Guangzhou

We took a rather smart train from Hong Kong, a bit flasher inside than the bullet train. We stayed on Shamian Island which is the old colonial, quiet area of the city. We decided to go to Lucys Amercian style cafe for dinner and couldn't believe our eyes as we gradually noticed every single other table had an American couple with chinese babies! Honestly we were the only two in there without our own little chinese bundle of joy. Surreal. We later discovered that Guangzhou is the adoption capital of China for the Americans and they have to stay for at least two weeks to complete the process.

Guangzhou was only a connection stopover for us so the next day we headed for the train station. We hadn't accounted for the fact that ALL the students had just broken up and the station was engulfed with them trying to get home. We were there by 10am but couldn't get on a train until 4pm, and then we had to pay for a sleeper ticket for just a two hour journey. You have a massive queue to get in the station in the first place, and then have to wait in a packed waiting room (with the smelliest toilet I've ever encountered- M) before the gates open for the mad scrum to get to the platform. We've since discovered the rush is that in the standard class (hard seat) not all seats are reserved and if you don't get one you'll stand all the way - which could be upwards of 24 hours - nice!

By the way no photos between here and Ping An as we lost the camera, luckily with only 30 odd photos on it!!!