Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Yeller
My wife and I have been thinking about doing a trip over there at some point in the near future, I don't mind PM'ing you but you should just post in here or even make a thread about it... I'd love more of a writeup with further details of where you went, what you saw and your overall experiences.
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Here's part 1 for now! Let me know if you have any questions!!
Day 1 and Day 2 – Hong Kong
I planned for us to spend the first 2 days in Hong Kong before going to Guangzhou to allow us to recover a bit from the jet lag. Funny enough though, we didn’t suffer from any jet lag at all. We arrived at 6:30AM and stayed out until around 9PM, which may have been the reason for it. We stayed at the Courtyard Marriot Shatin, which is a 7-minute walk from one of the subway lines (Shek Mun station), located in an area with everything we need within a 10-minute walk from the hotel (15+ restaurants, Watson’s (like Shoppers), Starbucks, etc.) but tucked away a bit which means it quiets down at 9PM, which is good for my parents, when compared to other very busy places in HK, like Central, TST, etc. Didn’t do much sightseeing in HK as my parents and I have been there lots of times. I have suggestions though for things to do in HK if anyone is interested.
Link to hotel on Google Maps:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/b19Bn5UjNGhAgrWS7
Day 3 – Hong Kong to Guangzhou
Took one of the high-speed trains from HK to Guangzhou. Tickets need to be purchased early as they fill up fast and often with travelers. When you purchase your tickets, you’re asked to enter your passport details – your ticket is then linked to your passport and when you scan your passport at customs, they’ll see your train ticket. Everything in China is digital! Also, bring your passport out with you everywhere as entry to sites, etc. require your ID (passport). Our tickets were purchased before we even left Canada for China.
Website for high-speed rail:
https://www.highspeed.mtr.com.hk/en/main/index.html
Ticket purchasing page you’ll eventually land on to purchase your tickets:
https://www.12306.cn/en/index.html
The high-speed trains in China are amazing. On one of the screens in the trains, it cycled through various information like weather, speed, etc. and I did see at one point we were moving at 300 km/h! Don’t realize it or ‘feel’ it. For my purposes, we arrived from HK into Guangzhoueast station because it was closer to the hotel, but when returning to HK, we departed from the Guangzhousouth station as it was closer to where my relatives live and they were dropping us off. An attendant goes through the train offering drinks for purchase, but it’s less than an hour.
Regarding payments – download WeChat and link your Canadian credit card to it. Do the same with Alipay, so you have both. Everything is digital in China now, and while you could use cash, it’s way more convenient to open your app and pay that way. I noticed that Alipay sometimes didn’t work, so by day 2 in China, I just used WeChat every time without issue. You will either scan the QR code of the vendor you are paying or they can scan you. Usually, you scan them, you’re prompted for a password you setup in your WeChat app and it approves. I also get notifications through my bank of any transactions in real-time, so it was great to see how much I was charged in Canadian dollars in that notification and then celebrate for how far your money goes over there!
I stayed at the Element in Baiyun, which is a district in the northern part of Guangzhou, near Baiyun Mountain. It is located actually in a mini-Marriott resort as there are 4 hotels in a sort of large square all there – Sheraton, Element, Marriott and another one I can’t remember right now.
Hotel in Google Maps:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/cHgy2jBcY2T3ZtQt8
Our relatives insisted my parents stay with them, so I cancelled their hotel room while I stayed at the hotel and would meet them in the mornings somewhere for breakfast. The Guangzhou subway system is awesome. Easy to figure out, ticket machines are in English and Chinese and stop announcements are in English, Mandarin and Cantonese. I downloaded the Android app, “MetroMan” which gives you estimated trip times from stop to stop and also has the full GZ metro map to view. Recommend downloading that to use while there. The subway takes you to almost all the sites we checked out in GZ. My relatives were awesome though and drove us everywhere our entire time in GZ, but I was happy to get to check out their subway every day to start my day and to end my day.
Day 4 – Guangzhou
We got 5 spots in! Not bad for my parents who are in their late 70s!
1.Tomb of the Nanyue King – I spent over an hour here but I literally looked at and listened to the narrator for probably 85% of the things in there. My parents finished before me LOL.
-If I remember correctly, developers discovered the tomb while doing excavation in preparation to put up condos in the 1980s. What they uncovered was what turned out to be a 2,000 (!!) year old tomb of Zhao Mo, who died in 124 BC. You can rent a headset to walk you through everything in the museum in English, which I highly recommend. The details behind what you see are amazing. I was blown away.
-Link to Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum...he_Nanyue_King
-Link to the museum site:
https://www.nywmuseum.org.cn/En/News/Exhibition
“The Nanyue Kingdom, located to the south of the Five Ridges and facing the South China Sea, was the first local regime established by Zhao Tuo in the Lingnan region over 2000 years ago. With a territory including Guangdong, Guangxi and the northern part of today's Vietnam, the Nanyue Kingdom lasted for 93 years and handed down five kings. Under the management of Zhao Tuo and other governors, the Nanyue Kingdom played an important role in all-round development of politics, economy and culture of Lingnan region.”
2.Yuexiu Park and Guangzhou Museum (inside the park) – We were here for around 90 minutes.
-Beautiful park to take a stroll through, with the Guangzhou Museum located at the top of a hill that is worth seeing that focuses on the history of the city of Guangzhou, the battles its seen from invaders throughout history and you also see parts of the walls that used to surround the city. Definitely also check out the five rams statue which is also in the park and one of the main attractions.
-Link to park:
https://g.co/kgs/fZua6XK
-Article on Yuexiu Park, museum and five rams statue:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuexiu_Hill
3.Chen Clan Ancestral Hall – We were here for a good 90 minutes.
-Amazing site if you are interested in seeing old-school, traditional Chinese architecture, pottery, furniture, homes, etc. “The Ancestral Temple of the Chen Family is a compound complex consisting of nine halls, six courtyards and nineteen buildings connected by corridors, all separated by walls from the outside world. A pair of stone drums in front of the entrance door, measuring 2.55 meters (about 8.36 feet) in height and two colored drawing pictures of door-god of four meters (about 13 feet) height are said to be the best in Guangdong.
The Chen Clan Academy was constructed in the traditional Chinese symmetrical style and the main hall, the Juxian Hall is in the center of the temple. Juxian Hall was once a place for clansmen to assemble before the establishment of the temple and now it is used as an ancestral hall. In front of the hall is a stone gazebo surrounded by stone balustrades. In the hall there is an exquisitely carved folding screen which is an excellent example of woodcarving.”
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-Link to site:
https://g.co/kgs/o652HK5
4.Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall – Here for under 60 minutes.
-Important figure for China and the Chinese. “His political philosophy, known as the Three Principles of the People, sought to modernise China by advocating for nationalism, democracy, and the livelihood of the people in an ethnically harmonious union (Zhonghua minzu).[3] The philosophy is commemorated as the National Anthem of the Republic of China, which Sun composed.”
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-Link to site:
https://g.co/kgs/eHDG7hU
5.Beijing Road – Here for an hour.
-The least historical (though there’s still some like covered under glass of the old, original stones which made up the same new road you’re walking on, from thousands of years ago. It’s modern, with stores that we see in North America and Europe, so you can come shop here if you want or just to take in the energy as it’s PACKED with people, buzzing with an energy in the air you can feel and definitely go at night with the lights on, etc. Accessible by taking the metro and getting off at Beijing Lu station (Lu = road).
-Link to site:
https://www.travelchinaguide.com/cit...n-yUjFjF61D-w5
Photos below from Day 1
