An interesting 24 hours or so
Well, yesterday was a pretty good day. I woke up at the hotel in Zhuhai more or less rested and decided to move on without spending any time in Zhuhai. There were no other travelers in the hostel, and nothing I really wanted to see. Instead, better to get to a more interesting destination.
Everything that follows took place with absolutely zero English. No signs, no conversations, not even any English numbers except on some of the buses. First, the wrong bus from the hotel, ending up at a local bus station in northern Zhuhai instead of the longer-distance bus station that I wanted in southern Zhuhai. I then took a cab to that bus station. I then got on the right bus to Cuiheng Cun, which is really hard for me to pronounce, and traveled maybe 45 minutes to there from Zhuhai. There I visited the home village / residence / museum of Sun Yatsen, an important political figure in Chinese history, famous for organizing the revolution against the Qing dynasty in the early 20 century, ending the imperial system, and becoming president of the first Chinese republic. The museum there celebrates his life an achievements and then there is a recreation of what they called a folk village of Cuiheng, what it was like around the time he lived there as a child. Every person who sees me pretty much stares now, especially on public transport and basically everywhere. I got a few random "hello"s from strangers as well. I forget if I wrote that already.
Ok, so next I got on the right bus again this time to Zhongshan, a kind of large nearby town actually named after Sun Yatsen. Zhongshan is another name used for him and apparently almost everywhere in China has towns named after him. I didn't intend to go there, but apparently it was necessary to switch buses to get to my primary destination, a town called Shunde, which is where I am now. I basically made it in once piece to where I wanted to go, taking a lot of buses and navigating many a bus station figuring out how to do it. Every information booth conversation was all Chinese, but at least I got the reward of them being impressed that I spoke it all, and I kind of enjoyed their panicked expression as I approached wondering if I was going to speak English with them and if they were going to have to run away.
So all of that was kind of hard, but at least I expected it so I felt a bit better. I'm definitely learning how to navigate these places, and becoming more accustomed to speaking Chinese on a regular basis. I was just feeling good about that and happy to have reached my destination when I realized I could not find my bank card. Needless to say, not good. I believe it fell out of my pocket as opposed to being pickpocketed or anything like that, but I couldn't find it anywhere. Ah, disaster. I'll spare the details, but I finally figured out the situation, got a cash advance on my credit card, and have basically worked out a way to get my new bank card sent to where I am or at least where I will be in a few days. Hopefully it will all work out and in the meantime I think I learned another lesson, which is not to keep anything in my pockets that I don't want to lose. If it takes me an extra few minutes to open up my bag and get things out when I need them, it will be worth not going through this, although it certainly gave me many chances to learn some new words and explain the situation to people at the hotel while I tried to sort it all out.
Lastly, the bus drives through China were interesting leading up to this point. There seemed to be no highways at all so far. Every single road we drove on was densely populated, kind of dirty, and generally under construction. The air pollution is pervasive, just as bad or worse than HK I think. It's too bad, although you see some grass and trees here and there, and occasionally some kind of agricultural area, it is always dwarfed and consumed by concrete in every direction. I think once I get out of the immediate area of Guangdong, a very industry-heavy place, that will improve. I am definitely aiming for some of the national preserve areas, with forests, mountains, and other similar scenery. Still no other travelers to hang out with since HK, but I'm hoping that will change in Guangzhou. Also, I heard back from someone on couchsurfing who lives in Foshan, my next stop, and hopefully will have some people from that site with whom to hang out there and in Guangzhou.
Now I'm off to find the vegetarian restaurant which I heard exists just nearby as part of a temple called Baolin Se. I did cave and get french fries yesterday and I must say they were amazing, but I'm looking forward to a proper vegetarian meal since I haven't really had one since Macau. The food since then has been functional but not optimal.
Oh btw, I uploaded my pictures from Hong Kong and Macau. Here are the links:
the roadtrip, for those who missed them
Hong Kong pictures
Macau pictures
Enjoy.
Everything that follows took place with absolutely zero English. No signs, no conversations, not even any English numbers except on some of the buses. First, the wrong bus from the hotel, ending up at a local bus station in northern Zhuhai instead of the longer-distance bus station that I wanted in southern Zhuhai. I then took a cab to that bus station. I then got on the right bus to Cuiheng Cun, which is really hard for me to pronounce, and traveled maybe 45 minutes to there from Zhuhai. There I visited the home village / residence / museum of Sun Yatsen, an important political figure in Chinese history, famous for organizing the revolution against the Qing dynasty in the early 20 century, ending the imperial system, and becoming president of the first Chinese republic. The museum there celebrates his life an achievements and then there is a recreation of what they called a folk village of Cuiheng, what it was like around the time he lived there as a child. Every person who sees me pretty much stares now, especially on public transport and basically everywhere. I got a few random "hello"s from strangers as well. I forget if I wrote that already.
Ok, so next I got on the right bus again this time to Zhongshan, a kind of large nearby town actually named after Sun Yatsen. Zhongshan is another name used for him and apparently almost everywhere in China has towns named after him. I didn't intend to go there, but apparently it was necessary to switch buses to get to my primary destination, a town called Shunde, which is where I am now. I basically made it in once piece to where I wanted to go, taking a lot of buses and navigating many a bus station figuring out how to do it. Every information booth conversation was all Chinese, but at least I got the reward of them being impressed that I spoke it all, and I kind of enjoyed their panicked expression as I approached wondering if I was going to speak English with them and if they were going to have to run away.
So all of that was kind of hard, but at least I expected it so I felt a bit better. I'm definitely learning how to navigate these places, and becoming more accustomed to speaking Chinese on a regular basis. I was just feeling good about that and happy to have reached my destination when I realized I could not find my bank card. Needless to say, not good. I believe it fell out of my pocket as opposed to being pickpocketed or anything like that, but I couldn't find it anywhere. Ah, disaster. I'll spare the details, but I finally figured out the situation, got a cash advance on my credit card, and have basically worked out a way to get my new bank card sent to where I am or at least where I will be in a few days. Hopefully it will all work out and in the meantime I think I learned another lesson, which is not to keep anything in my pockets that I don't want to lose. If it takes me an extra few minutes to open up my bag and get things out when I need them, it will be worth not going through this, although it certainly gave me many chances to learn some new words and explain the situation to people at the hotel while I tried to sort it all out.
Lastly, the bus drives through China were interesting leading up to this point. There seemed to be no highways at all so far. Every single road we drove on was densely populated, kind of dirty, and generally under construction. The air pollution is pervasive, just as bad or worse than HK I think. It's too bad, although you see some grass and trees here and there, and occasionally some kind of agricultural area, it is always dwarfed and consumed by concrete in every direction. I think once I get out of the immediate area of Guangdong, a very industry-heavy place, that will improve. I am definitely aiming for some of the national preserve areas, with forests, mountains, and other similar scenery. Still no other travelers to hang out with since HK, but I'm hoping that will change in Guangzhou. Also, I heard back from someone on couchsurfing who lives in Foshan, my next stop, and hopefully will have some people from that site with whom to hang out there and in Guangzhou.
Now I'm off to find the vegetarian restaurant which I heard exists just nearby as part of a temple called Baolin Se. I did cave and get french fries yesterday and I must say they were amazing, but I'm looking forward to a proper vegetarian meal since I haven't really had one since Macau. The food since then has been functional but not optimal.
Oh btw, I uploaded my pictures from Hong Kong and Macau. Here are the links:
the roadtrip, for those who missed them
Hong Kong pictures
Macau pictures
Enjoy.
posted by Dan at 9:11 PM
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