(09-07-2012 11:04 AM)BadWolf Wrote: Guangzhou sucks balls... cockroaches, people everywhere and theres no sugo/walmart on every corner (this sucks in China).
GZ is not representative of China and would highly recommend visiting some of the northern cities before you make a decision with a girl. Hit up Urumqi for an awesome experience. Food up there is excellent, food in guangzhou is mostly sh1t.
If you are in tianhe go to PIZZA 2 PIZZA... the best pizza in the world, hands down. Just get the regular with olives, costs about 83 rmb but its big and really damn good.
If you're not down with using the squatty potty then you can buy a stool that is basically a western fold out toliet seat, used one for a few months in my last city.
Of all the things to miss...no Walmart and Pizza? I mean sure, I miss Canadian beer, good burgers (though Eudora's in Hangzhou, mentioned in my previous post, does decent), good steaks, proper pizza, a large variety of women (as it's 99% Chinese with a small smattering of Korean, Japanese, Pinay and the almost-universally unattractive expats) and my friends and family...but come on; you can get most of the shit you need at Wu Mart, Tesco or any of the other large chain stores.
I do not know if Urumqi is back to stability, and while it is on my visit list, I wouldn't want to live there, that far out, right in the desert.
I found a way around the squatter, in the public washrooms (usually about one every city block, in HZ anyways), use the handicapped bathroom; always clean and a Western toilet.
(09-07-2012 11:39 AM)FretDancer Wrote: For some reason, almost all of my contacts (chinese) from China live in Guangzhou. For some reason its a very popular city or might be just some odd occurrence.
Guangzhou was actually going to be my selected city to start my China trip. Right now it is between Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shenzhen. But I hear Beijing is very expensive.
Shenzhen will be expensive, close to Beijing levels, and some people basically count Shenzhen-Guangzhou as the same area (the PRD). When this is done, the population becomes huge, something like 50 million in the PRD.
(09-07-2012 06:39 PM)MaleDefined Wrote: Well informed data sheet on Hangzhou NP. I thought of throwing one up after my time there, but my general knowledge of the place(or lack there of) was so threadbare that it would have been incomplete at best. I can vouch for basically everything that NP says about HZ and I'll throw my hat in the ring with some additional info.
My impression is that if you're looking for a "real" China experience and don't want to travel to Western China to do it, then HZ is your city. When I was there, I was literally one of a half dozen Western people in the entire city. It's to the point that hardly anyone has even a basic grasp of English and you will be the albino tiger on the street.
Getting in is pretty easy. It's only a 50 minute train ride from Shanghai - Honquiao and the taxi system from the train station is rather simple, however disgusting as you wait in an enclosed underground loading station with a couple of hundred taxis running diesel engines. To say you can't breathe is being generous.
Getting a taxi is next to impossible and you will have to take the bus with little idea of where you're going occasionally. I made an art out of wandering around as clueless as possible to make it a point that I needed help. It was a rather effective strategy as people seemed genuinely interested in going out of their way to assist me.
The old city is beautiful and well worth a stroll, especially at night when much of the food comes out. HZ is so off the beaten path that I struggled to find places to out at night. I literally could not explain to anyone that I wanted to go to the best club there to dance, hence I really didn't get out much at night. I was pretty OK with that because I enjoyed everything else about the place so much.
In terms of eating, 143 on Gaoyin St. is the pick of the bunch. GZ cuisine is more fish-centric and my contact pointed me to this restaurant and it was confirmed with locals in the city, IIRC there is a McDonalds at the corner of Ding'an Rd. and Humin Rd. Head up one flight from the Mc Donalds and you will see a manic restaurant immediately on your left on the second floor. It's regarded as one of the best in HZ. Basically I went here everyday and ate my ass off.
I can't imagine ANYONE else having been to HZ, it really is off the beaten path, but I encourage you to go. With NP's info about where to party, you could really have a great experience here.
Hangzhou has definitely changed; there are hundreds, if not thousands of foreigners in the city now, so people are more 'used' to them; that's why I think you should choose to come to a larger city as opposed to a smaller town...sure it's nice to be at the center of attention, but that shit gets old, and I enjoy my anonymity.
The city is growing pretty rapidly; I suppose it (like many other large Chinese cities like Wuhan, Chengdu, Qingdao etc,.) see what Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong have and say 'I want that'. I also think that the city is perfectly situated; day trips to Shanghai, Ningbo and Suzhou are possible, and Nanjing and Wuxi are nearby enough to make a weekend out of. I really like it here; it's big enough to offer all the big city amenities, but not crazy stupid big that the people are up their own ass and the women think they're god's gift to men.
(09-07-2012 10:56 PM)redneckpunk Wrote: (09-07-2012 12:58 AM)Nonpareil Wrote: Hangzhou Data Sheet: Xihu District
Someone pointed out something; there is a definite negative correlation between level of English spoken and attractiveness in the women, but I think I have this one cracked; you see, China is smarter than the US with University; instead of creating debt slaves by giving 17 and 18 year olds with zero future-time orientation or impulse control massive student loans, in China, you don't go to University until you're 20, and you graduate when you're 24, and I really think this is how it should be done; you graduate high school at 18, work for a few years to get some experience and capital and THEN you go to school
Not sure where you pulled this info but I don't think it is accurate.
Most chinese that attend University go right after finishing high school, at 18-19 years old and finish at 22 or 23. If they wait a year they are studying more or their parents are still saving, the kids just study more, from what I saw.
Also Chinese count age differently than westerners. The day you are born you are 1 year old according to Chinese thinking.
Yeah, the 'Real age' vs. 'Normal age' (or whatever it is) trips me the fuck out...one of my students was born in 2005, yet insists that she's 8 years old, I think it's retarded, but that's just how they roll here. I wasn't so much saying that they work between HS and Uni (as I don't know), just that a similar system in the US would be far more intelligent; in America kids can go to University at 17, and that's just wrong.
Many Chinese people I know went at 20 to University (they claim), so perhaps what they really meant was that they went at 19 (but were 20 in Chinese years), I have no idea.
Either way, that was less part of the observation about the negative correlation; it's that University is where most of the people learn (or add to) their English (people learn English starting in middle school here, but I've seen a few classes and English is taught the same way as Chinese is taught, when they're totally different languages), so it's likely that the person who speaks English 'well' is 23-27, and the person who only knows 'Hello!', 'Thank you!', 'Goodbye!' and 'I love you!' is 18-20.
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