February 22nd
Day trip to Guangzhou. I left bright and early, heading to the Shenzhen North Station to catch the bullet train. I’ve really come to appreciate the metro system here—it’s fast and easy to navigate. Even though I was a bit flustered, not knowing what to expect with the bullet train system and unsure of where to go in such a massive station, it turned out to be a lot simpler than I thought.
I had a bit of a hiccup with check-in since I don’t have my passport yet while I wait for my residence permit, but it was easy enough to work out. Once I got my ticket, I found my spot on the fancy train, and the ride to Guangzhou was smooth and quick—just 35 minutes.
Once I arrived, I had to hop on the metro again. I was ready to panic about needing a new metro pass for the city, but before I even had a moment to worry my Alipay app notified me that my new pass for Guangzhou was just a click away. Easier than I could’ve even imagined!
When I finally got to my stop, I emerged into a small underground mall right by the metro. This is where I met up with Jen, one of the women from the teaching agency who invited me to visit for the day. We did a little shopping in the mall—I grabbed a couple of shirts for teaching—and by then, we were both starving.
Jen took me to a Buddhist temple nearby, which was not only a stunning sight but also had a vegetarian restaurant. The atmosphere was bustling with the smell of incense and people chatting in Cantonese. We ordered a shiitake mushroom stir-fry and lotus root stuffed with taro, which came sliced up and looked a little like sausage… though it was all root veggies. The food was absolutely delicious, and we made sure to finish every last bite, soaking up even the last bits of sauce with our rice.
Afterward, we wandered around the nearby shopping district for a bit, talking about life and everything in between, before I caught my train back home.
