Final Day in Zhuhai

Hi everyone!  How are you all doing today?

This wraps up our last day here in Zhuhai.  Tomorrow we're heading through the border into Macao, at which point I'll no longer be allowed back into China until I go home and get a new visa.  The plan is to spend a few hours sightseeing in Macao and then we'll catch a ferry to Hong Kong.  Euphy's Dad is going to join us for this final leg of the journey as he's got a friend in Hong Kong who we'll be staying with.  As usual, I'm not sure what the internet situation will be in Hong Kong, so a blog tomorrow is not a certainty.  Either way I'll be able to write on Monday since that's when we head to the airport and make our way home, so you won't go too long without an update.

We spent today with three of Euphy's friends from her time in school here.  We had a nice long brunch and then headed to the underground shopping mall at Gongbei Port.  I actually picked up, oddly enough, a pair of Beats headphones.  For the uninitiated, this is a high-end brand of headphones endorsed by rapper Dr. Dre that sells for a ridiculous amount of money.  I just looked up the simple bud-style earphones that I bought on Futureshop's website and they're going for $180.  Some of the studio headphones approach price tags of $400.  They're a bit of a fashion statement really, and I'm not usually the kind of guy who likes to make the statement "I spend $400 on headphones and then plug them into an iPod."  I'm sure you've all guessed by now that I didn't spend $180 on headphones.  I've wanted a new pair of bud-style earphones for awhile now, and the very obviously knock-off Beats headphones are EVERYWHERE in China right now.  There were random dudes sitting on the sidewalks of Shanghai selling only headphones.  Having walked past about a dozen stores selling these headphones I finally stopped to ask how much they were going for, just out of pure curiosity.  70RMB.  That's about $11 CAD.  What surprised me the most though was that the girl freely admitted that they weren't the genuine article.  She did say however that they were a 1-to-1 reproduction.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if the real ones are made in China and that these are just factory seconds.  Don't know, but I appreciated the honesty.  Also, she let me try them out and they actually sound really good, so hey, why not.  They could be any old regular headphones for that money, but I like to think that I'm walking around with Beats quality for $11.

Sorry to go on and on about headphones, but that was about the extent of my excitement for the day... we kept it pretty low key for the rest of the time.  We've pretty much wrapped up our packing, and we're getting ready to spend our final night in the Grand Inn Zhuhai.

Leaving Zhuhai tomorrow will be bitter-sweet.  After three weeks on the road I'm starting to get excited about getting home to see friends and family.  Also, as I mentioned to Euphy today, I'd kill for a cheeseburger.  Still, this last leg of our trip has been really awesome.  I've got to meet Euphy's family, our hotel room is great, and we've had a nice balance of tourism and chilling out.  Neither Euphy or I are exactly itching to get back to the daily grind, but it's tougher for her because there were a lot of goodbyes to family and friends today.  I suspect that it won't be too long before we find ourselves back in Zhuhai.