10/03 Guangzhou
10/03 Guangzhou:
Things I ate: the lobby/ground floor area of the hostel is currently being renovated, so they are currently offering a free breakfast every day. I think this is supposed to make up for the closure of the café - I saw a menu for one when I was using their phone this morning. The breakfast is tea or coffee, toast with jam, and a boiled egg. For lunch I had laksa-ish noodles in a department store, and for dinner I had some dumplings and a fried daikon cake. I also had a hot chocolate at starbucks, where I went to try and sort out my wireless problems, and a mango-coconut-tapioca drink from a shop that I had previously visited with Janet and Ingrid, which is called Hui Lau Shan 许留山.
Places I went: since it was freezing again today, I spent most of the day inside various places. I spent most of the morning in the hostel; even though it is not exactly well heated it is at least out of the wind. Then I took the subway to a starbucks that I vaguely remembered from when I was here before. I was basically working on a hunch from the names of the subway stations but I found it first go! It took a while but I did eventually get the wireless working (as you see). Then I wandered around the department store that was attached to it (although I had to go outside and in another door - construction work again). I wandered around there for a while, had lunch, and located a park-and-shop (supermarket) but didn’t buy anything. Then I went to Nanjing Lu, one of the main shopping centres, and wandered around there for a bit. They’ve discovered the remains of previous streets from the Song and Ming dynasties under the road, and so have dug them up and put them under glass for everyone to look at. These are (naturally) sponsored by Coca-cola. By this time it was warm enough to sit out side for a spot of people-watching.
People I spoke to: This morning I called that professor at Sun Yat-sen University that I told some of you about (here is the website I found him from: http://www.bl.uk/about/policies/endangeredarch/2006/xuoutcome.html) and had the most successful conversation-in-Chinese that I have had so far. I felt much better after that! I’m going to see him on Friday afternoon.
Things I have thought about: I was really struggling to get out of bed and get moving this morning, and that prompted me to work out why I had been feeling a bit demoralised. I think the weather and the smells (particularly the bathroom) and the style of the building (concrete corridors, wood floors in the rooms) have reminded very strongly of the first few weeks in Tianjin, which were very difficult.
