Ni Hao!

That's Mandarin for hello - although we're still in the south so we should still be speaking Cantonese, but here in Guangzhou we're getting confused as we've tried the little Cantonese we've learnt and we get Mandarin back. Ah well, it should all become easier.

I write this from Guangzhou - a large city in Southern China, 2 hours north from Hong Kong by train. Yes, we've made it. We arrived on Tuesday on the train and succesfully made it into the People's Republic quite smoothly. Our stay in Hong Kong was a good one - we ended up staying put in one place as we had to hand over our passports to the visa agency so we couldn't check into any other hostel without them. It was worth it though - we are now in possession of 6 month multi-entry China visas which will allow us to se China at leisure and hop into Japan and Mongolia along the way.

I really liked Hong Kong. It's such an international vibrant city and we were well looked after by our friends there. We were honoured with an invite to a family dinner with Steven and two families that they are friends with where we were treated to traditional Cantonese fare. Some dishes we managed better then others - the crispy roast chicken was lovely, the stewed goose feet defeated us - although I'm proud to say we did try them! Not a dish I'd choose, but it was great to get the chance to try them.

Being in Hong Kong for New Year was great. We went to a traditional Lunar Fair where people go to buy beautiful flowers for their houses (and also any manner of crap inflatable things ranging from pigs (it's the year of the pig) to traffic cones and dog poos. Who needs an inflatable dog poo?). It was just great to wander round with the massive crowds and soak up the atmosphere. We tried to see the parade, but visibility was difficult so we much preferred the following evening's fireworks spectacular - especially as it was followed by another dinner with Steven and his family which was absolutely gorgeous - roast goose and huge prawns. We were also given the traditional red envelopes of lucky money from Monica and their friend Albert - which we're carrying with us for luck. I was really sad to say goodbye, they really made our stay in Hong Kong as we saw a side of it that we would not have experienced on our own - and that first trip to a dim sum restaurant has set us up ever since - we've ordered pretty much the same thing every time as they were lush - pork and prawn dumplings with chilli sauce; spring rolls; BBQ pork dumplings. Mmmmmmmmm. I love dim sum! Whilst in Hong Kong we also met up with Martin, who I hadn't seen since he used to stay with us during the holidays whilst he was at boarding school in the UK. All in all we had a marvellous time and the hospitality of all our friends was much appreciated.
So now we're in China and pretty much on our own. I thought we'd easily make friends staying in a hostel, but our double hostel room was actually a pretty swish hotel room (a steal at around 12 quid between us) and as there were no common areas so we've not really seen anyone else to talk to. And we've not seen many people in the restaurants and stuff - maybe we're spending a little more than your average backpacker? We may be in a YHA tomorrow night so we may try a dorm just to stalk some new friends. The difference with backpacker trail in Oz and NZ is stark. We hardly see any Western faces. Funny, you spend all your time in Oz bemoaning the fact that it's just like UK but the other side of the world, then you get somewhere more exotic and you spend a lot of time trying to catch the eye of the one Westerner you see all day just so you have someone other than your beloved to converse with.
Anyway, we're OK. We head off on our first overnight train journey tonight. Hopefully we'll get to our destination (we bought the tickets at the station after I had transcribed our destination and seat class and date in Mandarin using the Rough Guide so hopefully I did it correctly!) Guangzhou has been good - we've eaten lots as usual and have just enjoyed wandering the warren of streets people-watching and looking at the mad things on sale. Maddest have definitely been the baskets of scorpions and toads. Apparently boiled scorpions in oil is a northern speciality. I've tried goose feet so I'm sure you won't begrudge me declining an offer of a boiled scorpion?!
Photos may be few and far between on my blog now (although if you check out Pete's Asia blog - link on the right - he has some photos of Hong Kong uploaded, including the infamous goose feet). It's hard enough finding somewhere to go on the internet, never mind finding a place that we can upload pictures in!
Bye bye for now, wish me luck!