My First Day in Guangzhou

Welcome to the city of Guangzhou! We arrived near midnight last night, so I didn't get any good photos until today (Monday, October 2). Where did October 1 go, you ask? I think I saw about 6 hours of it, waiting in the Tokyo airport and then flying to China. So this is the view from my hotel room on the 14th floor of the Holiday Inn. Since it's a big city, air quality is relatively poor. We will rarely get to see blue skies and sun, even though it was probably in the 80s and muggy today. Ryan (my coworker from Cincinnati) and I met up with our Japanese coworkers, Kazu and Tanaka-san, at 11am. I surprised myself by sleeping through the entire night. I woke up around 8am and ran down to the swimming pool to shake some of the flight stiffness and jet lag. We had today off work - it's the Moon Cake national holiday in China. Many people are off work and the P&G plant is shut down this week - no electricity, no lines running. I will be reporting to an equipment vendor on Wednesday of this week so we'll be working, just not at a P&G site.

We did some sight-seeing in the afternoon after having lunch in a Taiwanese restaurant. The food was delicious and relatively cheap. We took a taxi to downtown Guangzhou and went to the Watch Market. This picture doesn't do it justice. In a shopping area the size of a typical Walgreens, there were at least 100 vendors who each owned 3 square feet of display space, with hundreds of watches on display. All are cheap imitation watches, to be purchased for $10 to $20 (100-250 RMB) depending on the negotiation skills of buyer and seller. We saw brands like Gucci, Bulgari, Louis Vitton, even SK-II... (???)
After some more walking and exploring around the international part of Guangzhou, we decided to get a foot massage. Two of my coworkers have been raving about them. For $5-10, you can get a 1-hour foot massage! The place we chose had a room for all 4 of us so we could sit together. They served us tea and watermelon slices. The foot massage included leg, shoulder and back rubs too.
The sun started to set around 6:30, so we went back to our hotel and had dinner at a traditional Japanese restaurant. Here's a picture of us seated barefoot at a table. Tanaka-san is behind Ryan, and Kazu is behind me. You can see the Kirin beer and sake rice wine cups next to the hot tea cups. Once our stomachs were full, the jet lag hit us in full force so we retired for the evening (8pm).

I have been warned repeatedly by coworkers and other travelers not to drink the water while I'm here. We politely declined the ice-filled glasses that are delivered with cola products and water. However, nothing is as much of a warning as the sign on the bathroom sink in my 5-star western style hotel:
Keep your fingers crossed that we can continue to eat the way we did today!! So far the only travel mishaps have been shooting green pyrotechnics out of my hair dryer this morning, and coming back from the swimming pool to find the maids cleaning my room. The trip hsa been incredibly smooth. Ryan is a great travel companion, too. He's both adventurous and relaxed, which balances out my cautious trepidation! Hope all is well back home!