Hey all.. I'm back! Well actually I was back on saturday night.. Plane touched down at 2130.. and I only reached home sweet home at midnight.. why?? Cos the bloody battery on the van died while we were in China.. After trying in vain to jump-start the van we decided to leave it there and take a cab home. At what cost??? I had to wake up bloody early the next morning to go fetch a mechanic with my dad to go get the battery changed. I drove the car home while my dad took the van. Man I slept the whole afternoon...

To those who have asked me how's my trip, I know all I've said was "It's okay.", maybe here's a better description of the trip..

Well actually for the five days I was at Guangzhou, it has been pretty routine stuff. The first two days we kept switching hotel rooms it was crazy. We stayed at the the Hotel Landmark Canton which was a 5-star hotel of local standards. The original plan was to stay a night there in a room and go to a lower star though cheaper for the rest of the trip where we'll take two rooms. But when we got there the first day they didn't have the room we booked and wanted to give us a room on the Smoking-floor. Of cos we didn't want it and after more checking and waiting they recommended the suites, which was just RMB100 odd more than if we took 2 rooms at the cheaper hotel so we took the suite. Now when we got to the suite my mother complained abt the bathroom being too cramped and there's no place to put the toiletries blah blah so we changed to the 2nd room. Fine. Problem now? The air-con was pathetic. Now my mum AND dad are complaining. The next day my mum made my dad go get the room changed and we were about to when the duty manager told us that room's toilet ain't workin'. Finally we moved to a room with ample space for my mum and bloody strong air-con that got me shivering everytime I don't have my jacket on. Frankly I'm not fussy and all the changing's making us pretty well-known with the duty managers. About the duty managers.. seems like there's always one on duty at every suite floors and they are always very polite and friendly. We stayed on the 35th floor and the lift shoots up so fast you could feel the pressure building in ur ears. Oh fantastic view out the window btw ;)



Alright enough of the hotel.. this trip's a business trip.. and that's what we did. For the days we were there every morning we'd have breakfast at the hotel's club house(taste great might I add) and we'll set off to various wholesale places around Guangzhou to buy goods. The 1st two days we arrived there was an impending tyhoon called "Typhoon Pearl". We saw in the news that it was the biggest one to hit china in a long time but was mighty relieved that it's not gonna hit Guangzhou. Though the 1st two days as it was coming the winds were very strong and the temperature was really cool. Man really enjoyed the weather for the two days. By the 3rd day the tyhoon had went past Guangzhou and the sun came out. Was pretty much like Singapore.. just that you prob won't sweat cos the humidity level was much lower here, even though it's hot.

By evening all the wholesale shops would have closed and after going back to the hotel to put the goods we'd head out for dinner and shopping. The food here is really good, and cheap. Fantastic man.. we can order a whole table-full of food and you won't pay more than S$50. And for 3 persons that's quite a lot of food. Had seafood the 1st night, some thai-chi food on the 2nd night, auth chi food with dim sum on the 3rd and western with pasta on the last night.. Will post the pics cos words mean nth when it comes to food!

After dinner we'd go do some shopping and there's two places that we went.. one's called Beijing St. and the other one's called Shang Xia Jiu I think.. both are pretty simliar though Shang Xia Jiu has many many shops and streets. These two places are not shopping centres.. more like shopping streets. And it's really happening.. a lot of people and the whole place is lit with neon lights. There're mostly clothes stores actually and the brands of clothes here and so many you can't count with both hands. There's the usual Giordano, Baleno etc etc and many many clothing brands in the same style as giordano and stuff and they have so many funny names for it. Well the best thing prob is that all the clothes are much cheaper than in Singapore... Bought lots of clothes and watches. My parents bought some footwear for RMB18.. that's like S$3.20 man! crazy i tell you.. and the funny thing is after that I went to get a cup of ice coffee mixed with brandy and it's also RMB18.. ha...

And the people there, especially the ladies, are really friendly. I don't remember the service being so good in China but well.. they're moving forward and really.. the service is so much better than in Singapore. How many times do you get served by sales person or waitresses who more often than not have a blank expression on their faces? The sales ppl there are all very friendly and always have this mega-watt smile and always more than willing to take the extra step to help us. Well anyway that's what I've encountered. My siblings who went the previous trip said they had a horrid time with the ppl there so I guess it's who you meet....

All in all.. this trip's been a good escape.. to take some time off all the shit back home. Just at moments I wished my siblings were there.. haha. That'll be much more fun.
Will post the pics tmr.. till then.. OUT.