Wo bu shuo Guangdong hua! Part 5

After going back to Hong Kong from Macau, I had early dinner at a low-key local place. I was very hungry.

Wonton and San Mig. Fills you up very fast.

View in the restaurant

The last thing I did in HK was to check out the laser light show from Kowloon that overlooks Hong Kong. 

Had to hit the sack early for an early flight to Fukuoka, Japan the next morning.  But back at the Chungking Mansions, I didn't get much sleep at all.

Maybe it was me getting used to the comfy bed in Macau.  Maybe I was too excited about going to Japan. But, there was a couple next to my guest house room that were making a lot of squeaky noises on their squeaky bed.  That kept me up.

Well, that pretty much sums up my journey throughout Guangzhou, HK and Macau.  I love the Cantonese-speaking areas of China.  Hong Kong is one of my favorite cities the world over.  The places and adventures I've had in these places were awesome.  The food was even better!  I look forward to my next visit to this area of the world.

Next up...JAPAN!

Wo bu shuo Guangdong hua! Part II

 

Started off my third day going to an old Roman Catholic church that the French built. Started late, so when I finished looking around, I tried to get lunch at the local Cantonese sit-down restaurants.  But the Cantonese love Cantonese food, so they were jam packed with people. I was hungry.  I settled for a nice German bar/ restaurant that's popular with the Western expat community.  Had an assortment of sausages and sauerkraut.  Yummy.  Actually, it was probably the best Western-style meal I've had in all of Asia.

Paulaner beer from Munich is delicious, btw.

Wanted to go see some co-co commie stuff, so I started heading over to the PMI, the Peasant Movement Institute.  I wanted to go to the Whampoa Military Academy, where Sun Yat Sen, Zhou Enlai and Chiang Kai Shek all used to work, but that was 40 km out of town, and like I said, I started late.  Also, I wasn't so confident in my ability to make two bus connections in the middle of nowhere in a foreign environment.  Later, in Japan, I would learn that this really was not a problem, but China is very different than Japan, and wo bu shuo Guangdong hua!

So I settled for the PMI.  Mao and Zhou used to lecture peasants at the school on how to bring about peasant-based revolution in rural China.  A lot of the students were from the countryside.  Many of them were killed during the Guomindang's massacre of the reds just before or during the war with Japan.  I also stumbled across a lovely vase exhibit at the Guangzhou Main Library.

Vase exhibit

Peasant Movement Institute

Mao lecturing students in typical propaganda-style painting.  Notice the students listening to him as if he's a god.

A Chinese translation of The Communist Manifesto used at the school.

2010 Guangzhou Asian Games Venue

From there, I went to the more modern areas of Guangzhou.  Went into 2 really posh looking malls, where I bought a copy of The Lonely Planet: Japan from a foreign bookstore.  I also walked around the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games venue.  It was massive, and overlooked Guangzhou's increasingly impressive modern skyline.  I figure in about a decade, Guangzhou will be one of the economic bastions of China alongside HK and Shanghai.

At night, I went to eat dinner on Beijing Lu, the major road for night life and night shopping.  Nice place and pretty clean to Chinese city standards.  Saw a fight between a local vendor and a police officer.

The next day, I would pack up and leave for Hong Kong.

Wo bu shuo Guangdong hua! Part I

Okay, let me rewind a bit since I'm back in Wuhan.  I didn't get to update my blog as much as I wanted to while I was traveling East Asia.

When: January 21st, 2011
Where: Guangzhou, Guangdong, People's Republic of China
What: First stop on my backpacking trip, old school Bad Religion on my iPod

After I left Jingzhou, I went back to Wuhan and then down to Guangzhou via the fastest train in the world - the Wuhan-Guangzhou Super Express. It goes faster than the Shinkansen in Japan.  And apparently it isn't even a MagLev!

Guangzhou is such a pretty city, especially at night.  Once I got to the HI Hostel, I got an upgraded room for free because they needed my room for a bigger party.  I got the best room in the hostel - it overlooked the Pearl River.  Beautiful, but I was here to explore!  After dropping my bags, I took off to the Tea Market of the South, which is an EPIC tea market.  It spans many major roads and all the side streets and alleyways in between. I was so overwhelmed with how much tea and teaware there was, I forgot to buy something.  Southern China is a hotspot for tea and only now do I regret not getting anything there.

The next day I ran around the city.  I went to...

...the ferry across the Pearl River.

Shamian Island, an old colonial district turned tourist hotspot.  Once upon a time, no dogs and Chinese were allowed on this island.

Liwan Park. Very pretty park where the Cantonese come out of the woodwork to do kung fu, taichi chuan, badminton, and hacky sack. I also went through Antique Street, which was more of a market than an antique street.  I also saw something typical of Chinese markets - indiscriminate slaughtering of animals, including alligators.  Apparently, as the stereotype goes according to Mandarin Chinese, the Cantonese eat everything.

The Chen Clan Ancestral Hall.  A big complex for Chinese arts.

The Museum and Tomb of the Nanyue King

...and Yuexiu Park

Something you need to know about me.  When I travel, I love to move fast and hard.  In between the venues, I even stopped for breakfast, coffee, lunch, and a weird egg/ginger concoction that was strangely refreshing.  

I walked around Yuexiu Park (since there are a lot to things to see there) and the streets around my hostel for the rest of the day.  I saw an AA gun and Guangzhou 2010 Asian Games stuff in the park!

I was considering going to the Chinese Medicine Academy to get a massage, but it was getting late.  Oh well.

Overall, I was very impressed with Guangzhou after just one day of looking around.  Very clean and the traffic was not so bad.  Okay, maybe it was pretty bad, but compared to Wuhan it was tame.