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CHINA LIKE YOU’VE NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE

- WITH HAPPY JELLYFISH PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC LANGUAGE BUREAU

China’s best kept secret is Hong Kong’s closest holiday destination!
That’s right.  Guangdong – the closest province to Hong Kong, is also one of the least visited. Its beauty, funkiness and the extreme fun-lovingness of the locals are just sitting there, unappreciated.

But now Happy Jellyfish Language Bureau is happy to offer you “guided tours” – which are nothing like traditional guided tours but more like adventure travel with a Western friend who happens to speak fluent Cantonese and Mandarin and will arrange everything for you.

All the trips come in two types:

1. The trip is combined with language learning and – practising, whether you’re learning Cantonese or Mandarin you’ll have ample opportunity to practise.

2. You’re not interested in learning Chinese but want to have a fun and interesting time all the same – your guide will then take care of everything. You will feel like you’re back in the womb! Soothed. Taken care of.

We  offer various packages that can all be tailor-made for you:

BIG CITY TRIPS:

ONE NIGHT IN SHENZHEN: Trip include visit to tailor, foot – or full body massage (or both) meals, clubbing, buying reasonably priced DVDs and other goods.  How reasonably priced? An example: designer spectacles are HK$ 200 including frames, lenses and work! Afraid of haggling? Let me do it for you! I have 20 years’ experience in haggling in China. Maybe you don’t want to buy anything?As with all our trips: You tell us what you want to do and let us handle the rest.

Alternative Shenzhen: Visit to Art Village (a lot of crap but a surprising amount of really good stuff)
Stay in Xi Li resort half an hours’ drive outside the city. Horse riding, huge pool with Tarzan ropes … golf apparently. But you don’t need me for that.

• ONE NIGHT IN GUANGZHOU:

Direct train from Hung Hom station.  Stay at the wonderful Venice Hotel overlooking the Pearl River. Check out Guangzhou’s old neighbourhoods. The streets are too narrow for cars and are full of utterly charming traditional architecture:



Foot/ body massage. Dinner. Clubbing or just beer drinking and card playing in one of the many open-style restaurants. Or a promenade along the Pearl River. Or … you tell me!Next day: Yam Cha in revolving restaurant overlooking the entire city, in Guangzhou’s oldest hotel. A swing around one of the city’s many huge and beautiful parks, or another visit to the masseur. Or both. Direct train back to Hong Kong OR local train to Shenzhen where we stock up on reasonably priced stuff, before shuffling across the border back to unreasonably priced Hong Kong.


FRIDAY NIGHT IN SHENZHEN AND SATURDAY IN GUANGZHOU:
With all of the above and more! Or vice versa. I mean: Friday in Guangzhou and Saturday in Shenzhen!

SMALL TOWN TRIPS:


There are a variety of small towns (small according to mainland standards) within a 3 hour radius of Shenzhen. Small but with good hotels, bigger than villages but with extremely friendly locals.



You can’t avoid meeting people even if you try, because for some reason Guangdong people are crazy about foreigners and are not afraid to show it.



Contact me for a more detailed plan for small town trips; the array of things to do is so dazzling that the web page exploded when I tried to fit it all in.

The scenery of Guangdong is also varied and beautiful, and the province is great for not too strenuous hill walking, boat trips on lakes and rivers, leisurely strolls around farms and fields, and visits to hot springs.



Wherever you go, you will have locals falling over themselves to offer you drinks and food. And the food is …




(Food photos: Ellen Woodall)

Loiter outside a karaoke bar and you’ll be dragged in, forced to gate crash! Although singing is optional, beer drinking is a must. But don’t worry; mainland beer is only a little stronger than water, while at the same time being rich in flavour.

Small towns include: Zhaoqing, Sihui, Yingde, Sanshui, Yunfu, Qingyuan and Heyuan. And thence: Into the countryside we stroll.



SUPER ADVENTUROUS ADVENTURE TRIPS:

You pick somewhere on the map and we go there.          One thing’s for sure: Your camera finger won’t be idle.



All right. The last photo wasn’t taken in Guangdong; it’s actually Jiayuguan Fort at the end of the Great Wall. But who says I can’t take you there too?

EXTRA:

I make a documentary from the trip starring you in one of your most fun roles!

Contact me for information about prices, times etc.

Testimonials from satisfied customers.

“Here’s my (totally heartfelt) testimonial:

Cecilie – we had a blast on our trip! There’s no doubt in our minds that we wouldn’t have had the exciting and real (and surreal) experiences that we did if we hadn’t had you as a guide and translator (and card coach). If we’d tried to go by ourselves, we would’ve ended up trudging around an endless series of tourist attractions highlighted in guidebooks because we wouldn’t have had any idea what else to do (or how to do it). I’m glad we got to do something more to our taste – tramping around local markets rather than shopping at huge malls, exploring off the beaten paths, crashing karaoke parties, and, once or twice, actually beating Real Chinese People at cho dai di! We can’t wait to go back.

Ellen & Kelly”

“Best night I’ve ever spent in Shenzhen – great bars, delicious food, clubbing, crazy conversations with locals in English and Cantonese … when can we go again ?”    Alexandra Tracy

“Cecilie Gamst Berg is the number 1 tour guide ever. Several times we have run after her in China, and she never lost more than six people in one evening (out of ten).

– Øyvind Berg, Baktruppen (A Norwegian avant garde theatre troupe) “

(That’s right – I lost them because they refused to believe that the taxi driver was taking them to where I told him to take them (the train station) and they therefore made their way back to Hong Kong by themselves while I waited for hours at the station with the people I hadn’t lost. But before getting lost, they’d experienced drinking snake gall bladder wine and also equipped themselves with quite a few PLA uniforms for their next show.)

Vi har hatt en uke med Cecilie i Hong Kong og inn til Kina. Det ble en annerledes opplevelse da hun snakker språket og visste om mange lokale plasser så det ble ingen typisk turist tur! Vi hadde en “once in a life” opplevelse. Har vel aldri opplevd så mye på så kort tid og Cecilie lå hele tiden “one step ahead” noe som gjorde at vi bare kunne slappe av og bare nyte! I tillegg lagde hun en morsom reise DVD, redigert med musikk og tale, som viser oss på tur. Dette er veldig artig å se på og vise fram til slekt/venner. Tusen takk Cecilie for en skikkelig opplevelse. Håper at det kan gjentaes.

May-Liss og Mette
Meaning: We spent a week with Cecilie in Hong Kong and China. It was a different experience as she speaks the language and knew many local places, so it wasn’t a typical tourist trip. Have probably never experienced so much in such a short time, and Cecilie was “one step ahead” the whole time, which allowed us just to relax and enjoy. In addition she made a fun travel DVD, edited with music and voice-over, showing us on our trip. It is really fun to watch and to show relatives and friends. Thanks a lot, Cecilie, for a great experience. Hope we can do it again.

Mette Grødahl and May-Liss Bensvik
Norway

“Dear Cecilie! To travel in China with you – whether it’s for shopping in Shenzhen or to explore the backstreets and neighbourhoods, hole-in-the-wall-restaurants, obscure bars or local markets in Guangzhou or in more unknown towns, hardly marked on the maps – is a true delight! Your knowledge of the language, your enthusiasm, your obvious joy of the journey and your skills in haggling has made my trips with you memorable, and I can’t wait to return in June!

Cecilie Maske”