The Journey(s) of Ian

This is one of China’s megacities. With a population of 10-12 (depends on how you count) million people GZ is a big city (half the population of Australia)! I arrived here a week ago via train from Kunming. I have been here once before, four years back, but this time I was determined to take a closer look, check out the teaching situation, and generally find the lie of the land. GZ is not only big, but old, as in two thousand years or so old. Also a trading and business city. Once the terminus for the silk road stretching between Europe and the far east. A connection still underway. The city is a major part of China’s growing and busy economy. The city is a working city, there is little real frippery. People are into the work ethic. Not a great deal of real tourism, as compared to lets say, Thailand. Crowded, it is crowded. Lots of people, towering architecture, and noise, a constant background hum that one soon learns to forget. The subways, there is an extensive subw...

It has long been an ambition of mine to travel on a high speed train, but to this date I have always missed out, so I was eager to sample the High Speed train between Kunming and Guangzhou. To start, I had to get to Kunming and, I am happy to say, my departure from Jinghong was about as uneventful as it can get. I purchased my ticket the day before. The only real problem was the lack of English at the southern bus station (where one buys a ticket for the journey north), however, armed with the city name “Kunming" written in Chinese in my notebook by my hotel manager I quickly purchased a ticket from the helpful lady behind the glass divider.  The next morning, awakening at 06.00, packing, girding my mental loins for the 24+ hour trip, I set of at 07.00 to walk with my two bags to the bus station. An early arrival, sitting, the centre of some attention (not many foreigners in this nest of the woods), then bus boarding. In China boarding a bus or train requires a bag and bo...