Little China Blonde

By: Blonde Two

Hi Blondees and Blondettes – a little extra blog post for you as I didn’t get to upload this in China …

“Well here I am in China – Guangzhou to be precise and it has taken a 12 hour flight to learn how to pronounce the name of my transit airport – “Gwangshow” seems to be the consensus although I have heard lots of different alternatives. So far an interesting experience – here are some of the highlights!

Food options – always important at an airport or on the plane because, let’s face it, there isn’t a huge choice of other things to do while you are travelling (unless you like taking pictures of Jelly Babies). I have tried to choose all things Chinese for eating so far. So on the plane, I had a rather unusual breakfast of beef noodles (sadly greasy and not too much fun). Having toured the shops and restaurants, I think I am going to go for a supper (or is it lunch time?) of pigs’ trotters followed by a nice, tasty bag of flavoured chicken feet. There isn’t a MacDonald’s in sight which, to be honest, is a refreshing change.

People – I had forgotten about travelling alone and how you end up talking to such a wide range of people. On the plane I sat next to a lad from Leeds who was off to work in Australia with just five days’ warning. I gave him some US dollars as he didn’t have any usable currency for the airport. He introduced me to an Aussie chap who was on his way to Amsterdam. The three of us spent an hour or so together over a drink. They were both my son’s age so I had to work hard to avoid delivering the “Tobacco Talk”, the “Amsterdam Scene Talk” and the “Picking up Random Girls Talk.” It all felt like the beginning of a trendy film but in the end we decided against abandoning our respective flights and exploring China.

Toilets – life is very odd when you find yourself sitting talking to two youngsters about having to put your used roll in the bin instead of flushing it, but that is travelling for you! There only appears to be one lady-loo here and it has big queues. Standing in the queue and waiting for a cubicle is a bit like playing the lottery as two are western style and two are squatting pans. As you know, I have no objection at all to squatting out on Dartmoor but it just doesn’t seem right inside. This is a particular worry for me as my knees mean that I can’t get up from a squat without hanging on to something – imagine getting stuck! I have won the loo-lottery so far but I have three more hours to go here yet and may have to play again!”

PS The Yellow Jelly Babies were having such a lovely time in China that they ran away from me and were last seen escaping through immigration with the chap in this picture …