Tales of Asia - Part 11, Lost in Guangzhou (again)

On Saturday, 16th September, I went up to Guangzhou (GZ) again for the third time.

The trip started off a little unsteadily. Taxi's from my apartment in Tsim Sha Tsui to Hung Hom Staion were slow and so I only got to the station by the skin of my teeth only to find out that the train I was scheduled to go on was cancelled. I had to wait for another hour for the next one but that was no problem as I explored the large station complex in the meantime. The train finally left and I got to GZ mid-afternoon.

I booked into a hotel near the park that I explored the first time I was in GZ as I like that part of that city. The first time I stayed in GZ the hotel that I was staying at was on the other side of the city and it took a long time to get over to that park so I could see the historical sites and buildings. Anyway, this time I was in the right part of town. In the evening I wandered down the street, found a Chinese massage place that looked okay and went in and had a one-hour foot massage.

The next morning I went for a walk, had some breakfast and then took a taxi to a place called Shamian. This place is essentially an island that sits on the Pearl River. It is a place where envoys from the West made their home at the early part of the century when they tried to set up trade relationships with China. The architecture is really interesting to look at as there are buildings designed and constructed to resemble French, English, American, Indian, Japanese, and all other matter of architecture from the turn-of-the-century circa 1900. The streets are set out in a grid pattern and it is a really nice place in a park environment to spend a few hours. After I had wandered around there for while, I decided to come back later and take some video footage as somebody told me that it looked really nice there at night.

I then decided to catch the taxi back to the massage place near the hotel. I then had a two-hour body massage and a one-hour foot massage. I felt like a new guy after it was finished. A taxi back to Shamian to take some video footage and then a taxi back to near my hotel and had some dinner. All in all, a nice day.

Next morning, I just really got up and took the subway system to the Guangzhou East station where I caught the train back to Hong Kong.

A few people have asked me why I go to Guangzhou and Shenzhen in mainland China many times. They sometimes seem a little confused at my answer which is "because I can". What they don't realise is that, for many years, I never travelled outside Australia. Now that I am able to travel, I am just so happy to be in Asia where I always wanted to be. When I get the chance to go " to China" and it's so easy just to go and get on a train to get there, I just go to the train station and take the opportunity to go " to China" one more time.

Bye for now.

Best wishes to you all.

Alan