This was my first experience with China airports.  I had been to Taiwan years ago and even though this one in Guangzhou is far more modern, it is a mess of turns and unnecessary forced shopping experiences.

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I’ll be fair and look at a lot of different factors because it has pros and cons, and some of the situations aren’t even the fault of the airport such as the fact that all the websites and chat apps that I use don’t work here because the government blocks them.  

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## Pros

* the place is impeccably clean – I mean spotless.   I don’t think I have ever been in an airport this clean.  If I dropped a sandwich on the ground I would consider eating it still.
*  this might be because of when I arrived but it felt like I had the place to myself, there were tons of staff and everything happened quickly except at customs, but that was customs and those jerks are slow and methodical the world over at certain points I thought maybe I had wandered into an area I am not supposed to be in.
*  The people moving floors are all over the place and even though I don’t generally use them in airports because well, I’m not in a hurry for the most part, it is nice that they have so many of them.
*  The place is very automated with kiosks instead of people.  This is very important because although English is pretty much spoken in airports without fail, it could be really helpful for the other language speakers that are traveling through.
*  the WiFi works everywhere and the kiosk spits out a ticket for you that is good for 300 minutes.  I really don't understand why they do this… are they afraid the neighbors are going to steal the WiFi if they don’t protect it?  Or perhaps they are concerned about people hanging out at the airport all day just to use the internet.  Anyway, it is fast and it connected straight away.  Now if the country didn’t block everything.
*  There are tons of places to plug in complete with universal adapters.  

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## Cons

*  There seems to be an objective on the part of the design of this place in order to hide places to sit outside of the overpriced cafes and restaurants.  Most airports in the world are like this so I guess this isn’t surprising.
*  I do not understand why it is that I was forced to go through customs when I am not leaving the airport.  I have never encountered this in an international transfer before.  However, it is my understanding that USA does this too.. maybe that is where China got the idea.  They were also quite abrasive and had very little in the way of language skills and the customers (including me) were confused by their instructions.  They took my lighter from me
*  I guess I didn’t need my lighter because there is not a single smoking lounge in the entire airport.  I get it ok… smoking is bad for you but this is annoying.  So I can’t have a ciggie in the most polluted country in the world.  UPDATE:  I found a smoking room – it was in such an incredibly hidden location that 2 information people I spoke to didn’t know where it was.  173 gates, 1 smoking lounge. haha
*  this is a strange one:  There was a high pitched whistling going on, like the sound of a heart rate monitor when the patient has already died, everywhere…. It was disturbing.  At some point I thought I might be having a stroke or be dreaming, but no… I asked other people and they could hear it too.
*  no cheap chain restaurants.   No McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, DQ etc.  Everything in this international terminal is something I have never heard of.  Maybe they don’t have those in China.  Well at least they have high pitched screeching sounds to keep us occupied.  

Overall, I know I would never have come to this airport if my flight hadn’t simply been passing through it – no offense to anyone Chinese but I have very little reason to want to travel here.   At least I am only here for a few hours but to be fair, if I came back here as a non-smoker with a little more efficient pack on my gear to deal with customs, I suppose it would be ok.