Visiting Friends in Nasha, a Fast Growing City in Southern China

It was a few days before the Chinese New Year and the streets in China are bustling with activities. People were rushing around buying flowers for their homes, new clothe for kids, groceries for the New Year dinners and other preparations. Amid the hustle and bustle, We had a few relaxing days in Guangzhou after our trip to Cambodia as we needed the time to regain our energy. Also, we had no new year dinners to prepare. What a relaxing time! We just strolled around the city enjoying the sights and sounds of the city, the busy new year markets, the bright and colourful flowers and floral arrangements displayed outside the stores on many streets. After our strolls, we took it easy and enjoyed our breaks in one of the city's numerous nice coffee shops.

While travlling in various countries, we have many opportunites of making new friends. While in China, I got reconnected with a long lost friend and visited her and her family in Nasha. I have never heard of this city until recently. Taking a subway train at the brand new Guangzhou South Station in Guangzhou - another new subway station just opened since we visited this city last year, it took us about 45 minutes before arriving at Nasha, a city about 800,000 inhabitants.

My friend's family came to pick us up at the subway station taking us straight to their home located in a fairly newly developed community. Their apartment is around three years old; it is spacious, airy and bright. We like the gererous size of each room inside the aprtment as well as the pleasant environment of the condo community.

My friend and her family welcome us warmly into their home. They prepared some nice pastries, teas and treats for us. It was such a warm feeling visiting my friend and her family. The toddler was so cute! We could not take our attention away from her. Having visited for an hour and catching up with our news with each other, we went for a walk with the family around the neighbourhood. After a short stroll, we reached the waterfront where we saw some nice new buildings and numerous sailboats and samll yachts docked. We also learned more about this relatively new city.

Since Nasha's population is still small - in China's standard, the city is not crowded at all. Lots of businesses are starting to come up in their neighbourhood. My friend's family thoroughly love living in this community because of its close proximity to the ferry terminal and the fast access to Hong Kong. They could eaily take one of the four daily scheduled ferry boat rides from the Nasha waterfront straight to Hong Kong in an hour and half time! K. told me that they often take the ferry to HonG Kong, do some shopping, enjoy a nice meal and then could be back to Nasha on the same day! How cool is that!

Nasha, has in fact, become a part of Guangzhou in recent years, therefore is served by the same metro subway system making it easy for people to travel between these places.

We also learned that in order to solve the housing shortages, the traffic congestion headaches in big cities in China and to alleviate provety in the villages, for the past decade the Chinese government has been doing a lot. It has been investing heavily in infrastructures such as road construction, building fast trains and expanding city subways providing efficient and affordable transportation systems for city people to communte for work as well as enabling farmers and villages to transport and sell their produces and goods outside of their area villages. Wow, what a nice sidetrip it was to the city of Nasha! We got to visit a new city and it was nice seeing my friend again! RT Nasha, Guangdong, China