Canton Fair - Apr 2024 - Day 1
I was travelling to China after 4 years and this was the first time I am travelling to China post Covid. My flight was from Gatwick. It was a 11:30 flight to Shanghai and then I had to take a connecting flight to Guangzhou.
Deepika kindly offered to drop me off at the airport. Niki and Jarvis also came along in the car. Nimi has gone to school as her school reopened today after the Easter break. I said goodbye to the family at the airport and went to checkin. It was fairly simple and there was not much crowd unlike the Marrakech airport where Niki and I had to run for most of the time and managed to board just in time, before the boarding closed.
The flight was fairly less filled. I had empty seats next to me and I slept most of the flight as there was nothing good on the inflight entertainment. In was flying China Eastern. The seats and service was good though.
It was a 11 hour flight to Shanghai. I got off the airplane and I had to go through the entire check out process, right through customs and then check back in through security to get to my connecting flight. I was glad that I had 4 hours connecting time as that gave me enough time to buy a SIM card at the airport and also withdraw some cash. I paid 200RMB for a 20GB 10 days plan, which I later found out to be outrageously pricey. (At the fair they were selling 50 GB SIM cards for 60RMB)
I then boarded the second flight to Guangzhou. The Guangzhou airport was less than impressive. For such a big city I thought the airport will have more services. Anyways, I figured out that with the SIM card I could use AliPay, so I set it up and that was such a life saver. I figured out that I could use their taxi service (DiDi) within the app. So I hailed a taxi for the hotel. It was the easy part, the hard part was to find the place where they come to pick up, as there was a designated pickup place at the airport. I had to walk a lot before I finally figured out where it was, the airport was about 1km long and I walked its length a couple of times. The pick up was from Parking 3 block, which was inside the airport.
I got into the car and the car ride was about 40 mins to my hotel. It cost me about 60RBM. I checked into the hotel and by the time I was fresh, it was late afternoon. I decided not to let the day go waste and decided to take a taxi to the Canton fair and get my badge.
The taxi fare was only 45RMB but took almost an hour to get there. I reached there at about 5PM and it was the closing time. I somehow asked my way around to the registration office and although the counters were closed, they were kind enough to print my card and even verify that it was activated and everything was working.
I was happy that I was able to do some work today and save some time from tomorrow. I then wanted to come back to the hotel and booked a taxi, but the waiting time was more than 1 hour. I decided to roam around for a bit and then try again. But still the waiting time was over an hour and even if I chose the pricer option for the cab, it was futile. I sat down and decided to try the metro.
So I planned my route using the Fair guide, which had the tube map and off I went to the station. Once again, AliPay was such a help. I could make payments everywhere, and so I bought the tickets. It cost me only 6RMB!
The problem was I did not know the correct tube station, which was closest to my hotel. So I got off at a station which was a fair bit away. I walked a lot in the evening to finally reach my hotel. I did walk past a few shops and find some local markets selling fruits and also figured some good places to eat along the way.
The weather was very warm, it was around 30 degrees most of the time. On reaching the hotel, I was not very tired or sleepy, so I talked back home and then after a while I took a shower and then went off to bed.
P.S. There was a direct train from the airport to my hotel, which would have made my life a lot easier. Again if I had done a bit more research it would have saved a lot of time. Using the train is a much better option in Guangzhou. I saw people with travel cards as well, which I never bought, but that is something that can be a good option as well, if Alipay does not work.
