Massage centre on Shamian Island in Guangzhou, China
I have been a bit worried about my first few days of teaching. I have been wondering what to teach and how to teach it. In an effort to calm me down, I decided to head across the river to “mainland” China. Hong Kong is part of China but people around here talk about the other parts as the mainland. When crossing, I needed a visa and need to pass through customs and immigration.
I have been to Guangzhou before, during the Christmas time, but I wanted to explore a bit more and also just get out of the city. The trip there was easy as I took the high-speed train from Shenzhen to Guangzhou, which took an hour and a half and cost about $12 CDN. The train is similar to the KTX in Korea. It was very comfortable and was able to get me there quickly. In Guangzhou, I found the hostel I always stay at called Guangzhou Youth Hostel. It is on a small island in the city called Shamian Island. The island was home to the European powers that had control of the city in the late 1800’s. All of the buildings are very colonel and beautiful. They are in the process of cleaning up the area for the World University games in October of this year. There were tones of construction cranes and such. There were buildings being built more so than there was in December.
I spent the night and came back to Shenzhen the next day. The plan was to meet up with a friend of mine named Byron. He and his boyfriend run this really interesting salon. It is in their home in an apartment building. What makes it interesting is the fact that it is in their apartment and they live in the back area. The whole place is well designed with tones of paintings and such. They have been together for 5 years and seem quite happy. I was impressed that they were living together and that they both have amazing creative output. Byron is in art as well doing paintings and clothing, which they also sell in their salon.
I came back at night to relax. It was a nice relaxing trip and I felt so good.