Guangzhou

Different than Canada:

1. Oldies=Troopers
When I was in HK I saw this old man in a store and he looked like a living skeleton, but hey, he was at work not laying in bed. I see old people taking the bus, wandering around town and just doing their own business and all I can think is 'Wow these ppl are really tough!'

2. I feel tall.
I can actually see over people's heads and sometimes have to duck down to get into places!:)

3. HK/Mainland China
In HK they handed all of the money and business cards to you with two hands out of respect. In Mainland China people throw money back at you indiferrently. In HK all of the signs have english underneath them. In Guangzhou it's much harder. I can't read bus stop signs or anything really.

4. Hacky Sack.
It's not for the young hippies like in Canada. Most people who hackey sack(in the evening) are middle aged women and men.

5. Mornings. (8 AM)
You can see people doing Tai Chi and also dancing around with flags or swords. Old women and Men, middle aged people but not very many young people. I guess they're at university or sleeping.

I met a girl named Estelle at my first hostel in HK. I called her up yesterday because she lives in Guangzhou and she took me on a cruise on the Pearl River last night. She translated all of the explanations for me and we had dinner included in the VIp section. I didn't realize how nice it is to have someone show you around. I was frustrated yesterday after trying in vain to find a payphone and then to use it properly with my chinese phone card and chinese prompts. The cruise was just beautiful and Estelle and I talked about how her grandpa and mom used to swim in the river (before all of the pollution) and how my great grandparents must have sailed down the river when they emmigrated from Canton(Guangzhou) for Canada. Estelle made up her name because she studied french in university. Her chinese name is hard for english people to pronounce and most chinese make up an english name for foreigners. Estelle wants to come to Canada or the US to study next year. If she comes to Canada I would show her around for sure. Tomorrow we're going to hang out and meet up with Christina, another girl that I met at the hostel and one of Estelle's childhood friends. We might go and visit both of their universities and hit up some bars later on in the night. There is a classical music concert hall as well that would be nice to check out.