[Guangzhou 2016] Part One: A One Man Travel Diary Plus Tips on Getting Around

Image courtesy of Pinterest

I didn't expect to see myself traveling to China so soon again. And by soon, I meant one year later. The only difference is that this time, I'm traveling alone.

I had originally planned to travel to Japan in October, but who would have known that the travel agency would jack up the prices on hotel rooms just because I was traveling by myself. I was pissed because I was not willing to pay an extra 400 USD (and still not willing too). Then I said to myself, "You know what? I have time off from work since my manager is cool with it, I'm gonna take a one month vacation and leave for China instead." I was being serious when I first proposed the idea to my mom. She was surprisingly ok with it. Maybe it's because I went back alone five years ago and I turned out ok. Her whole take was that I was old enough to do things on my own and that there are many things to learn just from traveling alone.

And there I was on the plane a month later after I told my mom to Guangzhou. I didn't have the same giddiness I felt when I was a child, but I was happy to leave home and work behind for a month. I was well prepared due to my years of travel experience and nothing went wrong on my end. As usual, I flew with China Southern Airlines because they provide me a good price (About 670 USD). The only thing that really went bad for me was the extreme turbulence. I'm thinking it's because of the weather because during that month we had frequent storms and typhoon warnings. But seriously, that turbulence was very frequent.

I slept through most of my trip with my headphones. Before I left, I had converted Kaoru's radio program into mp3 files to put into my phone. That turned out to be the best idea because it kept me more preoccupied with sleep and less on the airsickness. Seats in the economy section are always smaller and I keep forgetting that I have little space. I spent a good portion of my time sleeping and trying to hypnotize myself to pass the 15 hours. My flight was late in fact and that would prove to be small beans later on. By the time I had reached Baiyun Airport, it afternoon the next day. Back home in New York, temperatures were cooler, but it felt warmer in Guangzhou. I took off the coat I had on and waited on line.

The line and wait to customs was extremely long. I'm guessing an abundance of passengers from all over the world had congested at this hour. Before even reached customs, I was waiting half an hour possibly in the hallways. Then when the line moved and I had finally made it to the customs line, oh god there was even more waiting. Another 45 minutes I suppose. Add a few more minutes of having the inspector stamp my passport, I made my way past the gates to the luggage. After retrieving my luggage I finally enter the hall to see my grandparents waiting for me.

Except there was no grandparents.

I inserted my sim card into my phone and found some unknown calls. Finally someone picked up and it was my grandfather. What a farce. It seems they had waited for over an hour and saw that I didn't appear. They assumed I went "home" and decided to head home as well. *cue laughter* Hell I was pissed, but what could I do. I was told to take a cab, but I was unfamiliar with the whole cab thing at the airport. Over there I know certain drivers will not drive to certain locations. So I took a gamble and decided to take the train. There I was 50 minutes standing on an extremely crowded train with a rolling luggage case finally going home.

Here are some tips I recommend keeping in mind when traveling in Guangzhou. Before you even board your flight to Guangzhou, download the Guangzhou Metro app onto your phone. Unfortunately as of now, they are stuck with Chinese only. If you know how to read Chinese, this app will prove to be very useful as it calculates time to get to your destination, determines a preferred route to your destination, and the fare to be used. It comes with a map obviously where you can tap on the station name and learn about things nearby like what bus stations are located there or what mall it is connected to. The app also works offline. You can download it from the Google Play Store for free over here.

Another app to download is Baidu Maps. You won't be able to use Google Maps over in the mainland, but Baidu Maps is quite literally the same thing only it's in Chinese. I don't know how, but sometimes I was able to set it in English. Either way, it works the same way as Google Maps and you won't get lost without it. 

Once you arrive at Baiyun International Airport, you have the choice of taking the train or calling a cab. I have also taken the bus before to connect to other places, but that will prove difficult for non-Chinese speakers. For that I highly recommend taking the train. The airport is connected directly to the train station, the station name being Airport South (机场南) on Line 3. There's a map present in the station with both English and Chinese station names. You can purchase your tickets at a kiosk where you can select instructions in English. Just don't insert large bills into the machine. Stick with 10 RMB at maximum. Your ticket will come in the form of a plastic coin where you will insert it at the entrance. Just letting you guys know, they announce upcoming stops on the train in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin. There is also English plastered on the trains themselves.

This is the Yangchengtong I carried.

If you are able to obtain a Yangchengtong (羊城通) during your stay, go for it. It'll make public transit a whole lot convenient. You can refill your transit pass in 7-Eleven Stores and in some of the stations. As long as you recognize the logo, you will be avle to refill the card. Hell, I was able to recharge my Yangchengtong at a bakery.

Not everyplace has wifi so you'll need to purchase a sim card like I have. With a sim card, you have the choice of running on a data plan or pay for internet day by day. There is a booth at the airport where you can get that processed. There's only two companies to pick from, China Mobile (中国移动) and China Unicom (中国联通). I went with China Unicom because my grandparents had already prepared me a sim card beforehand for me. If you are purchasing a prepaid sim card, then you don't have to worry about which company to choose from.

As most of us know, many websites are inaccessible once you are in the People's Republic of China. This proved to me a problem when I can't use more than half the apps I installed on my phone. That meant no Pokemon Go for a month. Tumblr which surprisingly worked in 2015 for me was now blocked for me in 2016. The biggest surprise to me was that Pinterest actually works. If you have a private VPN, use that to access the sites you want to access. If you don't have one like me, find other ways. In my case, I didn't care too much about losing access to apps because I flew across the sea to travel, not look on my phone.

I get much of my entertainment news from Tumblr so instead of Tumblr, I made a Weibo account to access Weibo. Think of it like Twitter. You navigate posts through tags. If you need to carry around huge files, but don't want to bring a physical hard drive with you, download Weiyun on your phone. Weiyun gives 1TB of free storage. In order to have a Weiyun account, open yourself a QQ account. Both Weiyun and QQ are free. This is an old article giving steps on how to set up an account. Need to keep in contact with family and friends? Download Wechat on your phone. It's free and easy to use.

These are my tips for a more convenient travel that I picked up on the way. In my future posts, I will show you all where to eat and have fun. You can read the 22 posts about my 2015 trip over here. Otherwise, see in the next reading.