Guangzhou, formerly Canton, is mostly just a big city. But it had its charms. Chrissy and Jav had planned to be there at the same time so we booked the same hostel and Taz came down to join us as well. It was so nice to see them after a few weeks apart and our hostel was in a great location on the southern bank of the Pearl River, just across from Shamian Island. It was also a very good hostel for meeting people, and we made a brilliant group of friends including 2 French girls, Cyrielle and Mathilde, their friend Remi, Dutch Bram and German Torsten.
Apart from making full use of the metro, I didn’t see much of the city. Far too busy ‘celebrating’ the New Year. But we did catch the ferry over to Shamian Island quite a few times. The island was given to European powers as a token section of land that foreigners were permitted to set foot on, back when we weren’t allowed within the city walls. It’s now a peaceful haven in the midst of a busy city and has a very colonial feel.
We had some great Thai food and there were some nice views of the city lights from the ferry at night.
Here I am with Cyrielle in Shamian park. Keeping busy.
On New Year’s Eve we hit the markets of Guangzhou to find rabbit ears. We searched for a very long time down dodgy back alleys until we found the main shopping street where every other shop sold ears by the bucket. Though Guangzhou has its fair share of foreigners the four of us Pingxiang laowai attracted more attention with our rabbit ears than we’ve ever had in Pingxiang. People were literally following us down the street with cameras; one guy even walked backwards right in front of us for about 15 minutes taking photo after photo. It's worrying, really, how many photos of me there are on random Chinese people's cameras.
In the evening the hostel put on a dumpling party, so we had a go at making dumplings. All the dumplings made by all the hostel guests were cooked together so the French girls and I made a sneaky Kinder Bueno dumpling which miraculously came back to us and was delicious.
It turned out that New Year’s Eve wasn’t really a very big deal. We had a good night though. In the morning we went out in search of dragons. Somewhat disappointing – the best we could find was a 2-man lion doing the rounds in the shops just around the corner.
And a guy in a chicken suit.
Things got a little more exciting in the evening with the promise of a big fireworks display. The street outside our hostel was usually fairly deserted but from about 5pm the crowds started gathering, roads were sectioned off and police were everywhere. It seemed like half the city had turned out for the fireworks so we set up camp near the river to secure a good viewing spot.We were waiting a while, so we decided to entertain the crowds with a rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody, which was received with tremendous gratitude (at least this is how I interpreted hundreds of disdainful glares and annoyed mutterings). It worked though; the fireworks started just as we were drawing to a close.
The Chinese certainly know how to do fireworks – there was almost an hour of them, set off from 5 boats lined up in the centre of the river. It was hard to capture the display on camera but they were spectacular. It made me think about how mad it is that I’m in China this year, and how exciting.
Apart from trying to evade a crazy lady who lurked in and around the hostel, our time in Guangzhou was very chilled. Every night we would go to BBQ man, who was a very excellent man. He BBQ-ed corn like no other. Bram, Cyrielle, Torsten and I were the main BBQ crew.
We had a lot of time for that BBQ.
On the last night we all went on a boat cruise along the Pearl River.
There were lots of lights from builidings and bridges and the river kept changing colour as we drifted along. It was also my only sighting of the Guangzhou TV Tower which I had neglected to go and visit earlier that day. Here are Cyrielle and I with our best tower impressions.
I suppose Chinese New Year wasn’t as big as I thought it would be, but then it’s a family holiday, more like our Christmas, so most Chinese people will spend it at home playing cards and eating dinner. Besides, our little group at the hostel had such a great time that I didn’t feel as if my expectations were disappointed.
On the Saturday after New Year the group dispersed and we all went our separate ways. I was sad, but not too sad, because I was off to Hong Kong to continue my travels with a certain Miss Sarah Sherratt...
