Backpack's Back

Well, some good news now. While I was out walking the other morning, Susan gave me a call to tell me that the airport now had my luggage ready to be picked up. I walked back to the school and met Susan and a driver at the front gate, and we took a van to drive to the airport.

I am so very relieved to have that back in my possession, as I had quite a few important and convenient things packed in there.

The day before I got my backpack, Susan took me down the street to help me buy a SIM card for a cell phone. Another English teacher Lilian has given me her spare cell phone to use now, and I just had to buy a new SIM card to put in it. It's a simple, basic phone but it works fine. Not sure if I will buy a new phone sometime, but if I do I can just swap the SIM card over to the new one.

Yesterday I finally ventured down into the city. I can take a bus right in front of my school that takes me several miles down to a subway station for only 2 RMB (or about 30 cents). When I got to the subway, I just picked a random place on the line to go that might take me somewhere to the denser city, and paid 5 rmb. I got out and walked around a bit and found a good view of the Guangzhou TV and Sightseeing Tower, which is the 2nd tallest building in the world currently, so I took a couple photos.

I was getting pretty hungry and looked for a place to eat. I saw McDonalds and KFC upon exiting the subway but wanted to avoid them for a number of reasons. I ended up walking down a random off-street and found a little restaurant with a photo menu on the wall, I pointed to a dish that looked appetizing and sat to wait. I'm pretty sure it was some kind of Chinese Muslim restaurant, as there was a little bit of Arabic script on the walls and the Chinese woman working there had some kind of headdress. The food was delicious - a plate of homemade noodles topped with diced tomatoes and egg - very filling.

As for eating around my neighborhood, I discovered a little restaurant that sells dumplings, so I've been eating there quite often now. The dumplings are delicious and they sell 10 of them for 3 RMB, or about 50 cents.