Happy New Year!
Over the past week we've watched the Chinese New Year decorations going up - blossom trees decorated with red envelopes, shops and homes decorated with dragons, firecrackers and red lanterns. People have been walking around with armfulls of flowers, and Hong Kong worked itself into a shopping frenzy and there are firecrackers aplenty. It is all very festive.
Hong Kong was a nice step back into Britishness - they drive on the left side of the road and they say 'mind the gap' in an English accent on the metro. It is clean, modern, shiney, and full of public service announcements about avian flu. We hung out with both our Mums who came over especially to see us, and we drank lots of gin and tonics. Hong Kong is also full of wildlife, with hawks and flamingoes mixing it up with the skyscrapers.
Of course our first couple of days were spent finding a doctor for Nicholas who was sick as a dog with a nasty (non avian) flu, picked up in China. The lovely doctor gave him so many drugs it was like something out of a Hunter S Thompson article for a while there, with Nicholas mumbling incoherently about rooms full of huge bats, but all was soon back to normal again.
We got to Guanzhou from Hong Kong on Saturday and went for a wander around the streets. The streets had that panicked Christmas Eve feel to them - last minute buying as the shops rolled down their doors one by one for the holiday. There was more going on the next day when we went for a walk to a nearby park and found it crowded with thousands of people enjoying the warm weather. The park was decorated with New Year things, including a 100m long dragon made entirely of china plates.
They say this is a bad weekend to be in China as everything closes and the trains are full, and Guangzhou train station, which the Lonely Planet describes as a seething mass of humanity at the best of times was jam packed with people and luggage. Ticket sale staff were stressed, children were impatient. But we got our tickets ok, and are now in Nanning, staying in a place called 'High Class Hotel', which we couln't resist. It's ok, too - our room has a brand new computer and internet, which you can't complain about. Our train arrived at 4.30am and deposited us, with the other passengers into the darkness. Some guy in a uniform wandered around poking anyone who lay down to sleep on the benches, but we were lucky to find a light, so read the Guardian Weekly, kindly provided by Soph's Mum, and still riveting, even if it was a couple of weeks old - we're a bit news-starved at the moment.
Hong Kong was a nice step back into Britishness - they drive on the left side of the road and they say 'mind the gap' in an English accent on the metro. It is clean, modern, shiney, and full of public service announcements about avian flu. We hung out with both our Mums who came over especially to see us, and we drank lots of gin and tonics. Hong Kong is also full of wildlife, with hawks and flamingoes mixing it up with the skyscrapers.
Of course our first couple of days were spent finding a doctor for Nicholas who was sick as a dog with a nasty (non avian) flu, picked up in China. The lovely doctor gave him so many drugs it was like something out of a Hunter S Thompson article for a while there, with Nicholas mumbling incoherently about rooms full of huge bats, but all was soon back to normal again.
We got to Guanzhou from Hong Kong on Saturday and went for a wander around the streets. The streets had that panicked Christmas Eve feel to them - last minute buying as the shops rolled down their doors one by one for the holiday. There was more going on the next day when we went for a walk to a nearby park and found it crowded with thousands of people enjoying the warm weather. The park was decorated with New Year things, including a 100m long dragon made entirely of china plates.
They say this is a bad weekend to be in China as everything closes and the trains are full, and Guangzhou train station, which the Lonely Planet describes as a seething mass of humanity at the best of times was jam packed with people and luggage. Ticket sale staff were stressed, children were impatient. But we got our tickets ok, and are now in Nanning, staying in a place called 'High Class Hotel', which we couln't resist. It's ok, too - our room has a brand new computer and internet, which you can't complain about. Our train arrived at 4.30am and deposited us, with the other passengers into the darkness. Some guy in a uniform wandered around poking anyone who lay down to sleep on the benches, but we were lucky to find a light, so read the Guardian Weekly, kindly provided by Soph's Mum, and still riveting, even if it was a couple of weeks old - we're a bit news-starved at the moment.
posted by Wednesdays at 4:33 PM
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