A man in a white t-shirt sits at a restaurant table with his hand resting on his chin, appearing thoughtful. In front of him is a large, colourful bowl of Sichuan-style fish soup, garnished with chili peppers and herbs.

China Travel Day 1

China Travel Day 1

23.05.25

China Travel – Day 1. FRIDAY WAS SUCH AN EXCITING BEGINNING TO THIS JOURNEY. Staring down a bowl of sichuan powered boiled fish! Birty Dird had touched down in Guangzhou — China’s financial powerhouse — Months of planning and discussions had led us here.

The flights were booked only a few weeks before and gave me a layover in Haikou, Hainan. A friend of mine lives in Sanya, she had moved back home to Sanya from Dunedin a few years ago and I wanted very much to catch up on my way through to my first trip to the Chinese mainland. Hainan layover, over. Time to get to Guangdong province!

28 hours after leaving home, another friend & the hero of my entire trip — Molly — picked me up from the airport & dropped me off at my hotel.

Here’s a hot tip about some hotels in China; Sometimes, a business might rent out a floor of that hotel and call themselves a new hotel. So when you ask at the ground floor reception they’ll tell you to go to the 18th floor reception, that has recently moved to the 16th floor reception (but no one has told you or the reception for the real hotel on the ground floor to go to the 16th floor). It took about an hour to find the reception and check-in. (That hotel was so bad it could be an entire blog post by itself.)

We found the best meal of the trip on the first evening. Only I know where to find it…but I’m happy to share, feel free to message for a hot Guangzhou restaurant tip!

Molly ordered the a local beer and the local spirit made of wheat wine. At some point I complained about the taste of that beer, Molly helped me out by ordering a different brand and pouring the spirit in when I wasn’t looking. I couldn’t get over how much the two tasted like each other and I kept telling her to try this crazy beer. She dead-panned me for the next hour not saying a word.

I had calculated that I’d had four broken hours of sleep in the last 40 hours. I’d hit a point of no return. I gritted out another eight hours of food, beer and great chats before my head hit a pillow.

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