more Guangzhou

Things are generally going well. I moved into a hostel today which is 120RMB per night. The fancy hotel in which I was resting for a few nights was 800RMB per night, but because of the trade fair it would've been 3600RMB per night which seemed an excessive hike. The hostel dorm is clean, and I met a guy staying there who joined me today for some vegetarian food, my first actual stop at a fully vegetarian restaurant since being in Guangzhou. It was another Chinese-style vegetarian restaurant at a Buddhist Temple, and the food was a bit fancier and better than some of the other places I'd been, though really none of those Buddhist meals I've had have been bad at all. There was this one in Shunde my last day which was basically a giant bowl filled with mushrooms, but even that was pretty ok.

Went out again last night, first to an Indian restaurant then to a bar. I didn't drink really though, this time opting to recuperate instead from another probably and accidental meat ingestion. I really need to be more careful. This was at a middle eastern place, so it wasn't the language barrier really. I'm not sure what it was, they said it was but it wasn't. Today's vegetarian feast was a good recovery and I'm going to try to have a light dinner to continue to feel better. The indian food last night made me long for New York. I had Dal Fry, my favorite thing to order at Angon on 6th St, and it didn't measure up. The samosas were good at least, but that was about it. Way too bland and uninspired, not even spicy enough to compensate for an inherent lack of flavor. Too bad, it was supposed to be one of the better Indian places in Guangzhou.

After the temple today me and Roger walked back from there to the hostel, which was pretty far, but a nice walk through some unusual neighborhoods and then along the Pearl River which flows through Guangzhou. There is a nice promenade that was fairly recently redone and filled with people relaxing, gambling, cycling, and walking. I got home and promptly fell asleep since this morning I was woken up by a dragon dance outside the hotel window at about 8am, celebrating the trade fair or something to that effect. The dance itself wasn't so loud, but there were a lot of drums. A really lot of drums. The dance itself probably would've been more interesting had it only started say 3-4 hours later.

I'm off to go find some food. Still not sure when I'm leaving this joint, though I found a good site through which to buy airline tickets, complete with a functioning English section. Looks like I'll spend about 400rmb, or $50US to fly to Guilin whenever I decide I've had enough of Guangzhou. Pretty good deal to avoid a 14 hour busride in my opinion. Now for vegetables.