132: Second day at Changsha

Today is our first day to client's office. When we arrived at their office, the Finance Manager asked us why we carry all luggage. We said the hotel we lived in yesterday is not very good, has some strange smell in the room and has unstable internet connection. We requested her to change another hotel for us and book 2 single rooms as we both need to use internet connection. In fact, hoping to have a single room is our main reason. Living a single room has more privacy and can sleep at any time.

We changed to a hotel called '7 Days Inn'. It is a hotel chain in the PRC and it is famous for not expensive but decent rooms as per client. We first go for lunch and visited the hotel afterwards since it is just near the place of our lunch. Client went there with us and the hotel staff said we can go up to take a look of the rooms. We are amazed by the simple design of the room and it is decent and clean, so can live in here for the following 2 days.

Go back to the lunch. The Finance Manager took us to a small local restaurant to have lunch, with the Assistant Manager and Supervisor. The environment did not look good, but the food is excellent! People there like spicy food very much and all food can contain spice. They of course told the waitress to use less spice for us. All dishes we ordered are very good, including 羊肉紅薯粉煲, 辣料釀飽, 辣燒炸鴨 and 過橋豆腐, Only the bean curd is not spicy.

The restaurant and '7 Days Inn' are very close to client's office. Their office is actually located in the Walking Street of Changsha, one of the busiest places in Changsha. The have operated some retail shops selling sports shoes and apparels. The building has 5 stories, G/F and 1/F are shops and others are office, so we can go downstairs to have shopping if wish. This kind of working environment is new to me.

Since the shop and our hotel are on the Walking Street, we can return to the hotel quickly after work and go out again. After having the dinner, we walked along the Walking Street and it is very long. I guess walking from the start to the end (walking alone, no shopping) needs about 45 minutes.

Walking along the Street, the most frequent kind of shops we saw is sportswear shops. Almost half of the shops there are such kind of shop. I wonder if there were so many people buying sportswear there. There are also some casual wear shops and some do have trendy styles. There are also Walmart and many department stores along the Street and the normal closing time of shops and stores is 2230.

There is also a small section on the Street selling snacks like those in Mongkok. Price are very cheap, for example, RMB1 for 1 stick of fried squids. Taiwanese drinks are only about RMB4 to RMB6 per cup, but the cup is much bigger than those in Taiwan and HK. This area makes me feeling just like in the night markets of Taipei.

The whole Street is very busy and there is also a KTV and bar district along. We went up the bars out of curiosity and found that the atmosphere is excellent. We finally sat down in one called Soho Bar and have a drink. It is very crowded inside and is almost full seated. I have not imagined that there are so many people going out to play on Monday night.

People there are young and not old, clearly dressed up to party look. There are professional DJs and good live singers. It is just feeling like drinking in a HK bar. The singers would sing and walk around to different small stages in the bar and make the people very high! And their songs are very update, can sing Mandarin, English and Cantonese, dressed up handsome (men) and sexy (ladies). I like the sexy lady who sings songs of A-Mei Cheung and Elva Siu very much. She can sing and portray the feel of their songs.

These good food and happy moments have further added marks to my impression on Changsha.