Author Topic: 1st trip to China - Guangzhou and Chengdu  (Read 17641 times)

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Offline kiwisteve

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Re: 1st trip to China - Guangzhou and Chengdu
« Reply #45 on: June 03, 2012, 09:17:19 pm »
Day 7 - The older brother's house.

The older brother came and picked us up, and after a few stops to pick up more food, like a huge lump of beef, we arrived at his house. This place was much larger than other apartments I had been in and he had pretty flash furniture. He is a movie actor and also loves everything about movies and photography. Every room of his house has huge cabinets packed full of DVDs - he must have thousands of movies. In his lounge was a huge tv screen with surround sound, and he got me to pick out a movie and Anna and I watched it while he was preparing lunch.

Lunch was beef and noodles, and some other dishes I can't remember, and more beer. We got discussing beer (using the translator) and I had mentioned I liked ales and sometimes darker beer as well. Later in the afternoon, he went out to pick up his son from school and when he came back he had a couple of bags of more beer including mostly dark beer for me, which I found a bit embarrassing.

He was in the kitchen most of the day, and was cooking up a feast for dinner also. He had beef done lots of different ways, as well as the veges and seafood dishes. The other elder brother also came and it was great having a family dinner at home and not at a restaurant.


Offline kiwisteve

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Re: 1st trip to China - Guangzhou and Chengdu
« Reply #46 on: June 03, 2012, 10:57:19 pm »
Day 8 - Pandas

Every day I was there, Anna was reminding me how many days we had left together. We were both sad that this would be our last full day together.

The older brother picked us up in the morning after dropping his son at school. We dodged the crazy traffic and drove to the other side of Chengdu to get to the Panda visitor centre. This was a nice walk around gardens, lakes, fish ponds, waterfalls and fountains and of course plenty of Pandas. We watched a short movie about the breeding program and the successful protection of the species here.

As it was our last day, I took plenty of photos (more than a hundred, plus video), but her brother went crazy with his fancy Nikon SLR and a bag full of lenses, and ended up with about 500 photos, mostly of me and Anna in front of various flower gardens and waterfalls. I won't bore you with these but I'll put in a couple of others.

As we were walking around a large lake, Anna started calling the swans, and they were calling back from across the other side of the lake. Soon, we had several of them swimming over to us, and walking up the bank to see Anna. It was hilarious, and many other tourists gathered around to see what was going on.

On the way out we decided to have lunch there, and it was a really nice clean restaurant. Bamboo featured in a lot of the dishes, and I found a couple of really nice dishes, which Anna promptly ordered more of despite my protests. I had to finish them - it would be rude not to, but I was really stuffed. We drove back and I tried to figure out using the translator what we were doing, because I really wanted to rest up at the hotel before dinner. But no, we had to pick up his son from school then head out to another restaurant for an early dinner!

When we collected the son (the only one I could speak English with), I teased him by saying we just had a huge lunch of barbecued Panda. It wasn't until later on after dinner that he was telling his dad and he figured out I was joking. They told me you get executed if you were to kill or eat Panda.

On the way they asked me if I liked BBQ, and I said great, thinking we might get a steak or something. It turned out this was another cook-it-yourself restaurant with a gas hotplate in the table. They collected heaps of trays of different meats and vegetables from the buffet, then we cooked them. I was so full I could only manage a little taste of each and we had plenty left over.

Offline kiwisteve

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Re: 1st trip to China - Guangzhou and Chengdu
« Reply #47 on: June 04, 2012, 01:40:55 am »
Day 9-10 Home.

The next morning was a bit quiet for both of us. We were both sad, and also I was a bit crook that night - probably all that food the day before. Also I had some business problems going on back home that I needed to sort out by email in the hotel lobby while Anna and her brother checked out for me. They were worried we were going to be late for the airport, but I had told them an earlier time than really necessary just to be safe.

When I arrived in Guangzhou, I just went straight to the hotel room and crashed. The cramps in my legs as well as the now very dodgy belly meant I couldn't venture far.

The next morning I was worse, so I arranged with the hotel for a late checkout and also paid for another half day as my flight wasn't until late in the evening. By early afternoon though, I thought I just have to try and do something while I am here, so I ventured out to the subway and figured out how to get to Gangding (thanks Irishman for the suggestion). This place was awesome with dozens of shops of all sizes and everything digital. I bought a few gifts to bring home and managed to get the prices down a bit, although I'm sure if Anna was there she would have done better.

I knew before hand that there would be fakes, and there was this USB stick I just knew was too good to be true but I bought it anyway as it would make an interesting talking point back at the office. It was a tiny USB stick packaged properly as HP, but labelled as 500GB. Sure enough when I got home and gave it a test for 24 hours it was fake, so beware of these things. You not only don't get what you pay for, they overwrite your valuable data once they get past their real capacity, and Windows happily continues to report the full capacity is there. From different shops I also bought a Kingston 64GB stick thinking this was real, but it also tested later as a fake (2GB). I also bought a SanDisk 32GB microSD card but haven't tested that yet. I also bought a few mobile battery packs to recharge phones and things, as gifts for my kids.

Later that night I was glad to have the hotel room still so I could have another shower and pack and weigh everything for the plane. At the airport I checked in ok even though my bag was a few KG overweight they let it through. I then mucked around for ages trying to get the airport wifi to work (I couldn't) as well as charging my phone. When I finally went through to security I was told : "bag, open". After a few minutes of translation I figured they were telling me to go back outside as there was a problem with my checked in bag. All the way out going against the tide, and then at the overweight baggage counter they asked about batteries, and I remembered I had put the kids mobile battery packs into my suitcase. No problem I swapped them out with some other junk that was in my carry on bag, hoping they would not want to weigh that. The Chinese guy put it through the xray and came straight back, gave me the thumbs up and sent me back to security. Another long walk, and the security lady did not like me. She said I had to go and "open bag", so I told her the story that I already had done this. There was much arguing between me and her and a couple of other security men came over and joined in. Finally they took my passport and boarding pass and sent me through the x-ray, at which point I realised one of them had taken my boarding pass and was heading all the way out to the overweight baggage counter again. So I sat and waited for ages, and he finally came back and said, no it had not been done and I had to go back through and open my suitcase. Well I am usually calm, but I blew up and told them this was all bullshit. What do I need to do to prove to them - I gestured should I take a photo for them? Should I get a signed note from the other people? Don't these various sections talk to each other or flag it on the computer? There was no point, I had to go back again, fuming and hearing that boarding was underway for my flight. Back outside at the other counter there had been a change of shift and the lady and man I was dealing with before were gone. More explanations and waiting while they tried to find my suitcase while I was telling them they won't find it because it was already done and it will be on the plane by now. Eventually they figured it out, gave me back the boarding pass and gestured me back to security. I wasn't moving until I had some proof. They would not sign a note, they did not want their photo taken, they were messing with the computer but couldn't seem to get it do work. Eventually the lady said she would phone security and they would let me through when I got there. I had no faith at all, but little choice but to go through again. While walking back I was wondering what she was saying on the phone ("that big angry kiwi is coming back your way. Can we mess him around some more or should we let him through this time?"). This time most of the security counters were closed as the rest of the plane and any others leaving at that time had long gone through. The lady looked at my pass, a little puzzled about the multiple stamps, but I think she wanted to go home so let me through. This time, thankfully the xray did not pick up my belt and shoes and I went through fairly quickly. I still don't know if she got the message from the other lady or whether she just couldn't be bothered, but I made the flight - last on the plane again. Maybe I'll learn now to go through security earlier.

I was pleasantly surprised to find my bag was there when I got to NZ, and I went straight through customs with nobody even slightly interested in looking at the wine, food etc that I had declared.





Offline Martin

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Re: 1st trip to China - Guangzhou and Chengdu
« Reply #48 on: June 06, 2012, 10:39:06 am »
Well, this sucks!  The story appears to be over.  I was enjoying reading all about your trip.  Better luck next time with airport security.

Offline kiwisteve

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Re: 1st trip to China - Guangzhou and Chengdu
« Reply #49 on: June 07, 2012, 12:27:44 am »
haha - yes that trip is over, but the story continues... Anna and I are planning the next visit.

Steve

Arnold

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Re: 1st trip to China - Guangzhou and Chengdu
« Reply #50 on: June 07, 2012, 11:17:38 am »
From somewhere in Canada to LA, we thank you for an entertaining Story. Looking forward for excitment Part 2 and hope it wont be too long in between. You know, some of us are getting older and the eye-sight is fading... or else... you'd have to call each one of us to tell it all. ;)

Offline kiwisteve

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Re: 1st trip to China - Guangzhou and Chengdu
« Reply #51 on: June 08, 2012, 02:11:38 am »
Well I guess I didn't specifically say it, but this trip was just fantastic. I never expected her and her family to be so hospitable. The first few days Anna would not let me pay for anything, at the markets, restaurants, or sight-seeing tickets or anything. Eventually I managed to put all my cash in her bag and she started to use that as well.

It might seem like I am complaining at times, but really those stories are just to add a bit of interest. Those incidents have already faded into insignificance compared to the absolute delight of visiting China, after years of thinking about it. Of course, spending time with such a gorgeous woman didn't hurt as well. Everything in the past with the crooks at chnlove is now a distant memory and best forgotten - their system is great as long as you realise the real:fake ratio is really really small - zero in my experience, but others here have had better luck.

We are both very much in love and fully expect a future together. Now we just have to start the journey with the authorities as many of you have already done. I am fully aware of the difficulties ahead thanks to this site, but I am not sure she is yet.

Next step - passport for her - all done and she received it a couple of days ago.

Then a visa so she can come to NZ for a visit. This is under way, but I am really sceptical about what she is doing with her visa company or travel agent or whatever they call themselves. I just have to wait now, I've sent her every document I can think of. See my thread: http://www.chnromance.com/index.php/topic,3494.0.html
 
cheers,
Steve