becoming relatively familiar to me. I hope to travel around China in the coming years, and more of Southeast and East Asia.

If you're interested, leave comments and suggestions below and that night help guide me the next time I make a trip. Or tomorrow, for that matter!

Back in Hong Kong

I'm back in Hong Kong for the holiday weekend. I came for practical reasons. There are some things you can get in Hong Kong that you just can't get on the mainland. Mostly in the grocery store.

Nevertheless, I will be making an effort to find some events pertaining to dragon boat festival and post some photos.

Waiting on the train.

I think we've done a good thing today. After a little exploring the local temples, we found a fantastic place across from the mosque that has a variety of different foods from around the Muslim world. Needless to say, we were happy to sample what was on offer.

After a nice meal and a couple of beers it was time to go home. Off to the Guangdong fast train station just in the nick of time (as usual) and we're on our way back to Chenzhou.

I hope to post more of my travels, even if some are just day trips around China.

Until next time...

Last day in Guangzhou

That's Canton tower in the background . These sorts of towers are big tourist attractions everywhere, but this one is actually an interesting structure since it isn't just a concrete column. The supporting structure is entirely made steel, much like the Eiffel tower in Paris. And, of course, there are rides at the top.

Guangzhou is also home to one of the oldest Muslim communities in China, and one of the oldest mosques. 

Sometimes called the lighthouse mosque, for obvious reasons, it's also the center of Guangzhou's Muslim community and, of course, the place to go for awesome food.

While wandering the city we found this rather large Buddhist Temple. There's always interesting stuff around the corner in China.

My first rugby game

Today was my first rugby game. I found it similar to American sporting events. Lots of people I don't know playing games I don't know the rules to. Lots of beer was being drunk, however. That made the day palatable. Tonight we get to have dinner somewhere with the rugby players, so that should be fun and interesting.

The place we're at is pretty cool as well. We're happy between Guangzhou and Foshan, which is one of the satellite cities in the Pearl River Delta. I'm sure it has several million people, but it's far overshadowed by the prime city of the region, Guangzhou. Capital and largest city in the Pearl River Delta, Guangzhou is also the third largest city in China. I hope to explore a bit more tomorrow and get some pics. For now, here's what's going on in Foshan.

A trip to Guangzhou

I'm spending the weekend in Guangzhou with friends. I've come down to watch a couple of them play in a rugby match outside the city in Foshan, but it's also my birthday weekend, so we're staying down here to explore the city a bit. Did I mention it's also a holiday weekend? So we'll have some extra time as well. 

I left my kindergarten students after classes and barely made it to the train station in time to catch my train.

Travel by train is always great in China. If nothing else works here, the trains almost always run on time and, of course, they're incredibly fast, so we can get all over the country in no time. Even a trip to Beijing is only eight hours away.

Anyway, once I'd arrived in Guangzhou, it was a simple matter of finding my hotel, which took about 1-1.5 hrs. It turned out to be in the first place I looked, but no matter. I found a really cool temple while exploring.

Anyway, I'll post more sites as I explore the city. I've been here several times before, but there's still a lot I haven't seen...