Visiting Guangzhou

We reached Baiyun International Airport at approximately 10.30 am after a four hours flight from Kuala Lumpur. After passing through several immigration check points, we headed for our hotel in the city of Guangzhou which was about 30 kilometres away from the airport. The transportation cost us about 350 Yuen after negotiation with a middle man who arranged an MPV and a taxi for 10 of us plus luggage.

The first stop point that we headed for after checking in the hotel was a Muslim restaurant located across the road in front of the hotel that we stay. The restaurant was run by a family of five. It was a fairly small size restaurant which could only accommodate 3 numbers of table set inside and another 3 table sets at the outside of the shop.

Communication was not a problem for any of us even though none of them could speak English, Bahasa Malaysia and also none of us could speak Chinese. Sign language was the most effective means of communication. What we did was, just point our fingers at the wall and we got our meals ready :) ****pictures of the meals were pasted on one side of the wall. Pictorial menus were nicely shown with chinese writing but no price tag enclosed.

While waiting for the meals to be served, we were entertained by the life action (sort of..mee making kungfu) of the cook who was busy creating mee and kuayteow from fresh dough. Most of the foods that they served were local Chinese cuisine such as mee, kuayteow, rice and soups. We had to learn to use chopsticks in order to fully enjoy the foods since forks and spoons were not available in the restaurant.

Meal was salty, hot, tasty and most importantly cheap but aplenty. Shop was open at 9.00am and closed at 2.00am everyday. Disregarding about anything else, finding Halal food to fill up our empty tank in this city occupied by a majority of non-Muslim community was not a problem since day one as there were plenty of choices around.

Facts and figures:

1) Guangzhou is the capital city of the province of Guangdong.

2) Guangzhou population alone in year 2006 was approximately 9.8 million people