Guangzhou...

I arrived in Guangzhou yesterday morning and so far this is my least favorite city. It is so hot, I can barely stand it and the hostel I am staying at is my least favorite so far. Last night in my room I thought that I was going to get really sick because the air conditioner was set up right above my bed on the top bunk and the people in my room had it set really cold. I turned it off so that I could sleep without catching my death and in the middle of the night the guy in the bunk next to me woke me up wanting to turn it back on. I told him that it was making me sick but when I went to the bathroom the guy in the bunk under me turned it on. I set it to the least cold setting and managed to get through the night without dying but this morning I had them switch me to a different room on the bottom bunk this time. It's like a huge no no in Chinese Medicine to sleep under an air conditioner, I am surprised they set the room up that way.

Compared to the other hostels I have stayed at on a friendliness scale the people at this hostel rate at about a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10 and that is being generous. I could complain about a bunch of other things but I would rather write about good things. Overall I have been lucky to stay at great places so I am going to suck it up and look forward to heading to Nepal tomorrow!

When I got into Guangzhou yesterday a guy tried to charge me 515RMB to get from the train station to my hostel. In the end I caught a legitimate taxi that charged me 27RMB. At the hostel I ran into the woman from Uruguay that I met in Yangshou. It was a pleasant surprise and a very fortunate one because she was just getting ready to head out and explore some temples she had found the previous day. I dropped my bags in my room and went with her. We visited a famous Daoist temple called the Temple of the Five Immortals and two Buddhist temples that I do not remember the name of but one of them is supposed to be very famous. I took a lot of pictures that I will upload soon. At one of the temples a woman and her family came up to me wanting to take a picture of us all. The woman was particularly interested in me I think because of my tattoo's, she had one on her forearm that looked like a lotus or something. At the Daoist temple we saw a lot of older people doing Qi Gong or Tai Chi and a few of them were even doing calligraphy on the sidewalk with a brush and water. It was really cool to see. There is a huge difference between Buddhist and Daoist temples. All of the Buddhist temples I have gone to have been lavish with huge Beautiful displays of Buddhas and other deities. All of the Daoist temples I have been to on the other hand have been much more about minimalism. I have enjoyed the contrast. Today I am going to check out the Tea Market but I will post some more pictures soon!