Chinawhite

We land at Hefei international airport, and the 1st thing that strikes me is that we are the ONLY plane in the airport, 3 minutes laster and we are being driven away to our Motel for the nite, which had been booked in the wrong place so we end up in eHomInn instead of the Home Inn chain we had requested (welcome to China)

A quick dinner in a local restaurant and then on to experience some nightlife in Hefei, 1st thing that strikes me is the price, everything seems 1/2 price of what we pay in Shanghai, 2nd thing that strikes me is the VERY VERY few foreigners here, in fact out of the 3 clubs we went to, I see 1 other Laowai. quite interesting that the best club in town is called "Beauiful Club", huge place with lots of signs and corporate identity all featuring a Typo (welcome to China, why fix it if its working), 3rd thing that strikes me is the friendliness of these people compared to Shanghai (we love Prada, Gucci, LVMH and Starbucks).

The night draws to a close with us having a burger at Novotel at 4am, the only place to get a decent burger or decent anything I think at 4am in Hefei.

Next morning we are collected at 8am for a trip to the countryside, and a 2 hour drive later we start seeing what the 85% people live like

and how they spend their spare time

Now we spent the best part of a day out here, and I must say it was an experience unlike any other, and so so different from the China which I am living in, as are most (not all foreigners) and even more surprising is the fact that a lot of City people I have spoken to younger than 30 have never been to such places, and looked at me in shock when I said I was going for a weekend break.

The people were so genuine, and even though there may not be any income coming in directly, the 1 family breadwinner working in the city is supporting anything from 2 to 10 people or more in some cases, but everyone believes in the cause "Today is better than Yesterday, and Tomorrow will be even better", by the way most people out here were 0 > 15 years old or over 50, not many youngsters or working age people, as they are the 1s chasing THEIR dream in the cities.

All in all a very interesting experience, and 1 that I'd recommend to anyone coming to China, obviously having local guides made all the difference, and allowed me to briefly see what real China is like.

The funny thing is that I was told this was the suburbs and REAL China was a few hours drive west ?

Hope you enjoyed the post, and apologies for the lack of posting lately, been a busy studying Chinese and drinking Vanilla Lattes in Starbucks.

(disclaimer: this post is intended for the folks back home, not for the 1 guy who has lived in China for a few years and wants to nit pick the tiniest detail of my post, if you dont like it, go teach another English class instead for $1,50)