A few years ago, I planned a visit to Singapore where my nephew was managing a project. When booking my flight to Singapore I knew I wanted to make sure I had a long layover in another country so that I could venture out and explore. In my search, I found a flight on China Southern that piqued my interest. I had never flown China Southern so of course, I had to do a quick research on the airline to see their reviews on what was most important to me, service and the food of course. In reading the reviews I found out that China Southern provided free accommodations in a 4-5-star hotel including free breakfast if your layover was more than 9 hours. That definitely was a plus for me, but after reading many reviews I decided to go for it. The flight I chose had a 9-hour layover in Guangzhou, China. I had never been to China before and was very excited. I discovered in my research that Guangzhou is famous for having the best food in China.!!!!! This is where world-famous Cantonese cuisine originates from, and the quality and diversity of local Cantonese cuisine is amazing and far exceeds neighboring Hong Kong. As well as the best Cantonese cuisine in the world, you will find restaurants specializing in food from most provinces in China. After reading that I started counting down the seconds until my travel date. I knew I wouldn’t have enough time to venture out too far on the first layover to Singapore because the flight arrived in Guangzhou late in the evening, but I definitely planned on getting out and finding some local cuisine.
My experience in China Southern during the flight to Singapore was great. The food wasn’t bad and the seat was as comfortable as most airlines on an international flight. When you arrive at the airport you go through the process of getting your visa, they will hand you a card with directions to the "Transfer Accommodation Center." Once there they assign you to your hotel they put you in groups to board your shuttle. On my shuttle ride, I started chatting with another traveler (Luke) and we were talking about wanting to venture out and find some street food. It was late and we weren’t sure what would be open that late and how far we would have to go, but we decided we would meet in the lobby in 45 minutes and go find some food.
When we pulled up to the hotel it was dark so we didn’t know what to expect, but when we walked in we were all amazed. The hotel was beautiful! There were these intricate sculptures in glass displays and some a wedding boutique that was closed.
Luke and I wanted to get checked in quickly so we could go find some food. Finally making it to my room I opened the door and couldn’t believe it. The room was like a presidential suite. It was huge and I had it all to myself. I got settled in, freshened up and headed down to the lobby to meet Luke. I got downstairs and told Luke I needed to go to the ATM to get some cash and the machine was out of order. Luke said, don’t worry about it, dinner with be on me. This stranger offered to pay for my meal!!!! I thought that was so kind and told him I would pay him back when we return to the airport the following day.
We left the hotel and started on our food adventure to find some local cuisine. We walked through the alleyways around the hotel until we found a little strip with a small store. In front of the store was a young man with a makeshift grill and a cooler. In the cooler, he had different skewers with an assortment of fish, octopus, shrimp, and veggies. We saw some other people sitting out having a late bite and decided to go for it. Besides, it didn't look like there was anything else around.
We decided to go with some spicy fried rice noodles. We sat down at a small table set up on the street in front of the small store and learned a bit more about each other. After a few minutes, the gentleman brought over our noodles.
The rice noodles looked pretty basic, but then we both took a bite at the same time and OMG!!!!! With our eyes big we looked down at the plate of noodles and took another bite and we both agreed, these had to be some of the best-fried rice noodles we had ever had. We were both quiet for a few minutes and we dove into our plates and continued to learn more about each other.
After finishing our noodles, we took a few selfies then headed back to the hotel to get some rest.
The next morning, we met downstairs for breakfast that was included with the layover perks provided by China Southern. We chatted some more and then boarded our shuttle back to the airport.
We arrived back at the airport checked in, changed contact information, took a few selfies and parted ways.
As I boarded my connecting flight on to Singapore to visit my nephew I smiled and thought to myself I made a new friend on a long layover in Guangzhou, China.
Stay tuned for my adventures in Singapore and thanks for visiting Verdia’s Spot!
コメント