I’ve been checking out and editing photos from Macau for the last 30-40 minutes. I was lucky enough to get some absolutely beautiful shots of that place, most of which were taken right around sunset, before going to the casino. I’m looking forward to posting these, and I should be able to do that when I get to chengdu. But first, I’m starving, must get food. The flight departs in just under an hour. A second ago I heard a song playing right behind me, some Chinese song with lyrics, it played for about 25 seconds before the guy picked up his cell phone. It didn’t sound anything like a cell phone – weird.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. Well, sort of. I’m in Guangzhou airport waiting at my gate (A22) for the flight to Chengdu. I should arrive there around 11:40 where Matt should be waiting.

I feel like I have gone through absolute hell to get here. Since I now have the time (just under 120 minutes), I’ll share some of the details.

I woke up this morning and got two tickets, one bus ticket from Hong Kong to Guangzhou and one plane ticket from Guangzhou to Chengdu. Both together cost me about $850 HKD which is about $125 US. Actually a very good deal, considering R/T airfare from HK to CTU (Chengdu) is $3500 HKD, about $500 US. I was really not looking forward to going anywhere with my huge bag. I hate myself more with every step that I take with that thing. I walked 3 or 4 blocks with it through Tsim Sha Tsui to the bus station and then relieved, sat on the bus and listened to tunes for about 90 minutes.

Then the bus pulls into a customs/border station. This is pretty much my introduction to China proper. No one speaks a word of english. Oh, well, actually, two words: “NO ENGLISH” followed closely by an awkward smile. So when we pull up, I have no idea what the protocol is, but everyone else seems to know what to do. Everyone gets up, I follow them, and ask the driver if I’ll be boarding the bus again, if I should leave my bags on the bus, etc. He doesn’t understand me and can’t answer, so nervously, I take my backpack and leave my camera bag. Once inside the building there’s a long line which moves very quickly where officials are checking passports and visas. I actually met two travellers from Kuwait who spoke some english, so we were together in line. We get through this obstacle and get back on the bus. Then the bus goes another mile or two and stops again, this time to search our bags. Except nothing is really searched, we just walk past some guards. Again, no one speaks a word of English.

Get back on the bus, ride for another 3 hours. The landscape is really pretty varied. Some of it looks like residential Hong Kong, which is very dense and urban, and the outside of all of the buildings look all haggard and torn apart, and the only color is from clothes hanging outside the windows to dry. Other areas are more rural and spacious, with long fields and yards between decrepid office and residential apartment buildings. Cars drive on the left side of the road here, which is strange because the bus I’m on has a driver on the right side (this is normal for HK). I’m used to having a few thousand miles of water between places where people drive on the other side of the road, but here you just have to cross a bridge and go through customs. The cars are very different here also, lots of Volkswagens (all of the taxis are Volkswagens, they look like older body style Passats) and Toyotas. No Mercedes, no BMW’s.

The ride goes pretty quickly and soon it’s over. Upon arrival I find myself in front of the Garden Hotel in Guangzhou, which is apparently a 5-star hotel. I look at the rates for the hotel which are posted outside, and a room costs about $80 US, pretty reasonable. I try to figure out where I can get on a shuttle that’ll take me to the airport and when I finally find someone who can help me, they tell me to go to another hotel down the street. Supposedly it’s called The International Hotel. Trying to gauge how far it is, I ask if I should take a taxi, but the attendant tells me it’s close enough to walk. Then I ask if taxis will take my Hong Kong dollars, to which I get a quick “no”. Well, fuck. Looks like I have no choice but to walk.

This is the really hellish part. I had to walk probably just over 1/4 mile with my bag. I can guess what you’re thinking (even if you’re me, if some time has passed), but walking 50 feet with this bag wears me out. I would walk a few hundred feet, and then have to put the bag down and take a break, figure out where I was, where I was going, and make sure that I was headed the right way. The time was about 5:30pm and I had to be at the airport (an hour away) by probably 8:30 at the latest, so I had plenty of time. I walk for a while and take a break in front of a large international bank which is closed. I try to find out if I’m going the right way, but no one speaks any English. While stopped and catching my breath I decide to sit for a minute and see if I see anyone walking by who looks like they speak any English at all. I wait 10 minutes, smoke a cigarette, and don’t see anyone that fits the profile. Get back up, keep walking, get to the top of a bridge which crosses a big highway. Across the street I see a large building which I think is the hotel. Rest for another 10 minutes, then cross the bridge and walk down it, get pointed out by a group of locals, and then finally find a baggage attendant at the hotel who speaks some English. He says I’m in the right place, and points to the green umbrella which indicates the bus stop. I make my way over and a woman tells me that the bus arrives in 15 minutes, but the cost is $17 RMB (mainland China currency) and they don’t accept HKD. There’s a security guard standing near that overhears her tell me this and he is kind enough to exchange his $100 RMB for my $100 HKD (he made just over $5 in the exchange). I don’t know what I would have done if it weren’t for that guy. The bus arrives quickly and I board, relieved.

The bus to the airport goes through heavy traffic and is stagnant on an artery road for 3 or 4 minutes. I’m listening to Chris Fortiers Atmospheric Breaks, one of my favorite mixes to relax to. The bus arrives at the airport sooner than I had expected, and the view of it is beautiful. I actually didn’t expect it to be this nice. I wish it had a wi-fi signal available, though. No complaints here, though.

I get directed to the proper ticketing counter and give the woman my ticket, and tell her that I’m checking one bag. I hulk my bag onto the conveyer belt and she says that it’s overweight. I’m pretty surprised by this, since this is the third flight that I’ve checked it on, with the same contents, and the first time that I’ve heard this. She wants me to pay an additional $196 RMB (about $25), to which I say that I’ll try to take some of the heavier items out. I take out a small bag with my electronic adapters and plugs, which is heavy, and put it in my backpack. I don’t think it made much of a difference, but she quickly forgets that my bag is overweight and lets it go.

On my way to the terminal there’s a small restaurant where I was looking to get something to drink. There’s a fridge on the counter top filled with drinks that I’ve never seen, and none of them are adorned by any English words that I can see. I can tell that one of them is Coke, but it’s all in Chinese. This is weird to me because even in Hong Kong and Japan Coke said Coke on it. I buy one, and a couple next to me speak to me in a friendly tone in Mandarin, but I tell them that I only speak English. Strangely enough though, for the first time, I can actually understand some broken bits of the airport announcements here. Cantonese was impossible.

I think that when I’m done with my trip I might be able to publish all of this into some kind of small personal book. I’ve had my physical journal with me as well, but I find that the only time that I write in it is when I’m in transit, either on a plane or on a bus, or waiting somewhere where I can’t open my laptop. Writing on the laptop and writing in the journal are two entirely different experiences; while I like the physical aspect of hand writing, when I’m on the computer my thoughts can pour out effortlessly. 25 minutes have passed since I started writing here, I think I’ll close this and find some food to eat. I still have probably 90 minutes until I board.

Wow, I just got back from the Golden Computer Arcade. That place is UNBELIEVABLE. I was told to go there to check out some computer components and gaming accessories, but I was in no way prepared for what I saw there. I had the address to the place and I was just outside of it looking around, didn’t see anything really that unusual. Went inside this mall, take some steps downstairs, and suddenly there’s a dizzying array of people and computer hardware, software, and accessories. I walk through a bunch of narrow hallways lined with merchandise, the place is absolutely rammed with hundreds of Chinese people, and I see virtually every computer and gaming product that one can imagine on tables, on the floor, on the walls, hanging from the ceiling, etc. Sensory overload – I can’t walk through the place without bumping into 10 people, 2 chairs, a table with DVD-R’s, and advertisements hanging from the ceiling. People are speaking Chinese all around me and I’m the only foreigner in the place. Each booth is either selling games, DVDs/VCDs, computers, or computer or video game accessories. Absolutely anything anyone could want is there, and is pretty reasonably priced. The size of the place was incredible, 2 levels, each of them a labrynth. I got lost more than once, and then found myself in the same place where I was, without even realizing it. I got a voltage converter for my DS, but it fits the mainland China plug and not the HK plug, so I can’t test it here.

After leaving the Golden Arcade I went to an actual video arcade where I played some Sega game called Ghost Scout, I think. You aim and shoot at bad guys with an enormous gun which you hold with both hands, with the butt of the gun on your shoulder. Awesome game, but it only lasted maybe 5-6 minutes ($5HKD each play). Before that I actually played a racing game with another guy. When we were selecting levels he wanted to select the super advanced course with hairpin turns. I opted not and selected intermediate instead, and he follwed suit. He pretty much effortlessly dropped me, and at the end of the race he turned around backwards and rammed me. This was probably the most realistic racing game that I’ve played here (and I would say the most realistic I’ve ever played, if not for F355), so it was difficult.

I’ve been listening to Jasons promotional mix, it’s pretty good. It sounds like late-90′s techstep, but I’m sure it’s all newer material. It’s got that rough-but-funky sound to it which is refreshing after enduring a few years of Technical Itch and the like.

I want to check out Wan Chai now but I’m very sleepy and need to wake up at 9am. What to do? I’ll probably stay in.

Got back from the park, to find that CTS closes at 5pm on Saturdays. Damn. I’ll have to wake up early and see if I can’t book the ticket in the morning for same day travel.

Walking back down Nathan Road I stopped at the crosswalk to cross the street and noticed myself next to a beautiful Chinese girl. The interesting thing about me communicating with women here is that I we generally can’t speak to eachother because usually their English is only slightly better than my Chinese, so verbal communication is impossible. But with this mode of communication blocked, your nonverbal communication skills become much more attuned and subtly aware. Like a blind man who develops an extra-sensory ability to hear, nonverbal communication becomes seemingly more dramatic. Anyway, I was standing next this woman and we glanced at eachother, crossed the street, I walked into my building and she followed, and we both got into the same elevator. We looked at eachother for what I’d say was more than a quick glance, maybe half a second (which might not sound like much, but when two strangers are looking directly at eachother, it is). She had bright blue eyes, and I don’t mean natural eyes, clearly some very weird contact lenses. It startled me, it wasn’t unlike the freaky contacts that people wear on halloween, and she was wearing them around on the street. I’m sure she’s not the only one, but that’s the first time I’ve seen that around here. She got off at the floor below me.

I found out where Lik Sang is, near the Golden Arcade that I was told to check out by the Shim Shui Po MTR stop. Apparently this is gamers paradise, and I’m glad that there’s a force to finally bring me right there. I’m going to bring my DS and see if I can’t figure out how I can get it charged over here, and I’ll pick up Resident Evil 4 for Matt if they have it in stock for Gamecube. I’m curious to see what the store is like, because the internet site behind it is infamous. It’s a Hong Kong retailer that ships all over the world, and it’s a favorite among pirates of course, HK being the world capitol of the pirate gamer. I’m supposed to leave tomorrow, but I really don’t want to. I’m looking forward to seeing the mainland for the first time, but I’m sure that I will miss this place for how exciting and vibrant it is. I think, however, that in 8 days I’ve gotten a good idea of the essence of Hong Kong.

I want to get all the photos that I can before I leave, and in that vane, I almost want to bring my camera with me to Lik Sang, but it being dark, the other side of me wonders what the point is. I’ll leave it here and walk out without my laptop or camera, I think for the first time.