{"id":14899,"date":"2017-08-21T19:17:39","date_gmt":"2017-08-21T23:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/?p=14899"},"modified":"2017-08-21T19:17:39","modified_gmt":"2017-08-21T23:17:39","slug":"the-guangzhou-layover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/?p=14899","title":{"rendered":"The Guangzhou Layover"},"content":{"rendered":"

I feel like the blog post title would make a great technothriller cover. “The Guangzhou Layover.” It feels like William Friedkin should direct the adaptation.<\/p>\n

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After struggling with being shut out of various tours (odd that in a land of a one-child policy they’d be so anti-singles), I stumbled upon China Highlights<\/a>, a website proffering suggestions for half day and full day tours out of the Guangzhou Airport for transiting passengers.<\/p>\n

“Perfect!” I thought.. I’ll take the subway to the Chen Clan Ancestral Hall, grab a cab and insist they turn on the meter, and stroll the Shangxiajiu pedestrian street and grab some lunch before heading back to the airport for my evening flight to Bali.<\/p>\n

And then… well, the first restaurant suggestion gave me a bit of a pause.<\/p>\n

They list \u5fc5\u80dc\u5ba2 or b\u00ecsh\u00e8ng k\u011b \/bee-sheng-ker\/.<\/p>\n

The English translation is “Pizza Hut.”<\/p>\n

We’ve all had that homesick feeling, that desire for a slice of the familiar when out and about, especially when a stranger in a strange land. But if I need that on my layover in China before I even get to Bali, I’m in real trouble.<\/p>\n

To be fair, they do offer other suggestions:<\/p>\n

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There’s Lianxiang Building, which apparently is a great place for Cantonese dim sums. Moon cakes (\u6708\u997c), mini chewy cakes (\u9e21\u4ed4\u997c), sweetheart cakes (\u8001\u5a46\u997c), and cream custard buns (\u6d41\u6c99\u5305) are the most popular items there.<\/p>\n

And then there’s Taotaoju Restaurant, one of the most famous tea restaurants in Guangzhou that has a history of more than 100 years. Among the various dim sums available, highly recommended are the shrimp dumplings (\u867e\u997a), crispy durian cakes (\u69b4\u83b2\u9165), chicken claws (\u51e4\u722a), steamed creamy custard buns (\u5976\u9ec4\u5305), stewed milk bean curd (\u53cc\u76ae\u5976), and beef meatballs. However, “China Highlights advises that you order in advance if possible.” To be honest, I’m not entirely sure HOW that’s possible for a guy like me. I’m sure there’s a way to do it, probably an app or maybe a picture menu if I’m lucky, but I’m winging it here so I figure I’ll just stroll about and pick a place.<\/p>\n

One would hope they have pretty good Chinese food in China.<\/p>\n

In any case, I need to allow ample time to get back to the airport and retrieve my stored luggage, then clear security to board my flight.\u00a0 China Highlights has a suggestion:<\/p>\n

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“Fure hours before.”\u00a0 What do I reckon.\u00a0 Four?\u00a0 Five hours?\u00a0 Probably four.\u00a0 If it’s an hour and a half to get back to the airport, that would still give me two and a half hours to do all the security bits to get to the plane and boarded.<\/p>\n

Let the adventures begin as I head of on the Road To Bali….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I feel like the blog post title would make a great technothriller cover. “The Guangzhou Layover.” It feels like William Friedkin should direct the adaptation. After struggling with being shut out of various tours (odd that in a land of a one-child policy they’d be so anti-singles), I stumbled upon China Highlights, a website proffering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14899\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}