ambtraveler

October Break- Day 1 & 2

Guangzhou, Guangdong

On September 30, 2011, I began my week long vacation for national day in China. I left Changsha from the south railway station around 10:30 a.m. on a fast train. The views of the countryside were beautiful and Jack and I were entertained by cute little Chinese children for most of the ride. We arrived at Guangzhou three hours later and began our trek to the hostel. Luckily Guangzhou has an efficient and advanced subway system throughout the entire city that is also inexpensive. After a 6 kuai subway ride, we arrived to our hostel. It was located on the south side of the Pearl river by all the bars and night clubs and had great views of the city. The rest of the day was spent venturing around the city in different areas, I spent about an hour of my afternoon exchanging money. Exchanging money is quite a task here and after being in country for two months, I finally succeeded. We got a yummy meat dinner at a Lebanese restaurant and headed home for the final members of our group to arrive.

Day 2 was quite busy. We got an early start and headed out to explore the cultural sites of Guangzhou. First we visited the museum for the last emperor of Nanyue kingdom. It had many interesting relics but the most interesting was the underground tomb where his body was found, that we could explore. From there we got a yummy lunch of Japanese cuisine. Unfortunately, I had a scary experience after inhaling some of the strongest wasabi ever. I couldn’t breathe but was able to avoid disaster. After lunch, we ventured to the Liurong Temple, also know as the Temple of the Banyan Trees. It was beautiful and I had a lot of fun taking photos here. It was amazing such an ancient temple could be tucked away in such a modernizing city. After the temple, we continued our foot trek of Guangzhou and headed to the Chen Clan Academy. Another amazing structure and site. This is the photo above of Jack and me. Then we headed to another area of the city known for shopping, also like the financial district. This is where I was able to see the Canton TV Tower in all its glory. We got a fresh, delicious dinner at a Italian sandwich/pizza shop. Then we booked it to the riverside in hopes of finishing the evening with a river cruise. Unfortunately, the tickets were all sold out and we decided to get some drinks instead. We went a bar along the river and Jack ordered me a drink called “pussy”. As you can see above it was a non-alcoholic drink for 35 kuai. The best part about it was watching him order it to the waitress. I was laughing so hard. From there we returned to our hostel and passed out as soon as our heads hit the pillow.