Shanghai & Guangdong

Here is a quick summary of the first week or so of our stay in China. We first spent a couple of days in Shanghai. I bought some books, we delivered some tuxedo vest samples to a business associate of my friend's aunt, and we had excellent Shanghainese food in the company of Beijing (in this case, a person, not to be confused with the city), Gina's friend from Knoxville:



We then flew to Guangzhou and spent a night there in order to have the time to see a few of Gina's old friends from her time working in the textile factory:



Gina also got a fashionable new Japanese-style haircut:



The next day we went by bus to Dongguan (about an hour away) to see the family (Gina's three older sisters). Here are some photos (first one taken at Second Sister's factory and the second one taken at Starbucks):





Finally, before leaving Guangdong for Jiangxi Province, I had the immense pleasure of eating durian on two occasions, including this one:



Besides eating durian, the other mission I was on while in Guangdong was to drink plenty of Hong Kong style milk tea. Unfortunately, I failed on this mission because none of the family/friends like Cantonese food, so we never went to the right restaurants (plus, it seems that Hong Kong style milk tea is far more popular in Hong Kong than across the border).

On June 4, we took an overnight train from Dongguan to Ji'an (arriving around 5 am) to spend 8 days with Gina's parents. I'll write more on this later...