October 29th

After a delicious breakfast buffet at our hotel, we asked the people who worked at the hotel to help get us a taxi. They were very nice and pretty soon after we asked we were zipping through the streets of Guangzhou in a taxi on the way to the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. We walked around a bit, took some photos, were tourists.

Grandmother has already made new friends... typical :-)

 

Then we headed towards Yuexiu Park. Of course, we got a bit a lost but we ended up in the park. The day was absolutely gorgeous. Not too hot or cold with the sun shining. It was so nice to be out of the city (or at least feel like we were). We eventually found our way to Zhenhai Tower (a five story tower built in 1380 during the Ming Dynasty that houses a museum).

Jianzi

 

Stadium getting ready for the Asian Games starting on Nov. 12th

Yay recycling!

 

Zhenhai Tower

 

Famous statue that is a symbol of Guangzhou

 

Leaving the museum, we walked through some beautiful gardens and patios type areas where we saw people ballroom dancing (I saw a group of them dancing to Michael Jackson's Billie Jean) and playing a game called "jianzi," which is like playing with a hacky-sack but instead of a hacky-sack you use a bundle of feathers weighted by a piece of plastic or leather. I'm not sure if I got the name of the game right because when we asked someone they couldn't translate it to English and that was my best attempt at spelling the name of the word she said. I just googled it and apparently I got the spelling right! Here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jianzi.

Starving, we found a Chinese restaurant in the park. We walked up to it to see if we could eat there. They ignored us. Completely ignored us. Pretended we weren't there. No one would seat us. I'm not sure if it was closed for the afternoon or what. But that is absolutely ridiculous. I don't believe that there was no one working at this huge restaurant in the middle of a park that attracts lots of tourists who could speak English, especially during the China Import and Export Fair that was going on at that time in Guangzhou. I'm sure there must have been someone who could have at least told us they were closed or that they did not have any menus in English or at least acknowledged us! Miffed, we headed back to a snack stand we saw and settled for bottled water, potato chips, chocolate wafers, and ice cream cones for lunch. (See above as well as below photographs).

HAHAHA love it.

"Elegant and Intelligent Waterfall" - that is what it was called on the map

 

Eating lunch (notice the creepy guy sitting next to us. he kept staring at me. not fun).

Another funny sign

Flowers everywhere in preparation for the Asian Game

Recharged (somewhat), we braved the metro and were crammed in like sardines. We had to pass through security to get into the metro station, which I don't ever remember doing when I was in Guangzhou last summer. I guess it was because of the Fair. Anyway, we got of the metro at what looked like the closest stop to Shang Jiu Lu Pedestrian Shopping Street. After getting a bit lost, we finally found it. It was packed and not that fun because people were shouting at us to buy things and then following us around incessantly.

Security in the metro station?

 

Wandering. We got a bit lost.

 

 

Too tired to brave finding dinner in the city, we took a taxi back to the hotel and ate salads at the restaurant in the hotel and then, as per usual, played cards. And guess what... Mom won. No surprise there. Haha. Still fun though.

This day in the city was very eyeopening for me. Last summer when I was there, I was never alone nor was I ever without the company of someone who spoke Chinese. This time  I was there as a tourist. A white female tourist. I can't remeber the last time I was stared at so much. It was very uncomfortable. VERY. Anywhere I went people would stop and stare at me. Especially men.
It was also very hard to get around the city and do things in the city because we couldn't speak Chinese. I was never aware of just how unfriendly Guangzhou is to tourists when I was there last summer. I'm by no means saying that the people are unfriendly. We met many nice people. I just mean that there is very little English spoken, so unless you speak Chinese, it is very difficult to get around, find things to eat, ask questions, go shopping, etc.
I'm so glad we went to Guangzhou though. It was a great chance for Mom and Grandmother to see life in Mainland China and see how different as well as how similar it is to Hong Kong.
I am so glad I am studying in Hong Kong and not in Mainland. I know that by studying in Mainland, my Mandarin would improve a lot faster. It's veryyyy difficult with the language barrier here, especially since everyone speaks Cantonese and I know absolutely no Cantonese. However, I think it would be just as bad or worse in Mainland even though I know some Mandarin. At least in Hong Kong there is English on the majority of their signs and they always have English menus at restaurants.