So I have finally arrived after a marathon trip to Guangzhou. I had originally booked non refundable tickets to Beijing to meet Ling (2) long in advance but as you all know that didnt work out so tacked on a cheap return flight to Beijing in ctrip so added about and extra 5 hours over normal to the journey.
The flights themselves went like clockwork. I flew Air France on the way over and the food was really great. Pity the hostesses were mostly male so no window shopping there! They were very friendly and happy to help so would definitely use Air France again.
The flight from Beijing to Guangzhou was with Air China had the pretty hostesses but awful food and no in flight entertainment. I did a long haul flight with them before and it was the same, for a short three hour flight its ok, but long haul, you need a decent cinema system, food and plentiful drinks (soft, juice water) to stop going stir crazy. Did I mention how good the Air France food was already??
Qatar Airways still reigns supreme - fantastic food, entertainment and eye candy, the complete package!! And one I hope to be using in future flights to Guangzhou.
Ok, with the boring flight details over lets get into the story. So somewhere over Russia during a whizzbreak i took a cheeky look at my China Mobile phone to see if I was getting any signal and I was surprised to see the battery strength down to two bars, that little fella usually went about two or three days before that happened before and I only recharged it last night..So when the plane landed I thought I'd give Ling a victory ring..but the blasted battery was coming up low charge so I couldn't use the phone.
Now I had a slight moment of panic - landing in Guangzhou where next to nobody speaks conversational English without anyone to meet you at the airport which is not connected to by a underground train system and a bus system that's indecipherable to westerners as everything is written in Chinese writing (not Pinyin) and having a hotel booking for a place you have only a vague idea as to location is pretty daunting.
So then the tech side kicked in, problem solving is what I'm fairly good at. My laptop had one hour of charge left, my China Mobile charger has a usb in to the cable that plugs into the charger so maybe I can make a call with my laptop battery charging the phone, messy but should be doable in an an emergency.
Then I remembered I have a cooked rom on my HTC Tytn 2 phone which has most global networks built in..so theoretically i just need to put my Chinese sim in there choose China Mobile, should work great except my phone wont display Chinese characters..well thats no biggie for the moment as I cant read them anyway.
So poped it in, choose China mobile adrenalin flooding my veins with the sweet snifter of victory over overwhelming odds where lesser men would have failed...alas..I got the blasted message I got on landing in Tianjin, this sim is expired...agghhhhhhhhhhhh!!
OK
My flight is being called , I'll figure it would when i land in Guangzhou.
On landing in Guangzhou I went up to one of those phone kiosks and asked for a prepay sim and as luck would have it the girl actually understood me!! 100RMB, comes with 65RMB credit...probably able to get that margin smaller but fellas believe me i would have paid 90:10!!
So whacked that sucker in, clarified which network its was on (the card didnt say in Pinyin - China Unicom) chose that on the phone, called Ling, heard some stupid super happy music some Chinese (I'm thinking oh crap what now) then a message in English saying thanking for choosing China Unicom and then at last i heard Lings regular ring sound (the welcome message only happened the first call). It was sweet relief when i heard her voice (barely) above the noise of Guangzhou's horn happy taxi and bus drivers outside.
She booked me into the Hanting Express Inn which is right opposite TeeMall almost
and dead smack centre of town, perfect location for me. Told me to get the bus to Tianhe dasha. So I eventually found a bus that went to Tianhe Hotel and Zhonshen Plaza which I was able to find on the map and looked to be pretty close to the area I thought she was talking about. I called her and said i cannot find this Tianhe dasha place and I'm taking this bus and i'll then get a taxi from there to meet her as its gotta be close. I was outside at this time and noise of car horn beeping was ridiculous so couldn't really hear Ling at all.
So I got the 6A bus from our side the international arrivals area which cost 20RMB (a taxi would be 100+).
Bags packed and in the comfort of the bus I texted Ling, she said this dasha place is the ticket termainal beside the Tianhe hotel. Sure enough the girl conductor bellowed out "Tianhe dasha" when we got there which would be mighty confusing to most laowai but not this one!
Lings office is right around the corner from there so called her once I realised I recognised the place and that we were close.
So I got of the bus and within a minute or so Ling arrived. I had to catch my breath, she truly is even more beautiful than I remembered her.
She keep looking at me with her lovely eyes and was clearly delighted to see me. There was no western style hugging etc, but there is water under the bridge here and I'm just going to remain relaxed an let things take their course.
So we walked the short distance to my hotel(the bus is one side to Teemall and the hotel the other literally, its utterly perfect, and at 209 RMB per night for a basic room with double bed , broadband and a window I am not gonna complain, wont be in the room most of the time anyhow and its all i need or want.
Its got one for those great hard Chinese mattresses that i love, I used to have a bad back in my youth and have a rock hard mattress sorted that out so much so not that i cannot sleep well in a soft bed and the harder it gets the better I sleep, western beds dont have a patch one on these Chinese ones.
So we went up to the room, no there was no snogging..i was smelly and dog tired from the days travel so I gave her some little gifts i had bought for her which she was delighted with.
She watched tv and i had a quick shower and change into fresh clothes.
We then went out to dinner in a nice restaurant. I had forgotten how Ling makes a fuss in a restaurant, if the seating isnt right, the table just where it gives best privacy and or view outside she wont take no for an answer,its funny and I just let her do her thing and we usually end up with great seats!
So that done she ordered after quizzing me what i felt like - noodles, something spicy and hot..so various stuff arrived which i can only say was there was frogs legs, pork thingys and beef, and some wildly hot chillies...as usually describing Chinese food is harder than eatng it haha. I remember first time in Guangzhou i could barely eat the hot stuf and by the last day nothing tasted particularly hot. Well same today, my nostils and tongue were fried today, fabbo, i loved i!
No doubt in a few days the pollution will have coated my taste buds sufficiently to dampen out the incredible heat again ..or i'll just adapt, its good either way
Ling and I chatted about this and that and the food, it was a little like starting agan but this time was obvious warmth and friendliness there from the beginning. She kept giving me those lazer beam looks that just swallow me up whole. It was nice. There was some left over so she got a doggie bag and she then took me to get my Guangzhou travel card topped up , nice little detail.
She has training tomorrow morning then has to work a regular day after that.. She wants to meet me for lunch after training and then wants me to come to her with her to her yoga classes this week. Her credit card company gave her a weks worth of free classes and she has been saving them up to do with someone so she would like me to come along Apparently there are other laowai there so i wont feel like a complete eejit there. Whadda i care, the only one there that i know or who will likely ever know me is Ling so its all good.
We walked around for a bit after that, Guangzhou has changed, its is noticeably cleaner to my eye and the front of TeeMall has a new incredibly bright façade, i'll attach a pic here, its fabbo. There also a weird Samsung water display that bobbles water in waves and colours, its very strange and beautiful at the same time.
It was nice that Ling and I stood right beside each other and there was a lot of touchy feely stuff, but no hand holding. I think I could have initiated it but I don't want to rush this along, I need to be sure about her, I am going to take this at my own pace and not rush anything.
I am going to meet the friend that introduced me and Ling initially (shes more of a friend of a friend) as i promised her chocolates so I must deliver
(I got her some nice French and Belgium chocs as well as some Irish ones of course).
So all is good with the world...well..fellas there is one more detail i haven't mentioned..and i dunno what is the best way to describe it so i'll just write it down.
The girl that introduced me and Ling also introduced me to another girl when Ling 2 and I didn't work out and that girl and I have been getting on great..shes a translated for a bank and is beautiful, is almost perfectly fluent in English and is clearly extremely smart. She is a lot younger than me though , shes 26 and i'm 38 almost 39 (January) .
First thing I saw in my inbox this evening was a letter from her saying welcome to Guangzhou and when was I going to see her....
She knows what i look like (webcam) and we have great meaningful conversations on msn, I cant help wondering if maybe she is better long term material, though maybe i am selling Ling short there - she is much closer to my age - 32, and when I am with her she goes out of her way to take care of me.
I dunno whether I should come clean with this second girl or not, she is going to think it weird that I flew 6000 miles to her home town and dont want to see her immediately. I told her that today i'd not be up for anything but sleep on arrival..which is partially true..but am running adrenalin and Chinese "Great Wall" red wine right now.
