Typhoon Time

... Todays trip was to a pedestrianised shopping area of Gunagzhou. I would deem it interesting, but not really a success!

It was huge, I stuck to the main strip and then took a left turn to a different street of shops. It was great to see, lots of little shops (if I can call them that) in the front/bottom floor of high rise buildings, often no bigger that 3 meters across and probably the same back... with various artifacts, cashew nuts, jewellery, clothes, shoes, food... I would often find they'd be bunched together, there was a stationary area, which was streets of stickers, craft suppliers, carry bags, ties, ribbons... it was here I realised I had an hour left before I got picked up and decided to head back to the main strip... back along the same path I'd taken and suddenly I didn't recognise anything any more... humm interesting... so I took some more turns, walked down some alley ways, still nothing. So a quick text to Chris and look on google maps and nope, still non the wiser... and then my internet stopped working, at £6/mb it was probably for the best, I'd hit my roaming limit (£40 - ouch my bill isn't going to be cheap) .. shit I still had no idea where I was and started to panic, all thestreets started to look the same and it was at this point the nearby Typhoon decided to throw its best weather at me, buckets of rain and wind like never before, that was not going to help my plight!

So I text Chris again with some panic in my voice (type?) and he managed to locate me and head me in the right direction... this took an abundance of texts and directions and a few tears from me... all the while the rain continued to poor and wind continued to howl. This was not fun! It was like a treasure hunt, with no treasure... but we got there inthe end and suddenly I was where my driver was due to pick me up! YES! Breath... a taxi man tried to get me in his car with persistence, in the mood I was in, he got a few sharp words and a glare and he seemed to back off, the drowned rat english woman was not impressed!

Already looking back , I can see the enjoyment in it, that I couldn't at the time, it was an adventure, I walked through puddles that went up over my ankles, got to see the streets of chinese shops which was interesting and feel the hustle and bustle of the roads (which I had to attempt to cross), some of them I had to cross 4/5 lanes to get 1/2 way through crazy traffic in attempt to read the road signs on the other side to give information to Chris.

Sadly whilst on the "find pip treasure hunt" I passed a load of shops with stuff I actually wanted to buy, instead of the previous clothes and shoes shops, which included tea pots, tea sets, chopsticks, bowls, tea, souvineers and postcards for family members, non of which I stopped to buy as I wanted to no longer be lost!

I got back to the hotel, had a hot shower, cup of tea and waited for Chris to come back - heading out for some dinner and a calm evening.

The photo was taken just before I realised I was lost and just before the bad weather turned worse...I liked the motorbikes extended umbrellas and shine of the wet floor... the pillar holds another road up above it.