After almost two years of living in Shenzhen, I finally took the time to visit our neighbor and capital city of Guangdong Province, Guangzhou. I cannot BELIEVE it took me this long to finally visit, and I’m so glad I finally did. I spent the day with friends exploring some of Guangzhou’s well-known (and lesser known) sights. Read on for more, or you can always check out the vlog I made on my YouTube channel, Briana is Going Places.
I started the day off a bit poorly because I missed my initial train to Guangzhou. I have a bad habit of being a little risky when it comes to trains. I’m only a stop away from the station, and sometimes that leads to me missing my train. More often though, it leads to me getting on my train without having to spend a ton of time at the train station sooooo it seems I will not learn.
After taking probably the most expensive train ride I will ever take, (I got a business class ticket because I was already running late. Business class from Shenzhen to Guangzhou cost me $31.47 on trip. Generally I use Railway 12306 but my account wasn’t working so I had to face the booking fee), I headed towards Shamian Island to meet my friends and start our Guangzhou adventure.
Shamian Island
Shamian Island is an island in the middle of the city where you can see European architecture and spend the day strolling around. It was a really beautiful place. Despite it being a pretty hot day, it was pretty nice walking around this area because it was relatively well shaded. We didn’t spend too much time here, just a brief stroll before heading to lunch.
Lunch at Guangzhou Restaurant
Dim Sum is a very popular Cantonese cuisine, so of course we had to get some during our adventures in Guangzhou. Despite having been in Guangdong all this time, I’ve only been to a proper dim sum restaurant once, so I was excited to get a chane to go again. I looked up some of the best dim sum restaurants in Guangzhou, and we just decided to go to the one closest to us which turned out to be this one! It was about a twenty minute walk from where we were on Shamian Island to the restaurant.
The restaurant itself was nice. We had a short wait, probably around 15 minutes, but it went fast. In my experience, dim sum is not typially that vegetarian friendly, but asking the waitresses yielded a few options I could try.
Honestly, I felt like the food was okay. I most enjoyed the walnut bun, but it wasn’t exceptionally better than other ones I tried. The service was lovely, and the restaurant had a nice, slightly formal ambiance. The most important part, the food was just alright, I’d give this place three stars.
Guangdong Province Museum
After our meal, we wanted to beat the heat, so we headed over to Guangdong Province Museum. The museum was huge and filled with different exhibitions and also filled with people. I wasn’t expecting such a huge crowd on a Thursday. It was a free museum though, so I’m sure that draws a lot of people in.
We spent the time perusing different halls, including a fossil exhibition, a shadow puppet exhibition, and a traveling installation of ancient Roman art and sculpture. While the museum itself is free, some of the exhinbitions, like the Roman one, have an additional fee. The ancient Rome one was ¥60 which felt reasonable enough.
Sun Yat-sen Memorial
Perusing the museum for a couple of hours left us with enough energy to finally face the sun again, so we found the metro and headed over to the Sun Yat-sen Memorial. As we were heading over, I thought it would be closed, but once we got to the site, the grounds were open, and we were able to explore.
This place was beautiful! It felt like such a lovely moment of pause in the hustling bustiling city, and I imagine it would be a nice place to sit a while and ontemplate life. It seems like the inside of the hall is free to enter, but I can’t be 100% sure. I would certainly be keen to visit the grounds again.
Guangzhou Big Buddha Temple
We left Sun Yat-sen Memorial and headed to the Big Buddha Temple by bike. It was definitely a nerve-wracking way to travel, especially during Guangzhou’s rush hour, but it was cool to be able to travel within the protected bike lanes. Our bike trip took about 20 minutes, and we ended up on Beijing Pedestrian Street before the Big Buddha Temple.
This was another gorgeous builfding just plopped down in the middle of the city. There’s a vegetarian restaaurant on the second floor, and that’s where we chose to have dinner for the night. The food was delicious and the waitstaff were so nie. They were trying their hardest to communicate with us in English, and we were trying to answer them back in Mandarin. Those kinds of interactions are always fun.
Unbeknowest to us, our Big Buddha dinner plans were perfectly timed. When we left the restaurant, night was falling, and we had the chance to see the area at night. I think this is a must see for anyone visiting Guangzhou. It’s just so lovely to look at.
Pearl River Night Cruise
All good things must come to an end, and our day of adventuring ended with us going on a cruise on Pearl River. The cruise was about one hour and took us past some beautiful sights, most notably Canton Tower. It was so nice seeing it all lit up.
We chose to get the open air tickets on the third floor. Even though it was nighttime, it was still pretty warm, but I think the views made it worth it. We booked our tickets ahead of time on trip, and they ended up being ¥188 (around $26 USD).
This trip to Guangzhou was by no means exhaustive. There are so many places I still want to go and so many things I’d love to see. Still, I think we got a good tast of the wonderful things Guangzhou has to offer. I wasn’t expecting it to feel so different from Shenzhen, but while there, I really felt Guangzhou’s distinct culture and personality shine through. I can’t wait to go back!