Canton Fair (广东)

The Canton Fair was IMPRESSIVE!
Extremely well organized, and it's really BIG international Scale.
The exhibition participants came from all corners in China. They sell everything and anything under the sun, each vying for the potential buyer. The expo building is 7 storeys high, and each floor, you have different categories of goods: food, medical equipment, textile, security equipments, wedding gowns, silk, garments, houseware, and even bulletproof jackets, etc, etc.

Apparently this trade fair is so well known that even the hotels in HKG are fully booked during this period, and charging @ peak rates. And in Guangzhou, the hotels charge crazy rates, even when you make the reservations months ahead!

Maybe i'm a fussy eater...still not used to the food served at the small eateries... could taste the grains of sand in the vege, and roasted duckmeat didn't taste good too. *bleah* The restaurants don't take international credit cards, so we ended up spending all our RMB at this restaurant for their yummy Roasted Pigeon and Papaya Dessert (which supposedly is very good for the complexion) for consecutive days we were in GZ. : )

There's nothing much to do after the exhibition closes for the day. So, we hang out @ Beijing Lu (the shopping district). It's the usual stuff like Giordano, Baleno, U2 kind of shops which are kinda boring. Here, apparently they managed to preserve a walkway that dates back to the Han Dynasty (i think). Pedestrians can take a peek of this ancient cobbledstone pathway.
Only 2 places that got us excited @ Beijing Lu:
(1) the sporting goods store where we bought some Adidas gear.
(2) majority of the time, we ended up hanging out @ this place where they sell counterfeit goods (or pdtn excess from the factories manufacturing for the branded goods). :P It was so exciting when there was a false alarm that the police were here, and the reflexes of the storeholders were FAST. :P

We ended up being translators for this frenly stallholder and his pretty partner when the European shoppers tried to bargain for the "branded" bags. The stallholder was grateful for our translator services for the 2 nites, and the gave us good prices reserved for their regular customers. : ) I bought several KeyChains (MontBlanc, Bally, LV) @ RMB20 each as souvenirs for frens. : )

* Learnt from Dominic that those luxury goods companies, specifically a particular french brand, are ultra strict with the staff purchase. The employee's name must be engraved on the bag to verify that it's for personal use. Also, the company would rather burn the excess stock from previous seasons than to sell off at cost price. That's the extent such companies would go to maintain the brand's premium image. Hmmm... No wonder these companies are upset with the counterfeits churned out in the asian countries...