China 2010: Day 8: Guangzhou
Having said goodbye and thanks to Nancy and Fiona and ended the tour the night before, day two in Guangzhou was focused purely on family business and exploring the city.
Dim sum at the hotel (quite good, all things considered!) with some cousins, a bit of fun with hotel security (can't visit my own cousins? wtf?) then most of the day was spent doing family stuff. Cousin Kristen is also currently in Guangzhou, studying abroad for her MBA, so she came by too. We ran around most of the morning and early part of the afternoon (adventures in taxicabs!) then had a break for a few hours.
Kristen and I wandered over to Beijing Lu to do some shopping (MOAR keychains!) and got caught in the crowd watching the Pan Asian games gold medal women's volleyball match-- China vs. South Korea. Last five points as China won... the crowd at the north end of Beijing Lu got intense. Excitement, then breaking down into the usual mainland Chinese pushing-and-shoving-and-not-moving to get out of the way. Weee. Not really.
Dinner at a 5-diamonds rated restaurant with some excellent food (and some really weird food, what the hell was UNDER that fish??), then time to head back to the hotel and go home. Well, sorta-- we didn't quite call it a night, as the closing ceremonies for the Pan Asian Games were going on, so we wandered down to the waterfront for the fireworks. We were pretty far and could barely see 'em, but it was all part of the experience, along with a zillion secuity people watching, eventually backed up by PLA enlisted men. (yes, they had the army out on the waterfront! o_0 )