China Romance
All About China => Your trip to China => Topic started by: Irishman on September 03, 2010, 02:16:03 pm
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It's been a long journey, I have been to the sun and back to the earth and all places in between.
But in life anything worth having doesn't come easily. I met my qin ai de, my honeybun, the love of my life on my third trip to China.
I fly out on Thursday to meet destiny, to marry the woman that has touched my heart. I can scarcely believe it, she is my love, my everything and she is going to marry me :)
I arrive next Friday in Guangzhou East Railway Station into her waiting arms. We will get our red books in Wuhan which is her home province then on September 24th we will get properly married in a wonderful cathedral in Guangzhou. Hopefully a great bunch of the bro's ( Chong, Paul, Ted, Willy) and their wives will be there to celebrate with us as well as my dad and my older sister :) I am really looking forward to meeting you guys, it rocks that you will be there:) Paul/Willy, is there any UK food or stuff you want me to bring you over?, Ireland has pretty much the exact same stuff you guys have - let me know.
I work Sunday through Wednesday so tomorrow is packing day as am on the late shift next week, i have a crazy amount of stuff to do, as well as collect a big secret thing for my laopo (honeybun - you will have to wait to see what that is!).
Those of you bros that have been here from the start will appreciate what a journey this has been for me, without you guys I would not be here today, thank you all, you know who you are.
This post will include pictures of loud shirts in days to come :o ;D
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looking forward to seeing you again in China. have a safe trip here.
loud shirts? who will have loud shirts? ::) ::)
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Me and a handful of other's .. been through your Journey and received a few grey hairs along the way . You also have put a smile on my Face .. enjoying your happiness with you .
Can't wait for update and photo's .
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As always have a safe trip Ronan , and we will be awaiting your updates with antisapation , Sujuan and Robert .
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Best wishes to you and Sunny.May this marraige bring you all the joy and happiness.That you have ben looking for.
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Its about friggin time. Haha
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Good one ronan, hope you two will be blessed with many little leprecauns (hehehe) :D :D
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I fly out on Thursday to meet destiny, to marry the woman that has touched my heart. I can scarcely believe it, she is my love, my everything and she is going to marry me :)
Steady on Irishman I thought you was marrying Sunny. Just who is this Destiny woman?
Willy
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she is the translator
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We must keep an eye on him so he doesn't marry the wrong woman... ;D
All the best from me and Tina
Peter
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Paul or Chong can do that at the wedding i got my hands full keeping Willy in tow lol!!!!
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Thanks guys, I'm in a very high state of excitement right now, this week is going to be the longest ever, probably not going to be my most productive in work either :)
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Darn ! I would like to be there but I am going to be about a week late. Congratulations and best wishes for a long and happy life together.
Gerry
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just call in sick or tell your boss you need a few extra days off lol
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Ronan,
Safe trip over there. I wish you and Sunny all the best. I will be looking forward to your pictures. ;)
Dave C
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Well I am back in China now, writing from Wuhan where the air is so polluted you could stir it with a stick today, but more on first Wuhan impressions later.
My flight to China took a bit longer than expected. The first flight to Paris was uneventful but the connecting flight from Paris to Hong Kong was a nightmare.
We all got on the plane and after about 45 minutes sitting there , the cabin getting hotter and hotter in the sweltering sunshine with the aircon not working for some reason.. the pilot told us all there was some kind of technical fault and the engineers were working to isolate it. They expected to take about an hour.
An hour later they had found the problem and were replacing whatever the part was...an hour later we were told they were running some tests which is why the aircon wasn't working and apologies for the heat...the cabin must been near 40C by then. The cabin staff were great though with free drinks. Another hour later they announced that the problem was fixed but due to French air regulations they now had to change the cabin crew...and about 2 minutes later or over fours delayed sitting on the tarmac we took off...
On a 12 hour flight the last thing you want is an extra 4+ hours added to it, I was hot , sweaty and had a very sore bum by the time the plane landed. To make matters worse, i had arranged to meet Sunny in Guangzhou East railway Station after the intercity train n from HK arrived around 11:30, but now i was still in the air .. I knew she would be full of excitement an happiness waiting for me to arrive and now i wouldn't be there, i couldn't tell her why and she would be worried and upset and i was powerless to do anything about it!
As son a sI got through immigration in HK airport i found a payphone but the damn thing was incomprehensible to use, regular international numbers didn't work, they wanted to add extra number in front of the international one, numbers for areas codes in-between, in the end i just decided that this was wasting further time so got the Airport Express the HK metro then went to Hung Hom station. There I got a phone sim card in a 7 -eleven and called Sunny. Naturally she was very relieved to know all was fine and I told her when I would be arriving there. She decided to rest in the hotel she had booked for us and come back to the train station later.
The train was fine and she was there to greet me at the other end, truly wonderful, I could scarcely believe it was six months since we were together.
We had planned to open an account with Bank Of China to deposit all the money i brought across ad it was quite a lot but now the banks were closed, so that meant we could buy the engagement ring either which was a bit of a setback.
Anyhow, we went to the hotel which is a kind of apartment hotel and it was simly wonderful, super clean and comfortable and spacious and at 230 RMB a night super value. We then had a nice meal and settled in for the night.
The next day, Saturday was full on.. I was still pretty jet lagged but we had things to do!
We opened a bank account with no problems but apparently in the weekend they would only accept a certain amount of foreign currency per customer which wasn't enough for the ring, so we put half into my account and half into Sunny's account and she then transferred that into mine, job done! :)
Two of my notes had a number hand written on them in small characters and they wouldn't accept these! I got these from an Irish bank in the first place but they were having none of it!
After that we went for lunch and then to choose some dresses for the wedding pictures on Sunday. I was severely suffering jet lag still and kept nodding off whilst Sunny tried dresses, I wanted to be more helpful but really all i wanted to do was get some sleep.
After that I suggested we go for an afternoon nap as it was pretty hot and I was very tired. Sunny agreed and we went back to he hotel and sleep for a couple of hours.
Her mother then rang her and suggested that we come to her parents apartment for dinner. We did that and had a rather delicious meal. I had a nap while mother was cooking dinner which Sunny reassured me was perfectly fine to do in Chinese culture, I really appreciated it as the delicious smells of mothers cooking wafted through the air.
The cooking as usual was brilliant and even though I didn't understand the conversation everyone seemed happy and mother even joked that my belly was like fathers now too..i didn't need to understand the Chinese to understand the gestures, much hilarity ensued!
We then headed off back to the apartment and just relaxed for a little and then went to bed happy and content together.
Sunday we had an early start..it was the all important photo change. Because of the system at weekend (even number licence plates can drive on some days during peak hours and odd vice versa), we had to arrive early as the photo studios number was not supposed to travel during peak time so we got there at 07:30
They took us and two other couples (one of which were Sunnys friends - we got some kind of special price as they both booked with the same agency).
They took us to the outskirts of the city to this place that was totally bizarre, some the guys here will have been to similar places. It was a big plush building with kind of stage sets all around outside, kind of mock Tudor buildings, train stations, forbidden palace all kinds of weird and wacky things, there were buildings with special stage sets - winter , forests, forbidden palace, sandy beach. Inside was incredibly plush with three floors of booths and hundreds of brides and grooms dressed up in full wedding regalia, both old and new style, some even military from wthat i can see. It is truly bizarre to be tripping over brides and grooms everywhere with cameramen taking pictures EVERYWHERE, it was surreal to say the least. Sunny and I went though five different costume changes. I got make-up done and patched up in between costume changes and she had her hair and makeup completely redone each time and looked absolutely stunning. It was a long process and quite tiring, I really didnt know how to act, i found standing in front of the camera in hundreds of different poses strange and a bit uncomfortable but it made sunny happy so i'd do it again any time if needed. The pictures will be interesting to say the least!
After the pictures we went back to her apartment and cleaned of the layers of make-up on our faces and then went out engagement ring shopping. Sunny found a lovely ring and she was delighted. We had agreed that I would propose to her romantically before she would wear it.
However the flight delays had scuppered my original plans for that. As luck would have it , at 8PM in Panyu Square there is a nice water fountain display to music every night which is really nice and good fun, its also the same square that Sunny and I shared our first kiss...
So i led there to that spot and to the sound of water fountains and music i got down on one knee and proposed and she said yes and we had a lovely walk around the square together, her admiring her ring all the time.
This morning we got up early and flew to Wuhan, it was Sunny's first flight and she quite enjoyed the experience I think, i made sure she got a window seat.
Landing in Wuhan I am very struck by the amount of new building going on here, every skyscraper here seems to be new, it is like Guangzhou except even more so ALL the skyscrapers here are being built now where as in GZ its pretty developed already. The pollution in Wuhan seems to be really bad. There is flooding all around the city as could be seen from the aeroplane on final approach so you would expect there to be little dustiness, but every thing here is dusty and filthy dirty. The Mercedes car lot we passed has maybe a hundred cards ageing a year a day by the looks of things, they were covered in a brown layer of dirt and muck.
The air is very smoggy and has a tang of building cement to it, the roads are jammed with buses and motorbikes. This no holiday destination for sure.
However it is the city we are getting married in so i think its going to be a place i have warm affections for :)
Once settled in to the hotel we went out for lunch and ate at a Wuhan restaurant some stuff I've never seen before but as usual was delicious. Sunny even asked the chef to show me one of the vegetables as she wasn't sure i understood what she was describing. The chef laughed and brought out some kind of root vegetable, it was green inside and had a kind of turnip but not turnip flavour, hard to describe!.
After that we went for a nap in the hotel and then went to meet some of Sunny's university friends which she hasn't seen in a couple of years since moving to Guangzhou. They were all delighted to see her and we all went to the local town where her University was and had a lovely meal together. After wards we went for a walk around the campus and Sunny showed me where they studied and where her dorm room was. All the time the air was warm and pulsing with the sound of crickets whilst a distant thunderstorm flickered in the sky and grumbled in the distance.
We got a taxi bact to the city centre afterwards dropping of Sunny's friends on route.
That distant thunderstorm got closer and closer, and by the time we got back to the hotel it was right overheat and utterly bucketing down, the taxi driver felt it just fine to drive without the wipers going on full, it wasn't until the street ahead was a milky blur that he deemed it necessary to put on the wipers properly! We dashed onside the hotel and went to bed, a great ending to a dramatic day.
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Welcome back to China buddy! I am envious of you, but very happy for you at the same time! When you get back, you need to explain to me, in very clear detail, the whole train from Hong Kong part. I want to get on the train in HK sometime, and travel to Hunan without stopping at that insane train station in Guangzhou.
Sunny must be absolutely thrilled to be with you once again. Give her my best wishes as well. I look forward to the updates. Great details in this update!
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Happy days indeed ;D
It sounds like she's keeping you pretty busy! Great update and see you next week!
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Hey Irish,
Does it look like this? If it is, it's most likely daikon radish...in cantonese it's called lor-bac (or something similar)... When you go for dimsum, it's shredded and fried into a cake...
Great story....can't wait for the rest of it. :)
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HAHAHA ... Yeah, did that photo session just like you. Except, we only did the wedding dress shots at the complex ... then we headed back to the air-con studio to do the rest. Will you have the photos ready for your banquet ?
Like Paul wrote, looking forward to seeing Sunny and you on the 24th.
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sounds like your typical chani visit enjoyable, memorable but very hectic looking forward to the wedding
and seeing everyone
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Irishman glad to hear.You made it and everything worked out in the end.Best wishes to you and Sunny.
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Boy Irish , we need a direct feed via Satellite of your weeding beamed right into our Forum . You're the Tech Guy .. do it !!
Reading your happy Story is great fun , but seeing it is better .
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Thanks guys :)
This morning has already been fun.
After getting up we went to a local noodle place and had two different styles of noodles that were made fresh from dough in front of us - pretty cool.
We are getting married in the official marriage office tomorrow so went there after breakfast to confirm what we need to bring. Seems pretty straightforward, only thing needed is photos of us together in a red background which we will get done later today.
Afterwards we met up with a couple of Sunny's friends and came back to the hotel room where I'm typing from now. They seem to be having a mini fashion show, Sunny got dressed up in a qipao one of them bought for her as a gift and got her hair done and posed for photos, all very girlish and fun.
We are meeting Sunny's father later today at the bus station and getting him set up in the hotel here for tonight. He had gone to her home town yesterday to start arranging her passport application , apparently this is a rather drawn out affair in a rural area. He will come with us to the marriage place tomorrow and then go back to Guangzhou by bus , we will be staying on here to continue with the passport application process and will be returning to Guangzhou on the 20th.
Tomorrow I will be a married man !:)
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Tomorrow I will be a married Man .
This sentence is always sooo welcome here . May Sunny never let you regret those words . Congrat's from Qing and myself even more so .
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Sorry mate just caught up with your thread, Mine and Sophies heartfelt congratulations...
Glad to hear you made it back..God that flight must have been a nightmare!!!!
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Wishing you both the best-congratulations to the both of you-so cool
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Irishman...for those of us that have followed your adventures from back at the facebook forum, this is great to see how things have finally come together in such a great way for you. The only thing you haven't mentioned yet, which is something you have mentioned on every other trip log that you made...have you gotten your Chinese fix of Snow Beer? haha
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While reading Martin's post I was having flashbacks... The Irish adventures have come a long way. Congrats to you both. Wishing you all the best.
"Another one bites the dusta".
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Congratulations to the two of you! I am wishing you two the best of luck. Glad to see you made it there ok Irishman. Enjoy your day tomorrow and take some pictures to post here for us.
Dave C
ps.
What is this about "snow beer"? ???
Dave C
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Congrats! And what a lovely story to read as well :)
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Thanks guys, getting super excited now.
Sunny is getting ready in the bathroom, the marriage place opens in about an hour and we plan on being there.
Her father called to the door about 20 minutes and ordered us up, and sent Sunny a text message stating the same! It was quite funny, no sooner had he gone from the hotel door than her alarm went off anyhow :)
There was some fun and games related to the photos yesterday and a little trip during the evening, more on that later. This trip is just jam packed full of mini adventures.
After we get married the plan is ( I think) that we have a meal with her father and then he gets the bus back to Guangzhou and then we go to her hometown to continue the passport application process. I'm very much looking forward to seeing her hometown.
More updates later :)
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8) thats for you .. look cool
:'( thats for me .. I always cry at Weddings , including mine .
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8) thats for you .. look cool
:'( thats for me .. I always cry at Weddings , including mine .
arnold...ya big softie...hahahaha :D :D
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Real happy for you Ronan.
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Muirdach...you must be a married man now. Congratulations! I know you are having a blast. Good on you.
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You know you could have set up a webcam? That way we could have all been there Mr Tech guy.
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Congratulations Sunny & Irish !!!
As others have wrote, you have come a long way since our FaceBook days. We're glad that you've found the love of your life. Sunny and I will be very happy to attend the Sunny and Irish wedding banquet ... I think a few guys are confused about now ... hehehe.
I guess with all that's going on right now, we won't be able to run our planned marathon in China, eh ? We were supposed to do it the first time we meet in China. I have an idea ... we can chase the Sunnies for 42.2.
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Irishman congratulation and best wishes to you and the lovely Sunny..May this journey that you are leaving on be every thing you hoped and dreamed about.
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Irish , please check my Blog .. as you deserved a special post just for you buddy .
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See!!!! >:( There he goes again. :o He is doing his disappearing act. ::) Wonder how long he will be gone this time? ;D
Congratulations Ronan!!!!! ;D
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Ronan , CONGRATULATIONS to you and your new boss Sunny , may the light of 20 thousand Suns and moons shine brightly upon the 2 of you , regards Sujuan and Robert .
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he is busy studying the new set of procedures that will now overceed the previous ones.
he will be back in a few days 8) 8)
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Congratulations to the both of you!!! ;D ;D ;D
* Note to moderators* I understand he is the Tech guy-but as his friends-shouldn't you ban him from the site for a few days?? ;)
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* Note to moderators* I understand he is the Tech guy-but as his friends-shouldn't you ban him from the site for a few days?? ;)
For not running a Webcam of the Guangzhou Wedding , we will for certain ban him .
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Serious and heartfelt congratulations to the both of you. May your well never run dry... ;D
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Arnold relax the wedding hasnt happened yet. they just got their red books in her city
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Arnold relax the wedding hasnt happened yet. they just got their red books in her city
Ted , I know that .. that is why I said Guangzhou Wedding .
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Sorry Arnold that was meant for James i dont think he was aware the wedding hasnt happened yet
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Sorry Arnold that was meant for James i dont think he was aware the wedding hasnt happened yet
Ted's right Arnold!! Dang James always trying to put the cart before the horse. You'd think by now horses could just push that cart!!
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Congratulations and best wishes for both of you, Sunny & Ronan :)
I hope we'll be able to see some photos soon and more things to read about your wedding :)
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Thanks guys , I want to keep this updated pretty much as a diary as much as to keep you guys in the lop. I don't want to forget any part of this wonderful trip.
As my posts tend to be long I'll keep this day by day from here on.
Next update will be for Tuesday 14th September, the day before the wedding
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Tuesday 14th September
Sunny is taking a nap now, its been a crazy day..more on that later.., so I'll catch up a little here.
OK so the last full update was the mini fashion show with friends in Wuhan while we waited for Sunny's father to arrive on the bus
I asked Sunny if she had booked the room for her father yet, she said no, then I said what if there are none available?....
So she runs of to the hotel reception in a fluster, she came back a little while later, apparently they will only let you book the one room per ID card.. Luckily her friends were with us so she borrowed one of theirs and went down to book the room. Now naturally here, the best laid plans never survive the first encounter as someone famous once said. She left her mobile in the hotel room and it rang when she was in reception.Her friends answered it and said it was her father saying his bus was arriving soon...
She eventually arrived back in the room and her friends told her that her father called, cue mad dash to get a taxi. Anyone who has ever been to the Wuchang District in Wuhan will know that rushing and the traffic there is a bad mixture - if ever an area chronically needed a proper underground public transport system it's Wuchang . The roads are utterly chaotic, the traffic lights have barely any meaning, and motorbikes go wherever they like. Honestly, I thought I had seen it all in China traffic wise, but Wuchang District raised the bar a few significant notches higher. Even Sunny says she is a bit scared of crossing the road there and that is saying something.
Anyhow, several close encounters with horrific death later, some lovely lungfuls of hot brown exhaust fumes straight from the rear end of several buses narrowly barrelling close by, we got a taxi. Of course her father called her, texted her and called her again en route, he had arrived and we were not there.
We arrived and picked him up and booked him into his room a few doors down from us, i think the sight of Sunny and her two bubbly girlfriends cheered him up and all was well with the world.
After we got him settled in his room we went fo lunch together, Sunny and I had been to an innocuous restaurant that looked very basic but wow, the food was mind blowingly good, and i don't say that lightly, it really was good, even by Chinese standards. Everyone dug in and all the dishes were cleared with gusto. Stomachs full and content it was decided why not get married this afternoon?!...
But the documents were in the hotel room and we needed to get our wedding photos taken still, and Sunny wanted to have her face make-up done for the photos.. Now its mid afternoon at this point and I'm think no way are we gonna make it before closing but try stopping a bunch of determined Chinese ladies ad you know you might as well try stop the earth turning by thought alone..
We found a place that did her makeup and took the pictures. This took about an hour or so and it was around 16:10 or so i think and the wedding office closed around 17:00 ..we were not going to make it (even if we had several hours left looking back it still wouldn't have been enough..more on that later).
Her friends and her father eventually arrived at the photo place with the papers and she told them that she didn't think we had enough time and we would do it as planned instead the next day.
Sunny's father had some other business to attend to in Wuhan that evening so he headed off his own way.
The girls decided that a trip to the Jiang'an district in Wuhan would be a nice evening trip. The best way to get there is by ferry across the Yangtze River. This costs 1.5 RMB early on rising to 5RMB for the later crossings. So super cheap. It was very nice had some great views.
Up until now my impressions of Wuhan had been pretty much - what a totally overcrowded, underserviced, polluted dump of a place! However Jiang'an was a total transformation. The pavements were walkable (not completely in bits with rubble, rubbish, open sewerage flowing etc etc like in Wuchang District), the traffic pretty much obeyed the rules of the road, and there was far far less litter and disgusting things on the pavement. There was nice clean shopfronts, decent pedestrian walkways, pretty much a decent modern city.Again huge skyscrapers were in mid construction in any direction you looked.
This part of the city has many old colonial buildings (built by the British I think?) that were impressive and obviously well built. I had my first taste of a Wuhan local food "hot dry noodles" which I'm glad i can say i ticked it off the list of things to do in Wuhan..lets just say I'd need to be hungry before eating those again.
We then went to down to the river shore and just sat there and chatted for a while. At one point a red Chinese lantern floated overhead. I said to Sunny is it let off to go in a certain direction or?..she just said it goes where it wants to go! I watched the lantern until the flame died out and it fell from the sky, hopefully not landing on someone's head!
I think i was still not fully adjusted to the time change and was utterly utterly exhausted at this stage and really just wanted to crash out. Eventually the girls decided it was time to venture back. Sunny hadn't seen these friends in a couple of years and one of them was staying in this area so there was tearful scenes as she went her way.
We got the boat back to Wuchang District, narrowly avoided death a few times navigating the traffic and motorcycles on the pavements on the way back to the hotel where i totally crashed out on the bed.
The next day we got married..
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Great update, can't wait for the next one! Congratulations from Ming zhi and myself to you both. May you have many happy years together :D
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You always tell your stories well Irishman. Sounds like you are having a great trip. Hopefully you adjust to the time soon. Looking forward to the next update.
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he is busy studying the new set of procedures that will now overceed the previous ones.
he will be back in a few days 8) 8)
Ted,
Are you saying that they give you a users manual when you get married? ;)
Dave C
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he is busy studying the new set of procedures that will now overceed the previous ones.
he will be back in a few days 8) 8)
Ted,
Are you saying that they give you a users manual when you get married? ;)
Dave C
I bet every married man wishes they would!
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Ronan,
Great update! I hope that the two of you have wonderful life together.
Dave C
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Ronan,
This is such a great story I enjoy reading it.
Congratulations to you and Sunny!
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Ted,
Are you saying that they give you a users manual when you get married? ;)
Dave C
I bet every married man wishes they would!
Actually ... Yes, they do. We got a set of two; abeit, it's in Chinese.
Congrats Irish. I liked how your last post ended ... "The next day we got married" ... hahahahaha
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Hehe its funny reading this story. Or should I rather say it is nice to read this. Thank you for sharing.
And congrats!
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Wednesday 15th September - Marriage day!
We had decided to get married as early as possible to get every thing done during the dya and hopefully on the bus to Sunny's hometown , Gongan.
Well Sunny's father was staying in a room in the hotel a couple of doors down and started banging on the door at around 7:20 AM with orders to get up. Then Sunny's alarm started ringing having been set for around then anyhow....
We got up, cleaned up and went to a noodle place for breakfast with her father. Fresh cooked noodles for breakfast, champion start to the day!
We then got a bus to the area the marriage office was in and papers in hand we crossed the deadly road and safely made it across with only one or two brushes with death so relatively uneventful by Wuhan standards.
We had been the day before and were pretty confidant that we had all we needed. Sunny even had bought some candies to "spread the happiness" as she put it to sweeten the deal. However..and there always is a however here..it seems that the declaration of availability to marriage had to be translated into Chines..something i had read about before and I had implored the Chinese embassy to certify a translation Sunny had done but they refused... So apparently the marriage office only had one place in Wuhan that was eligible to do the translations.... So we went of there by taxi.
Wuhan is chronically congested and has no proper public transport apart from fume belching single decker buses for the most part - there simply is not enough public transport. So taxis are quite difficult to flag down. It must have taken us about 30 minutes in super hot sweltering conditions to flag one down.
Eventually we got to the translation place and they translated the document and we were on our way back again. By now I was wondering what would be the next obstacle. However when we got back it was all fine, our documentation was fine. Only minor hiccup was the printer wasn't working so they couldn't print out our red books until the red book person got a colleague with a working printer to do it (yes, i had "jebus h" moment).
I had bought a camcorder to record the who affair but alas Sunny's father didn't seem to realise that the picture in the screen was what was recorded - he could see us so the camcorder must i think! - end result was that was mostly a waste of time!
We went into a separate room after we got our red books tightly holding hands and her father took a couple of snaps, one of which is below:-
[attachimg=1]
After we got married t was time to head off to Gongan to get Sunny's passport sorted out (its a rural area and there is quite a song and dance for a girl to get a passport due to people trafficking apparently, which is why Sunny's father was with us to help with the application process, more on that tomorrow..that was one looooong tiring day!).
Sunny's father when ahead to buy the tickets in the bus station and we would met him there after checking out.
Of course that turned into chaos! We ran out of time, checkout took ages as it always does. I look forward to the day I can participate in the planning discussion in Chinese - checkout always take about 10 -15 minutes, not the one or two Sunny seemed to think it would..
Anyhow, cue running for taxis , multiple calls, texts etc from her father..and we got to the bus station. Her father had spoken to the bus driver and asked him to wait for us so as soon as they saw us there was much rushing to get going.
Loved up we headed for Gonan.
Sunny had told me several times before that it was a small little town so I had this mental image of a few houses and chicken runing around with the odd shop. But ..of course this was totally wrong. Gonan is not a town by western standards it a city. I'd estimate its population at around 100,000 minimum judging by the construction and shopping areas.
Bridge over stream in Gognan
[attachimg=2]
This is one very strange city. It is a city of utter extremes. Let me explain.
Car owners seem to be three types 1) Taxi drivers, 2) Construction/business 3) Rich, there is nothing else.
Nearly every single private car on the road seemed to be spanking new and gleaming, there was no beat up old heaps, no 5-10 year old clunkers, all mainly Japanese Toyota and Honda big name brands.
The rest of the populace uses motorbikes, or the horse and cart.
It is a very weird mixture. Clearly, for some, nothing has changed in centuries and for other, its the present day.
This is reflected in the shopping areas also, there is one street with really high end spotless modern shops..then there is the rest. Which are squalid, filthy and strewn with rubbish. The extremely hot temperatures (this place seems to be several degrees hotter than Wuhan, maybe because there is less pollution so the sun is stronger?) don't help matters.
Once we arrived we got checked into a hotel which was pretty cheap - 110 RMB per night for a big room with a nice king bed and internet. The floor had a carpet which was better walked on in shoes but the aircon worked and it was in a great location so no real complaints overall.
Sunny's father went of to stay in another hotel as apparently this one was "too expensive" (since I was paying, the price didn't matter so I assume it was something else, I didn't press it with Sunny)
Gongan may be Sunny's hometown but she is originally from a rural area about an hour away which is why we stayed in the hotel whilst we got the passport stuff sorted, but i digress.
Looking back towards the town centre- yes that massive aerial is plunk in the middle of it. It is extremely hot ans sunny here, the local girls use special uv umbrellas that have a strange glow in the sunlight, but are no good in the rain. They are very pretty though!
[attachimg=3]
Once we were checked into the hotel and freshened up we went to meet up with Sunny's father again and one of her cousins who is married to a Gongan local. We went to their apartment for a short chat and some cool tea and then went to a local restaurant to eat. The food was delicious and it was a pleasant evening with many ganbei's with the husband. I found it quite it quite amusing that the ladies declared that by the time we were on our third 0.5 litre bottle (between us!!) of 2.8% strength beer that we had had enough and were not allowed any more beer!! How is a guy supposed to maintain his waistline? - it took a lot of hard drinking to get it to its current magnificent girth you know.!
They are both factory workers and it was super generous of them to entertain us like this.They had a little kid that was full of energy and curiosity as kids that age are (6 I think) that was adorable and Sunny had great fun trying t get him to say hello uncle to me in Chinese :)
At the end of the evening Sunny gave him a couple of hundred RMB to give to his mother later (it would have covered the meal with a little left over to show our appreciation).
We then headed back to the hotel to settle in for the night. A long and exciting day.
Little did I realise how long the next day would be...
Next day is passport day..stay tuned..that was...different!
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Great story. I am looking forward to the next installment!
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Sounds great now it would be nice to know what time to be at the church Friday???
Or maybe i dont know for obvious reasons >:(
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Oh I have a feeling I know whats coming up in the next instalment. Dealing with Chinese bureaucracy can certainly be time consuming!!!!! ::)
Mike....."Gambai" literally means bottoms up, saying this to a recently married man without a glass in his hand could be taken the wrong way ;D errr that didn't come out the way I meant to say it either ??? Ted,your wife will tell you on Friday morning, when she thinks you need to know ;D Great update Irish keep them coming! ;)
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Another popular saying (at least in Guangdong) is Yam Seng (cantonese)... It means to drink to your success... very commonly heard at weddings by the way.
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Paul she doesnt know either what time it is?? do you know what time??
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Irishman, Can you postpone the wedding ceremony until next week as I think I will be too nackered to travel to GZ on Thursday after arriving back from UK late on Wednesday night. It will be good for Anglo Irish relations.
But then again probably a killer for Chino-Irish relationships!!!!!
Willy
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Thursday 16th - Passport day
Sunny's father had come to Wuhan with us to mainly assist with the passport process in Gongan as it is an arduous process and apparently prohibitively expensive normally (equivalent of several hundred euro so Sunny told me but I'm not so sure, read on).
In a nutshell she need to bring a letter from her boss stating that she was in a full time job, of good character and was full time there. She also had to bring her Hokou and her colleague degree and her various other certification in originals.
So we got up early and got a bus from Gongan to Yangjiachang where the head police station was for the area.
The bus journey there was pretty amazing, all along the roadside small farmers had rice, soybeans, sesame spread out to dry in the hot sun. On the motorway one whole lane was taken up with this! As the roads got narrower and narrower they just spread it out over the whole road and the cars and trucks just drive over it!, rubber and rice, a tasty mixture I am sure. Alongside the road every house seemed to have cotton laid out in front of it to dry also.
Back home in agricultural areas the houses are far apart with fields in between but no here. All the houses were detached ramshackle affairs but all were together. Every land owner seemed to have a small narrow long plot of land behind the house, or that's how it seemed to me. So many houses and no shops. Rural life is different here. The road was extremely narrow and one way. The bigger the vehicle seemed to determine right of way. Potholes were almost deep enough to stand in and I imagine in rain this would be tricky indeed as it would be hard to judge deep from shallow pothole.
Cotton dries alongside the dusty potholed road close to Gongan
[attachimg=1]
Yangjiachang turned out to be what I expected Gongan to be, one long dusty pot holed road with many small shops open to the elements, chickens and sleepy sweaty dogs running around the place free range.
Sunny wasn't hungry but i was so she got me two lovely hot baozi with a kind of herby pork meat filling inside. I wonder if any lao wai had trodden these dusty streets recently before?, everybody seemed to stop and stare was we walked along. We went into a shop to buy a (comparably) expensive brand of Chinese cigarettes to help with the passport process (more later)
As we were walking along Sunny's father, who was waiting for us, spotted us and we went together to a shop where his friend was waiting. The friend apparently would help us with the application as the Big Chief. So off we went to the local police station, after a bit of wandering around and talking to various people it was determined that the Big Chief was not in just yet. So we waited in the blistering heat for about an hour it seemed and eventually he arrived.
His arrival caused quite a stir, as soon as he arrived, locals surrounded him all presumably needing his seal of approval on something they were applying for.
We followed him to his office and Sunny's fathers friend chatted to him jovially for a while and threw the cigarettes behind his desk and wouldn't take no for an answer when the Big Chief tried to give them back.
The Big Chief asked to see all Sunny's documentation , our red books , everything. He then asked for the paperwork to sign.
It seems that it never occurred to anyone that they would actually need to bring the paperwork filled in and personally signed to the station ????!!! The police station didn't have the application forms so we would have to go all the way back to Gonan to the "County Administration Service Center" to get the forms. That is about an hour away over really bumpy dusty hot roads, great..
Yangjiachang is a pretty isolated place, there doesn't seem to be any taxi's and the bus service is very infrequent, this was a major setback. Sunny's father and his friend walked along the main street deciding what to do, eventually they saw a guy sitting in a chair in the shade in front of a small shop. There was a van parked out front. The fathers friend offered him some money if he would drive us to Gongan which he accepted and we were on our way.
At the administrative center we got the forms and were about to lave when a lady behind the counter saw me and declared that I must register with them there. I said to Sunny to tell her that I was already registered by our hotel, but people here appear to blindly follow whatever any official tells them, Sunny said no , I must register because the official says I must.....So about another half an hour of form filling , passport checking etc ensued, of course all this was totally pointless as the hotel already did it (I had to sign the same form in the hotel)...but what can you do?, i wasn't going to kick up a fuss with her father there, and anyway would have gotten me exactly nowhere anyhow..because_the_official_said_so..it is dogma.
Once the forms were filled in etc. our man with a van took us back to the Big Chiefs office, he signed the forms and said we needed to go to another office in the police station to get them forms officially stamped.
However, and there is always a however....
When we went to that office they said we needed a picture attached to the form (again..this would have seemed obvious to me to have done already...but it seems nothing gets filled in or done unless someone in a uniform says it needs to be here).
Sunny even told me she was so nervous filling in the form in front of the Big Chief that she found it hard to focus on the words on the page!!
Luckily in Yangjiachang there was a marriage photo studio there (every town in China seems to have at least one or more of these). So Sunny got her face done up again and her picture taken and off we went back to the police station to the the form stamped...
However..and there always is a however!
The person authorized to do the form stamping had apparently gone to a meeting or something and we would have to go back to Gongan again to get them stamped.. So off we traipsed again with the man and a van back to Gongan.
However, and there is always a however..............
The person authorised to do the form stamping there was now back at the police station in Yangjiachang, wonderful_just_wonderful. We called the man and his van back and he took us to Yangjiachang once again. We went into the police station but the stamping office had nobody there... Luckily Sunny bumped into an old school classmate there and while chatting to him someone else passed by and he asked them where we could find this stamping guy. They directed us to what seemed to be the police canteen. Sunny seemed extremely nervous and to be honest I really didn't feel comfortable there either. Anyhow she asked one of the guys there where the form stamping guy was and he told hr which office to go to. So we went there, got the forms stamped and I thought, FINALLY_WE_ARE_ALMOST_FINISHED!!!
However..
And there is..
Always a however here!!!!..
There was one more twist to the tale of course. So back to the administration office to have the documents processed, all stamped and signed, pictures, attached, what could go wrong right?, wrong!
[attachimg=2]
Just for starters it was closed!! The office had the shutters all boarded up and the workers in the food stall beside it told us they were on lunch. So we went for lunch and came back for when the office lunch was supposed to be over, of course that was about 30 minutes later than we were told. Its not much fun standing around in 37C heat outside believe me. Anyhow they eventually opened and we got started..
First of all the application is vetted by one person then passed to another and then finally to payments. The first vetting person said Sunny needed to bring her English certification to the office, the one piece of certification she didn't bring. Sunny called for me loudly in English and we went out the door her explaining to me what was needed to my incredulous sounds. The first vetting person obviously heard this and relented and called her back and said it wasn't needed.
Finally a break!
So we passed to the second vetting person, one billion questions later, intense scrutinisation of my passport later they decided that photos we got made earlier in the day were not sufficiently clear but amazingly there was a photo studio two doors down that could do them. Wow what a convenient surprise.... While we where there another person came in to get his photos taken too. I had seen him in the queue behind us earlier and to my eyes his pictures were perfect too...
Anyhow...with the "right" pictures, stamps, signatures ..we finally moved on to payments and a mere 15 minutes or so later they processed our payment (there was one person ahead of us in that queue and they left as we arrived).
The passport application was finally done. They will (hopefully) mail her passport and Hong Kong visa to her workplace in Guangzhou and all things going well Sunny can see me off at the airport in October that dreaded day when I fly home again.
Sunny gave some money to her father and his friend to go back to their respective villages. We would meet up with her father in her original family home tomorrow and meet some of her relatives back there.
Exhausted we had a rest and freshened up at the hotel then went for dinner. There is a KFC in Gongan and Sunny had seen some advertisement on tv about some junk food there that she wanted to try so was all for it. I really didn't want to eat junk food here but thought OK, why not. I just wanted a regular meal burger, French fries and a sprite, with a sachet of ketchup for the fries. Not a big deal you would think in a KFC right?, wrong!!!!
The chicken burger would take a few minutes to make but they went ahead and served me fries anyhow to sit on the counter and go cold. They I noticed when i tasted one that they were unsalted so i asked for a sachet of salt. The serving person didn't understand, so I asked Sunny to translate, and she said they don't have them. I said of course they have them this is a global fast food chain, the must have them. Then she said the fries were already salted, I said, no they aren't, i want a sachet of salt, they must have this (I'm tired, hungry and dont want to eat this junk food and they cant even get a basic order right...OK so I was bitchy, but if you guys had had the day we just had you might have been a little twitchy too!)
Eventually they put some salt into a sundae lid for me. I decided it wasn't worth complaining about the stone cold fries by now. The meals come with a flat soda, or at least that's what the alleged fruit juice tastes like. So i had decided if i was gonna drink some sugery crap it should have bubbles in it so i wanted a sprite. Eventually i got my sprite. Then came the ketchup saga, eventually I got ketchup..it tires me to just type this never mind read it (well done if you made it this far, give yourself a pat on the back from me).
One thing I have learned in China is that 9 times out of 10 western food tastes like crap here or is an ordeal to get. The only exception being McDonalds, its easy to order and tastes the same and they generally have the same stuff as back home, except they don't do quarter pounders with cheese in Guangzhou or Wuhan. I told Sunny that I didn't want to eat any more western junk food again on this trip.
We then went for a romantic walk around the high street and went shopping for stuff to bring her uncles the next day. (cigarette and mooncakes) . The street food in Gongan is...authentic, you can get turtles in there shells, head and all to eat, ducks heads, basically everything looks like it was just skinned and dipped in the frying pan, i didnt try anything.
After that we headed back to the hotel, our long tiring passport day finally over.
The next day we went to Sunny's family home and met her extended family there, and that's another tale to be told...
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Great update. However, and there is always a however, I would like to take issue with one excerpt - "sleepy sweaty dogs running around the place free range.
Sunny wasn't hungry but i was"
Now, I know you like to try different foods in China, but free range dogs! ;D
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Love your thread Irishman, and I haven't said congratulations yet, so congrats! :) Your little dramas trying to do things that should be straight forward sound like something out of a Seinfeld episode! But good entertainment value for us readers and I hope everything else goes well (and smoother than what you have experienced so far!).
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Great read Ronan , I hope Sunny liked her kfc ;D and we are looking forward to the next installment , regards Sujuan and Robert .
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I had to laugh a little when you wrote about the paperwork. It reminded me of a old song (and movie) called Alice's Restaurant. Part of it went like this...
when we all had to go to court.
We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty seven eight-by-ten
colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back
of each one, sat down. Man came in said, "All rise." We all stood up,
and Obie stood up with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy
pictures, and the judge walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog, and he
sat down, we sat down. Obie looked at the seeing eye dog, and then at the
twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows
and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog.
And then at twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles
and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry,
'cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American
blind justice, and there wasn't nothing he could do about it, and the
judge wasn't going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy
pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each
one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. And
we was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow,
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Irishman congradulations.You have just taken part in the Chinese shuffle.And you and Sunny survived it.Next time you will know.And you can bribe the right official.Somebody was looking for a kickback.
It's done and over with.So enjoy the rest of your time with Sunny.
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Friday September 17th - Visit to home village
Sunny's cousin has a boyfriend with a car and they had arranged from him to pick up us and drive us to visit her parents house (Sunny's uncle) for dinner and from there the whole family would go to Sunny's home village to meet other relatives for another meal and stay the night there.
I asked Sunny if she could book us a different hotel for our return to Wuhan as I found the place we were staying last time very run-down, very unsafe with the congested roads and the lack of walkable pavements too much.
The part of town we had visited before (Jiang'an) with her friends across the river was much nicer so I asked her to book a hotel there. While Sunny looked up websites and made phone calls i packed the suitcases and presently all suitcases were packed and hotels booked and there was a few hours left until her cousin was to pick us up so I suggested booking out and leaving the bags behind the counter (it was almost midday by now and didnt want to be charged for another day if we booked out too late).
Sunny said yes so we booked out and Sunny then said which bag had the hometown clothes?? What???? I said - both do, she said why didn't i pack separate bags for both? She had intended leaving some of the luggage behind the counter until we got back to Gongan.
I have found that things like this get discussed and agreed in Chinese with friends and relatives and then they are shocked when we don't appear to be with the plan. So she said OK we repack the stuff now, now way was i going there, all our stuff was mixed up and i wasn't going to start reinventing the wheel with everyone in the hotel lobby looking on. The bags were coming or we were not. That decided, we brought both bags.
As it turns out, it was fine anyhow, the cousins boyfriends car turned out to be a van with chairs in it..dinner table chairs!, but that was fine,the bags fitted as did the ancient 32" TV, the bag of melons and the water cooler he was bringing the cousins parents to impress (Sunny says they will eventually marry, so I figure this gift giving was the way to curry favour with the parents when the time comes to ask their permission for the daughters hand).
The drive there was nice, the countryside is exceedingly beautiful apart from the unreal amount of litter. The only way I can understand it is that in the past before plastic, they had no garbage collection , but all foods and clothes etc were perishable and ponce thrown away didn't last long in the extreme heat and wet of the climate there, so they just keep the habit of throwing the garbage away even though its going to be there for the next 1000 years or so.
In Ireland the main farming is dairy so I'm well used to seeing cattle grazing on grass, but what I'm not used to seeing is cattle bathing in the river! Any cows that I could see not the tied to a rope were seeking shelter from the baking sun by sitting in the river with just their head above water. Strange to see for me I guess, but makes perfect sense, the air was hot and humid, so the water is the one place they could go to cool down.
We arrived eventually after much horn beeping on roads only wide enough for one vehicle, yet there is a constant flow of trucks, motorbikes and vans, never mind horse and carts in both directions, and potholes deep enough to get lost in.
The agricultural communities here all live in lines of houses, there are no shops that i can see.
At this time of year the front yards are covered with drying rice or cotton. The roads are frequently completely covered in rice or soybeans and the trucks etc just drive over them.
I was struck by the housing, it reminded me very much of French farmhouses in the rural provinces thee. Basically four walls and a table with stone floors. No heating, no wallpaper or plaster, no insulation, no running water. However they did have electricity in a few places so fans wre plugged in. But what they lacked in material things they more than made up for it with warmth and generosity and real welcome. We were offered many different types of fruits to drink and cold fruity tea to drink while dinner was being prepared. Sunny's auntie lived here and she was cooking. The dinner was amazing and delicious of course, even the warm beer tasted good and my stomach was fit to explode happily! Such nice people, I was made feel really welcome.
First aunties house.
[attachimg=1]
After dinner and chat we all packed into the van and made our way to Sunnys home village. I asked her several times what the name of the place is but she says it doesn't have a name. Back home a group of houses together always has an area name but not here. It seems that every dusty road has houses along it and each house has a plot of land to be farmed.
We eventually arrived in Sunny's home village (I don't know what else to call it) and were greeted by Sunny's uncle and auntie. They lived in a very large house that seemed to have been constructed recently. It didn't have running water and was laid out very differently to any western home I have been to before. The floors were tiled but there was no living room or kitchen that I could discern. The main hallway was large and people sat there or in the back yard. The kitchen was in a separate building in the back yard which also housed a pig pen and chickens wandered around. he oinking of the pig in that enclosed space really reverberated about but hey this is how it is done here so it seemed normal in the context to me.
After introductions and waters, the men talked about men stuff and the father asked Sunny and I if we would help their son to pack some cotton in the front yard. It only took a few minutes and I think it might have been for entertainment value for the local villagers to see a pink faced overweight low wai packing cotton. I'd never done this before so found it interesting but was glad I didn't have to do it for hours a day every day, the novelty value would wear off fast.
That done it was time to go down to the family home where grandpa now lived alone in. Sunny showed me around, it was pretty basic and being honest I was mighty relieved that we were staying in her uncles house. Sunny showed me her old bedroom where she and her sister used to sleep and she said look, it hasn't been used in used in years, its so clean! I could already feel my allergies kicking in just looking at that room, and was keen to see the other parts of the house !
Grandpa is pretty sprightly for a 79 year old and still seems to have most of his teeth which are whiter than mine, impressive for a man who probably never brushed his teeth once in his life. That's clean living i suppose! He doesn't drink or smoke apparently.
After introductions and family pictures taken we went back to the uncles house for dinner.
While auntie was preparing dinner we went to the Yangtze river with Sunny's/our cousin who is 12 years old and knew the best way to the river. The Yangtze river runs right alongside Sunny's home village and in fact her uncles house pumps water directly from a pipe to the kitchen from it. I've seen documentaries about the water in the this river and what goes into it so I decided there and then that i wasn't washing my hands or showering in that stuff that night.
We took some silly pictures in the rapidly fading sunlight and it was nice. Sunny's father then arrived wielding a thick stick, I half thought for a second..oh-ohh! But no, he was going to use this to help uncle carry some heavy equipment back from the lakeside shore to the house. I know her father has a bad leg and is older than me so i didn't like to see him carrying such a heavy weight and told Sunny so. She promptly ordered him to pass over his end of the weight baring load to me and I'd carry it from there.
We staggered under the weight across the muddy river bank and over a fence back to the house. And left the heavy equipment there.
The kid then brought us water and we sat in front of a couple of fans and relaxed.
Sunny decided it would be cool for the kid to get some help with his English homework from a native speaker so she suggested he bring his textbook out out to us to see what he could do by himself and what he needed help with.It was fun reading the lessons, apparently the kid said I sounded just like the tapes his teacher played in class. Interestingly some of the lessons were of dubious accuracy - one of them was to put words into their correct order and on a couple of occasions i could construe perfect valid sentences with different meanings using the same words which no doubt teacher would mark as incorrect. But overall if the kid learned half the stuff there he would have a good grounding in the basics. I also put Sunny to test in several of the exercises but disappointingly she easily got them all right so no opportunity for gentle teasing there!
Hometown at dusk - the rice and cotton is covered over so the dew cannot moisten them and delay the drying process
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While we were doing this a couple of neighbours arrived and they were very curious and everyone wanted to see some euro notes and coins so i brought out what I had in euros and Hong Kong notes and coins and that was a success.
Presently dinner was arranged and we have a lovely feast again , I think this day I probably put on about 5 lbs alone I was fed so well!
After dinner it was time for bed. Sunny and I usually go for a shower before bedtime and she showed me to the shower room, well actually as the water wasn't pumped in just it it was a bare room with a basin of murky looking river water. I said I'd skip the shower tonight.
Auntie showed us to our bedroom which was huge and had a basic builders finish to the walls, with a big bed in the middle, no aircon but she had a fan beside the bed.
The curtains were open and the moths ad insects were trying there best to get into the light so i drew the curtains.
Auntie left the room,m and i then saw something on one of the bedroom walls...
I got up and walked over to see what it was..
It
was
a
bat!!!
Sunny didn't seem perturbed by this but no way was i sleeping in a room with a damn bat for company!
She got auntie who came with a big stick to poke the bat, she couldn't reach it so she gave it to me, once poked the bat went crazy flying around the room before settling on the wall again.
The kid at this stage had heard the commotion and stood in the doorway - the bats only escape route and laughed his little head off.
Trying to keep my cool I suggested to Sunny that perhaps the kid standing in the door way was not a great idea if we were to get the bat out of the bedroom.
She told him to stand clear and sure enough next prod of the bat he flew out the door and an open window in the hallway.
So, peace and quiet at last, i settled down to try and sleep, we turned off the light and closed our eyes..but..then there was a knock on the door..
Fathers older brother was paying us a visit. So there is me sitting on the bed in my PJ's, Sunny in her night clothes and the two uncles chatting like there wasn't a care in the world. To make matters even more delightful they decided to light up and smoked happily away in the non air-conditioned bedroom and dropping the ashed on the bedroom floor, nice.
Eventually they left and we got to sleep.
The next day we returned to Wuhan..much more to come, stay tuned!!
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Saturday September 18th - Return To Wuhan
The bus back to Gongan from Sunny's home village leaves just once a day in the morning so we got up around dawn and Sunny went down to Grandfathers house to say goodbye to him and it seemed pretty much every neighbour on the street was up and about and wanted to say a few words of greeting, this is a real tight-knit community it seems.The uncle that we met last night in our bedroom gave Sunny a little money and his best wished which was nice and as she was talking to him I saw the bus coming.
The road is very slow going so there was no rush to get back to uncles house . They had already brought our bags to the roadside anyhow and we said our good byes ad got onto the bus for Gongan along with Sunny's father.
When we arrived there Sunny's father wanted to get a drum of oil for a relative in Guangzhou - apparently the locally produced oil has a better flavour. Problem was we had all our luggage with us and the road and pavement are in bits so it made carrying them extremely difficult, never mind the 30c+ heat and getting hotter by the minute.
Sunny called a cab and we took it to the oil place where he waited with us until Sunny's father got the oil and he then dropped him off at the bus station for the bus back to Guangzhou for the father and took us to another place where we could get a cheap bus back to Wuhan (70 rmb instead of 100).
It wasn't due for a little while so we had breakfast in a restaurant (well, a food stall with a bunch of seats and tables on the pavement is a better description) by the place the bus was going to stop.
Presently it arrived and we got the bus to Wuhan , with one changeover along the way to got to the specific part of Wuhan wer are staying in this time.
The bus driver didn't exactly inspire confidence - at one point he to a wrong turn in oncoming traffic on the motorway, i kid you not!! He went about 400 meters before he realised his error, by then my terrror levels were set a max!!
Back home this would have let to panic and carnage on the motorway but not here, he just reversed to keep with the traffic flow until there was a gap in the traffic and then did a U turn, no I am not making this up!!
We arrived in Wuhan safely and got checked into a nice hotel and had a little rest then went for a meal in a restaurant near the hotel.
After that we went down to the Yangtze river and walked along it in the moonlight and goofed around for a couple of hours, it was very nice.
Compared to the last few days this was peace and quiet and well needed :)
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Love that photo of Sunny's home village street , it looks so peaceful , you are certainly having a great time , regards Sujuan and Robert .
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Rivetting travel diary Irish....well done, cant wait for next episode.
Can you all imagine the mountain of rules, regulations, permits, hassles and dramas if anybody tried to carry on their rice/cotton/whatever business on your local street verge !!!
The mind boggles......makes you realise that some things in the West, we have got dreadfully wrong !!
David
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Fantastic trip log Irishman. The best one yet!
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Great story. I'm glad Peggy wants to marry in the US. I haven't been reading much on this site so I read it all just now.
Let me see if I have it right. There are people near Wuhan that think Ronan is Gumby? ;D
Just kidding again great story and congratz again.
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Man Ronan, what a trip your having !!! And i don't mean a holiday hahaha
Your stories in china would definetly make the best sellers list..Just kidding mate, congrats to you both from Sophie and I.. :)
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Dear Ronan, I just wanted to thank you for your posts. They are inspiring, informative and really bring back the memories. I find it amazing that with so much going on, that you can remember so many details. You and Sunny have my best wishes and many thanks!! James
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... They are inspiring, informative and really bring back the memories. I find it amazing that with so much going on, that you can remember so many details. ...
James....Thats what being in love does for you, you remember every little detail... ;D ;D 8)
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Ditto Rob.
This is a great and long expected story.
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Well, I was going to write about Irish's wedding but as the old saying goes a picture says more than a thousand words and in this case I think you'll agree it true.... ;D
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Nice pictures Ronan. I see Ted spilt his beer down his. Still it added colour to the occasion.
Willy
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Sorry I missed the occasion. I remember that church, it's a great old place. Did they show the ceremony on the big screen tv(s) that are on top of the pillars.
Ted ... I thought that there was a dress code ... hahaha
Congrats again Sunny & Irish.
Paul ... what about banquet pics ?
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I like that last pic, Sunny's all smiles but behind her the guy's expression in the blue shirt? Something like "Where did this guy get this flowered shirt?" ha ha
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Vince - what he was actually saying was 'that guy in the flowery shirt is worth a fortune. Sold by the kilo that is!!!!! Or was it - 'Mei mei you see what father christmas brings bad girls'
Willy
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Vince, the guy in the blue shirt was Sunny's father! No banquet pics I'm afraid but here's some more of the ceremony and that fine shirt of Ted's!
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Wow, Great pictures Ronan and Paul. You can surely tell who the father and son are. The red tie is a dead give away. ;)
Sorry Paul, I had just talked on the cell phone with one of my employees. Todd. Getting old isn't all it is cracked up to be sometimes. Thanks for pointing it out Willy.
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Now it's the other way around in the last pic, Ted's saying, I got to get this guy a better shirt.
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Wow, Great pictures Ronan and Todd. You can surely tell who the father and son are. The red tie is a dead give away. ;)
Ok I give up WHO is TODD?????????
Willy
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Nice pics Todd thanks for posting them :D
Sunny and I have been all over the country literally the last few weeks and are having a wonderful time.
In fact as I type this it is the longest time we have been apart in three weeks bar toilet breaks! She is going back to her apartment to get some fresh clothes and I am in Starbucks getting in some much needed coffee!
Thanks to Ted and Paul for coming to our wedding it it was super to have a couple of you guys there to celebrate the special day with me.
Ted thanks again for being my best man on such sort notice.
Paul you are as nice as guy in person as you come across on the forum and it was a real pleasure to meet you and your lovely wife in person finally.
By the way, how was the Guinness ? :o
I'm heading back home next Saturday 9th and coming back hopefully in December to get Sunny's visa sorted out.
Right now , 7 hotels later it is great to be back in sunny warm Guangzhou, I really love the warm weather and am dreading the gales and cold and rain back home, but one day soon she will be with me there to hold close keep me warm in these coming fall and winter evenings :)
I haven't had internet access in quite some time so apologies for the lack of updates here.
To all the guys here planing on taking the journey here, just do it!, the rewards are immense.
I am the happiest I can ever remember being right now :)
Muireadach & Sunny M 15th Sep 2010 !
[attachimg=1]
On honeymoon in the mountains in Zhangjiajie
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Great Photo Irish ! I love Towns like this with Waterways to travel on . This truely reminds me of the China I always pictured in my Head when I was younger . Again , both of you look as happy as your Reports are .
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The pleasure was all mine Muireadach, thank you for inviting us. I will always remember the looks on your faces standing at the alter, the pair of you just looked so in love it was fantastic to see. Talk about a happy couple ;D
As for the Guinness well I couldn't wait long enough for it to get cold before I drank it all. They say good things come to those that wait, but I couldn't!!!!
I'm sure you and Sunny will have many happy years together. :)All the best from Ming zhi and myself.
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It was my pleasure to stand in for whoever bailed on you. hahahaha But i will say it was a
really nice ceremony. Always wanted to do a church wedding in the states with my wife if we
ever did go there for a few years.
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Back home now and missing married life with my new wife hugely.
Its the little things..I'm just not complete without Sunny, I cannot imagine life now without her.
Maybe it took coming back home to really appreciate that - as I was waking this morning I wanted to ask Sunny something, then I woke up and realised she is 6000 miles away..that sucked.
Hopefully will be back in December to visit her and get her visa to come live with me arranged. Until then my heart is missing a beat.
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I remember how you feel, an empty feeling.
If it is any comfort at all it seemed for me that the time passed quickly once we got the paperwork going.
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Irish
I sympathise greatly !!!....I have been feeling the same since June this year.
But I go back to China on Friday to be with my sweetie for 2 weeks...YIPPEE !!!!!
David
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First night without our wife seems to be the same for all of us... always looking for them somewhere in the room or in the showing-room, but when calling them, no reply... and then, we remember...man has to wait before being together again.
Even if love can give us some wings, shall it also help for the time to go fast.
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I also know the feeling Brother. And it is very unfortunate but the time seems to pass more slowly too.
Something Libo and I did that seemed to help a little was I had planned the date well in advance as I am sure you have to. And like I am sure a lot of people here have done is we counted the days. And everyday when we talked we told each other only XX days and we will be together again. And I tell you when the number got down to about 14 the time started moving very fast I had so much to do, you know the kind of things I couldn't have done when it was still 60 days.
This time apart will never be easy, but the bond between you and your wife will grow much stronger because of it.
By the way I do have something I have been wanting to tell you and I want to do it here on the open forum.
I do not know what you do for a living, But man if you need a career change you should try writing. I have been reading your story every time you post an Update I look forward to reading it. You do have a way with the pen you could say that is most excellent. Your writing style is one of the best I have seen in years, and this is just a forum. I would love to see what you would write if you were writing a book. Anyway thanks for the great adventure Personally I have enjoyed being on it with you.
And I know you are happy and when someone takes your picture it's OK to smile.
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A late congratualtion from me, Irish.
Need to pop in here more often. So much happened since last time i looked here :)
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Thanks one and all for your kind words and deeds (Jimmy) , I appreciate them very much.
Nothing worth having comes easily - I will persevere as long as it takes, Sunny is worth having as my wife and that is wonderful :)
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Help ..Help .. I need a fix of Irish's Blog report ! I've been waiting patiently .. what since July for some New's , but all I see is ??? .
Have you given up on it ?
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What do you think about Zhangjiajie and "Fungfan".. I love both places but I want to see more about FungFan. We only got 6 hours because the bus from Zhangjiajie to Fungfan broke down in the middle of the road so we had to spend a couple of hours waiting for a new bus.
Zhangjiajie is a fantasic place and I think you agree to recommend everyone to visit.. Agree Irish ??
By the way.. where did your trip started ??
Peter
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I just read your post , And I recommend my friend to read it also. Because it 's a real and sweet love story,I am really enjoye reading these lively diaries. And photos are wonderful, especially the honeymoon photo in Zhangjiajie, I would like to go there soon.