I was bored when I got the invitation to go to China, so I had no problem starting to look for a trip. I soon found Turkish Airlines, who recently did a re-design of their long haul aircrafts. Introducing a new premium economy cabin seem to have shaken up the price strategy so tickets were quite cheap even though I was buying only 2 weeks ahead of travel date. The frequent flyer miles of this trip would also put me over the top on Star Alliance, making me Gold. That can come in very handy later this year, as I believe I will fly some trips on Air New Zealand. All signs pointing to Yes, as a magic eight-ball would have read!
The travel report is onflyertalk (the place where you can find people even more insane about flying than I am), and I will just post some photos and notes here.
As my schedule has become more busy than before and as my vacation days seems to melt away faster than the ice of a great G&T, this trip is filed under ”Weekend travel”. It is somewhat true, leaving home on thursday and returning on a tuesday morning, yielded me a three day weekend in China. Some say insane, I say one of the better trips lately. OK, I had someone on the inside to help planning. But still, trips with short time on the destination helps you to cherish the moments and keep the number of G&Ts healthy low.
The lounge in Istanbul is really cool and my 6 hours wait was very comfortable. Pianobar, a masseur on call, several food and drink stations… On the cheese table there was a great selection and some very lovely olives. For the goat cheese there was honey ”straight from the bees nest”:
Well, on to the middle kingdom (中国).
Arriving on friday evening we just settled in and went for food. Food is very important here (as in Taiwan) so we ordered a ton of food and ate what we could.
Saturday we decided to go to Baomo gardens, which is located to the south of GuangZhou. Programming the GPS and off we went. Now, even GPS doesn’t make a car trip simple here, maps get very quickly outdated. But we finally arrived at the gardens which were spectacular. Here are a few pictures, but pics can’t tell the whole story.
This is right after the entrance, and we got involved in picture taking right away. Asians do take a lot of snapshots, you know pictures where you place people in front of the thing you are visiting. Most people’s albums are filled with ”this is me in front of…”-pictures. And you always ask a stranger to take such pictures. So when we are helping the three people on the bridge with their snapshots, it turns out that one in the gang is Japanese. I great him, which the chinese friends think is very cool but the japanese guy is a little shy. Of course we get a lot of snapshots taken in return. Everyone happy!
Carved in stone!
The next one is a classic: The girlfriend snapshot. The caring boyfriend is helping her look the best before the shot!
Well, it is not showing in the pictures, but it is 35°. Perfect day to walk below the trees!
Well, I guess it is a cross between a Bonsai and a ”Buxbom” (boxwood?)
OK, I will never again complain about clothes that don’t fit. This guy is in big trouble… Lucky he doesn’t seem to have too much to do.
