Our National Guide Raymond was waiting for us in the Arrivals Hall with a warm and welcoming smile - I think I'm going to like him. We had a fairly long wait for the rest of the group to filter through and got collared by the most boring man on earth who, fortunately for him, was going on a different Wendy Wu tour to Tibet - I have never come across someone who just talked at you about every aspect of his life. It got so bad that in the end Ian suggested he should go away and join his actual tour group. When everyone had eventually arrived we headed off to the hotel. I took a few very bad snaps from the coach window, I'd rather hoped to see a huge variety of goods being carried on motorbikes like we did in Vietnam but there are nowhere near as many on the road.
But there do appear to be lots of pedal/battery bikes which can be hired for a very small charge.
Fortunately we could check straight in. This is the rather inauspicious view from our window during an amazing downpour.
In the wardrobe were Fire Escape Hoods which fortunately we didn't need to use.
We all met up in the lobby around 6pm; 13 from the UK and 8 from Australia with one more arriving tomorrow morning. We then had a short walk to the restaurant which took us past a metro, the number of stations is amazing.
It was an authentic restaurant but one that could also cater for the western palate. I headed off to wash my hands and found the loo to be squat only - I didn't know it then but it was to be the pattern for most of the holiday - luckily I'm good at crossing my legs.
We had two large tables in a private room and whilst everyone was settling in I had a wander around.
Back at our tables, Ian had thoughtfully positioned me on the end, ready for a quick escape should the food choices/comments get difficult. I'm the only "vegetarian" and had read before we left that vegetarianism is considered quite strange in China, with the view being if you can afford meat why wouldn't you eat it. So Raymond was somewhat relieved when I told him I was happy to just avoid the meat in a dish and eat the veg, as it will save him getting special food prepared for me each time.
The food consisted of about 9 dishes plus rice to share between 11 of us. The rice was rather clumped but apparently that is so it's easier to keep on your chopsticks, but it was nice enough without being outstanding. The food is all served very quickly and without any form of dessert we were back at the hotel by about 7pm, so Ian and I went out in search of a supermarket to get some crisps to enjoy with our wine.
