Pan Admun Republic of Western Blog

I go, I fly, and I arrived. This is about my first 24 hours in Guangzhou.

It actually happen 20+ hours before I hop on the plane. My buddies (those married, with kid(s)) in Ottawa get together Friday night for food and drinks and some partying around. We all had fun times and finished off with Vietnamese Pho (beef noodles) as mid-night snacks, as our tradition for each outing (aka the 'Boyz Nite Ou-rt'). So, I don't get home until 3am and do some final packing. After that I barely got 1/2 hour nap before I have to go to the airport for my 6am flight. It turns out sort of a good thing, I explain later.

In the cold air in the really late night (or early morning), I get a taxi to fetch me and 2 big luggages to the airport. It starts snowing outside, I guess the weather just want to tease me once before I go to asia as I am going to miss the snow and snowboarding.

So, I get to Toronto uneventful for the long-haul flight straight to Hong Kong. The flight to Hong Kong is a ~16 hours flight, I am glad I got to fly business class as my company paid for it. I sleep, I eat, than I sleep again, watch 3 movies, and sleep some more before eat more. Meanwhile, we fly up north to the arctic and then swing around south passing Russia and China before arriving South China.

I have a few hours in Hong Kong while in transit, so I get in town to visit my Uncle and Grandpa. Then I hop on a South China Airline flight for my last 45 minutes fly to Guangzhou. I get there after I barely get some sleep again. I've been so tired since I didn't get much sleep and on the plane (~5 hours on and off).

My company send a driver to pick me up on the airport, you know, they hold up a sign with my name on it and flag it to anyone walk out of custom. The airport is on the suburban so we hit the highway to get into the city. The highway is actually decent for North America standard, as compare to the bumpy ride I got in the past when I travel around the province. BTW, most highways (maybe all??) are toll. It's almost 10pm when we get in town, but it's still a lot of people on the street.

Once arrived to the hotel, I settled in and pop a melatonin to help me sleep, but I am actually really tired from the lack of sleep in the past 24 hours so I fell asleep right the way. I think the lack of sleep actually put me in the right timezone as I arrived.

The next day, I slept until the agent from the immigration agency called. In fact, I over-slept because I didn't setup my alarm clock correctly.... damn amateur mistake. How many engineer computer scientist needs to set an alarm clock? They took me to a clinic for body check, a part of the procedure to apply for a working permit (actually, a "expert" permit.... now I am officially an expert) They did the usual pressure, blood, chest X-ray.... but then I went through ultra-sound, ERG, eyes and ears.... The tests are done in a work flow manner, makes me feel like I am a car getting assumbled. it's really some tests.


I have some lunch before taking a taxi to work. I noticed that the whole city is covered by smog (actually, it's already been like that for the past 3 days), I am sure a few that lived in the clear air in Canada likely already dropped or catching for air.... GDNT is located on the south shore of the Pearl river. It occupies the first 4 floors of a residential building.


Checked in with my counterpart, and get to my cubicle, which is right next to him. We goes around and introduced with the team. The usual drill. Than my computer arrived so I spend the rest of the day getting it setup.

After I am done work and left the building, it's already 7pm and dark outside. I walked alone the river to the metro station about 20 minutes away. I passed through many small shops and a strip of bridal stores. So, there's where new couples prepare their wedding. There are many Western style wedding dress, as well as tradition red Chinese wedding dress.


Guangzhou now has a subway system. It has 4 lines and cover a good part of the city, but it opens only to 11pm at night. It has a touch screen ticket machine, and the ticket is a plastic coin which has a RFID embedded into it. Interesting idea. The night went uneventfully after I get back to the hotel and eat before I catch some more sleep.

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