I can't believe I'm really in China. I'm already glad I decided to come here - there is a lot to see, observe and attempt to understand, though I already feel that on this trip I'll only scratch the surface.
I didn't really know what Guangzhou would be like, but I pictured it as a big, polluted, dirty city with crowds of people and chaos. In reality, this city (formerly known as Canton) is quite different than how I pictured it.
The first thing I noticed here is how green it is. In Hong Kong, and even in cities like New York and Boston, you see lots of brick and steel, but not a lot of green (unless you are in a park). Here there are nice parks and gardens, but there are also hundreds of tree lined streets - oftentimes, the trees are so tall and big that the street is completely shaded. Here is an example:
These streets aren't necessarily residential side streets - they are often main roads with shops, restaurants, apartments, etc. So it's really quite a beautiful city.
Between the big streets, there are lots of neighborhoods, many with alleys and pedestrian-only walkways like this one:
These neighborhoods are really neat - on my first afternoon here, I wandered around near my hotel into a neighborhood like this one, and ended up at a local wet market, where local residents were buying raw and roasted meats, vegetables and fruit. I took a picture of some dragonfruit.
And here's a picture of the street outside the market.
The other main thing I noticed right away here is that there are almost no other foreigners. Not very many people speak English, although many street signs (and signs and announcements in the metro) are in Chinese and English.
Before meeting up with Willa yesterday evening, I managed to buy a jasmine milk tea with tapioca. In order to do this, I had to whip out the Cantonese phrasebook and look up 'jasmine' in the dictionary. Once I figured this out, the kids working at the tea stand understood what I wanted. Everyone had a good laugh about the lack of understanding - but at least the phrase "bye-bye" is the same in both Cantonese and English, so even if I can't talk to people, I can at least say goodbye.
Here's a picture of my bubble tea.
Last night Willa came and met up with me at my hotel at 5:30. We walked around a bit through some more random neighborhoods, then eventually took the metro to a Hakka restaurant she had picked out for us to eat at - we met up with a few of her friends, who brought along others, so we were a party of six for the meal. Hakka food isn't too common outside of southeastern China - here's a link to the wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_cuisineMy favorites included a braised stuffed tofu, salt-baked chicken and steamed loofa with garlic. After a leisurly dinner, four of us went to another place by the Pearl River for dessert. We sat on a balcony overlooking the river, as river cruise boats floated by, and ate two orders of banana pancakes. Willa's friends are regulars at this place and they always come for the panckes, which are fried in butter - they are much like Chinese scallion pancakes, but with banana instead of scallions. Yum.
Today was a day of exploring Guangzhou. Willa and I met up at 11 and walked from my hotel to a big pedestrian street in the center of the city.
For some reason this picture makes it look dark, but it was actually quite hot and sunny out.
We walked through a big square (sorry I don't remember names of any squares or streets)
We also walked through a jade market, and through a street with lots of food stands - including some more interesting items, like scorpions, baby squids and larvae:
I did not try any of these, since I was saving room for dim sum! :)
Willa took me to a place called Guangzhou Restaurant, a popular tea house founded in 1935. This was a true dim sum palace - multiple floors, an internal courtyard, dozens (hundreds?) of waiters and waitresses. We ordered some items from the menu, and I also went down to the 2nd floor (we were seated on the 3rd floor) where you could choose out items yourself.
I will post dim sum pictures in a separate post - but this dim sum easily beat out what I ate in Hong Kong and Macau - we had full tea service too, about 6 dim sum dishes, and also ordered an item off the menu: fried milk.
This version had shrimp and scallops, and was topped with a crunchy nut that tasted somewhat like pistachios.
The meal was a lot of fun, and the place was completely full (despite being Monday. Willa said the wait is usually quite long on weekends)
After a nice lunch, we walked around some more. Some streets have traditional gates at the start of the street.
We walked through several markets. I didn't take many photos since many people in the market didn't want us taking photos of them, or their products. But I did take a few.
We passed this stand that was selling turtles, frogs, toads and snakes. They were not being sold as pets.
We went to a market with lots of medicinal herbs and spices. I took this picture of star anise (below) and dried tangerine peel (above).
Another market we went to had dozens of stalls selling dried seafood: abalone, shrimp, scallops, seahorse, mussels, and sharks fin (shown in this picture)
Here are some guys with bicycle carts near the dried seafood market.
There's a lot of construction going on Guangzhou - huge buildings (malls, apartments, shopping centers) are going up right next to small alleyways filled with tiny shops and apartments. It's an interesting contrast. There are lots of big roads cutting through the city as well, many with pedestrian walkways to cross over.
In the afternoon we walked around Shamian Island, which had very nice gardens and a beautiful looking Starbucks. The US Consulate is here, and this is the only neighborhood in the city where I have seen other Americans visitors.
In the evening, Willa and I headed toward the eastern side of the city for dinner (see my previous post). It was really nice that Willa was able to show me around the city today - I learned a lot and she was an excellent guide! So Willa, if you're reading this, thanks!!!
I was very impressed with Guangzhou, and I'd definitely consider returning here someday.
Tomorrow I am off to Guilin - I leave for the airport in the morning, and I'm excited. I will miss Cantonese food though - it's been delicious. But I'm excited to see what other great meals I'll have in the rest of China.
