Guangzhou(China): 1N/2D

December 2017 (by YK)     Itinerary Link

Our train from Hong Kong’s Hunghom Station arrived at Guangzhou East Station in about 2 hours. After a brief entering-China formality, we quickly found a cab outside and got to our Airbnb studio($57) near the People’s Park in 15 minutes. The serviced apartment building was connected to Gongyuanqian Station underground, which was one of the reasons I picked this studio. We never got to use the metro in the end, but it was good to have it there.

Guangdong(Canton) province is known for its cuisine, and Guangzhou is the capital. This is where dim sum was originated. Our first meal in town had to be dim sum. Within 10-minute walking distance was Diandude, one of the best known dim sum heavens n Guangzhou. We were not disappointed! No English was spoken there, but they had a menu with photos. I pointed at some of them, and the lady taking our order seemed to ask what kind of tea we wanted. I said puer just because that was the first thing came to my mind as a kind of tea.

Tableside tea service set-up was new to country bumpkins like us. Our server looked at these helpless foreigners who just couldn’t figure out what to do. She came over & showed us how we could prepare our own tea. It was not some tea bag we got. Excellent loose tea wrapped in golden foil with the restaurant logo printed on top.

Each dim sum plate was beautifully presented & all delicious. We wished we could order more, but we were too full. Traveling as a twosome in China has this problem: you can’t order too many different dishes!  The bill came to be around $15.

We were planning to stop at Chen Clan Academy on the metro to admire old architecture before heading to Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street. Instead, we went back to the room and rested a little, then got a cab(12 Yuan) to get to Shangxiaju. It looked like everything was on sale all the time on that street. Fashionable shirts, pants, coats, shoes, bags – under 100 Yuan!

 

 

We were supposed to turn south at Dishifu Road & go to Shamian Island, a quiet old colonial neighborhood. But we just kept walking west thinking it would end somewhere and we could get a cab there. It did kind of end, but the shopping street was going north from that point. Kept walking. Kept popping into various stores. The stores thinned out, finally, but no empty cab in sight. We had no way of telling where we were, and it was pitch dark.

30 minutes later we gave up on getting a cab & hopped on a bus: we will, at least, get out of that area. Luckily, the bus got close enough to our lodging & we were relieved to hop off and walk back to our home for the night. After Shamian, we were planning to check out Haizhu Market area, but we had enough of stores for the day!

Dinner was at a restaurant on the third floor of rather strangely named hotel: Guangzhou Zhuhai Special Economic Zone Hotel. No idea what that meant. The restaurant was a bustling, real local Chinese place. Good food & quite reasonable.

The next morning, we went back to the same restaurant to have breakfast to take advantage of their special deal: everything was 40% off before 13:00. A gentleman was sitting next to us & slowly made his own tea, starting from boiling water right on the table. Yes, people take tea totally seriously in Guangzhou!

Guangzhou South Station was a good 30-40 minute cab ride. We barely got there in time to pick up our train tickets. We shall be back for more dim sum!