Day 22 - Guangzhou royals, cinema hopes terminated and Tiahne SportsCentre

More Uncharted looking scenes . . . geez this place is a good kind of crazy.

Day 22 - 15th July

So my cold was still bugging me and I can't shift it. I thought water and sleep would help but it turns out they just fuel it.

So with feeling crappy, I've been chilling out in Guangzhou. To be honest, after the Mausoleum and a couple of museums, there's not much to do here. That hasn't been a total downer though because I've been working a lot on my novel and to date I've added 15,000 words so that's a positive.

It's the closest we could get to the original. Uncanny, right?

I also met my lookalike brother in the form of Alex from Bath. We've been trying to make people believe that we are Prince William and Harry but I don't think we're fooling many. It was still strange to meet someone who gets told he looks like Harry when I get the alternative back home too.

That's a T-Rex head made from wooden coat hangers!

Our aim for the evening was to find a movie theater that played Terminator Genisys. After one place said no, but tried to offer us The Ninja Panda Fights Again (possibly a rip off of Kung Fu Panda, but I'm not making any accusations), phoning Alex's Chinese friend who sent us to a station that didn't have a cinema there and wandering around hopelessly to look for it from some dodgy directions online, we gave up. I'll catch it in Hong Kong.

We had dinner down Guangshu Lu on one of the side streets. I'm pretty sure mine was dog and rice but you can never tell. He told me about his time studying at Oxford and his plans for travelling around. I told him about my time studying the Oxford Dictionary for word meaning when writing and how I'm stumbling around my trip. It's kind of the same thing!

After dinner, we head to Tiahne Sports Centre, where we were treated to mass dancers, a huge crowd of football fans going in and out of the stadium (200 Quan to watch the second half - we declined) and the locals rollerblading. It was nuts.

In an attempt to get out of the evening heat, we went to an underground mall. Alex bought a bubble tea that looked like frogspawn, cream and yoghurt slapped together in a cup for 18 Quan. I managed not to try it. We then saw a western looking movie theater but it was being renovated with no cordons or barriers stopping you from going in (safety at it best). Finally, we gave up and went back to the hostel.

Patrick, the soon to be Hamburg Business Man.

I was ready for bed, walking down the corridor towards my room when I sensed someone behind me. A tube of Pringles in my hand and I turned ready to pop the lid in someone's face. To my surprise, it was Patrick, the guy I had met in the lobby earlier and was talking to. He wanted to have the beer we'd discussed earlier (of course I'd forgotten).

Back outside on the patio, the Wharf in sight, the warm night breeze . . . well, you get the drift. Patrick and I sat over a couple of cans of Guinness (not to his liking I gauged as he winced after taste it) and talked about him going to study in German because England was too expensive, his friend girlfriend, Cami and how he wanted to travel but certain things and restrictions in his country were preventing him. We shared a few stories about fears and insecurities and you realise then that you know someone! He gave me some good advice about some stuff and although being young, he spoke very wisely, much more than I ever could.

Good end to a long day!