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The trip over

May 27 - off to the airport early for our China Southern flight to Guangzhou (then Istanbul and Malta).

We arrived in Guangzhou a bit early (5:30pm) and whizzed through Immigration and found our 2 suitcases already waiting on the carousel - together even, a bit of a miracle. The China Southern flight was fine - flat bed but the service did not even come close to SQ; e.g. there was only 1 bottle of FC for all of business class and essentially no wine. A good side effect was that we did not drink too much. After collecting our luggage and passing through customs, we found the bus to the Pullman pretty easily. The bus was ready to leave and we arrived at the hotel and were all checked in and hither lounge well before 7pm (happy hour ends at 7:30). I had a G&T and Dieter had a beer as they had no wine - cripes. However the had an a complimentary la carte food menu so Dieter ordered a pasta and I had a salad Nicoise which was exceptional. Then it was off to bed early. We got up pretty early the next morning and while enjoying a Nespresso hit the GFC; aka, the Great Firewall of China. Many Western site were blocked; e.g. SMH, Google, .... We had a pretty ordinary breakfast in the hotel restaurant then got ready to hit the town. First order of business was to figure out how to pay for the metro as we planned to take the metro from the airport to Canton Tower. Well the concierge told us we needed cash or Alipay to buy a ticket (and that you could not use credit cards). So I downloaded and registered for Alipay; alas Alipay need internet access to make a payment. After much fussing around at the ticket machine a guard took pity on me and let me hotspot to his phone and we secured 2 one-trip ticket. On appraoching the barrier gate I noticed large sign stating that you could tap on/off using a foreign credit card. Even the guard seemed unaware of this. The metro trip to the tower was uneventful but took 45 minutes. WE arrived to find it very quite even thought they were setup of long lines. We also found out basic entry was free for seniors but the extras (like the outdoor viewing platform and the gondola around the top cost extra - again they took Apple Pay. We returned to the hotel in time for a late lunch followed by showers then off to the lounge for happy hour. After a couple of hours rest we took the hotel shuttle to the airport at 10:30pm. We were all checked-in and sitting in the lounge in less than 30 minutes. The China Southern flight to IST left at 1:10AM (now May 29) and arrived at 7am local time still on the 29th. Since our flight to Malta was a separate ticket and airline we had to clear C&I, collect our luggage and re-check in, clear exit-immigration - this was all done in record breaking time - no queues and fast service. We were settled in the "IGA" lounge (catch all airport lounge for anyone not travelling on Turkish Airlines or *A) in less than 30 minutes. The flight to Malta left on time at 10:30 - we were the only passengers in euro business class (economy class seat with the middle one empty) - we were given pretty lunch with French Champagne but the most unfriendly FA we have ever encountered.

May 27 - off to the airport early for our China Southern flight to Guangzhou (then Istanbul and Malta).

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