Yes finally down to documenting my China trip last month from 3-7 Mar.
I aptly named the title "Beautiful China" cos its coincidentally and most creatively, their tourism slogan. HAHAHA.
Ok so as usual, I did up an itinerary with all places, transport, and food that I've covered throughout the 5 days. So if u want to take a look, do email me and I will send the info to u!
Summary of Day 1:
Check-in at Paco Business Hotel
Tianhe district
Zhujiang River district
Beijing Road district
Anyway, the aim of this trip is to reunite with my bestie ex-colleague Liling in Guangzhou. Her husband was out-stationed there and thus she will go there often to stay. I travelled with our mutual friend Yee Han, who happens to be a guru at travelling. So all in all a pretty good trip, EXCEPT that I was sick pretty much throughout the trip. Ohwells more on that later. Pictures first!
We flew via SQ, and airfare was $380.20 to Guangzhou HAHAHA damn good a price.
Mandatory Plane food shot
We reached Guangzhou Baiyun Airport and Yee Han proceeded to buy her sim card from a counter not far from our baggage claim area. I had bought a Singtel Readyroam data plan for Asia and rest of the world (cos I was going Europe later part of the month, more on that next!) at $35 - 1GB for a month. Had to say, connection was soooo gooood throughout.
This portion of the airport looked so pretty and futuristic!
We bought a Yang Cheng Tong card which can be used to travel on the metro at CNY50. That's the minimum value, deposit inclusive. We didn't bother to get our deposit back at the end of the trip cos it was a hassle - u can only get the refund from a particular metro station, so we thought to just keep it just in case... for next time?
Anyway, first culture shock of the trip: metro in China. Because the seats aren't separated like what we have in SG, u can pretty much squeeze in as many people as u want in 1 bench. And the Chinese seem to be very good at squeezing cos they would inch in even though there is only space for a baby. I kid u not. Luckily it was winter season and we are all wrapped up. The guy just squeezed and sat beside me like it was nothing. OK I have come to terms with this but I wonder what happens in summer when girls are wearing sleeveless and short skirts? hahahha...
We then took a long metro ride to Tiyu Xilu Station, which was just a 2min walk to our hotel - Paco Business Hotel (Tiyu Xilu branch). This hotel has many branches throughout Guangzhou! But I chose this one cos its supposedly newer. Indeed, the hotel was so clean, service was good, and design was modern!
After settling in and meeting Liling and her hubby at our hotel, we walked to Bing Sheng, a restaurant recommended by her hubby.
Just look at this roast pork.
BEST ROAST PORK I'VE EVER HAD.
Even the rice was good. But seriously, the other dishes were of restaurant standard but not as WOW as compared to the roast pork. It was a bit on the pricey side though but hey, highly recommended for their specialty!
168 Tianhe E Rd, ShiPai, Tianhe Qu, Guangzhou
Price: unknown, a treat by Liling's hubby
After a late lunch, we walked to the Tianhe district where a lot of the shopping malls are. There are some cafes along this area but we were too full to go in and thus skipped them.
I wanted to go to the LINE FRIENDS cafe and store and it happened to be nearby!
Like the one in Korea, there's this giant Brown at the shopfront and u have to queue quite awhile ( I think we queued more than 15min?) to take pictures with him.
There are many photo spots around the store and cafe, so we took our time to take with most of them. The place was so popular u have to queue most of the time to take pictures. But at least the queues apart from the giant Brown were very short.
Then we took the metro to Zhujiang xincheng in preparation to see the famous Pearl Tower.
There was a never-ending stream of humans hustling to and fro the metro station. It looked like what our MRT stations will be like during countdown or something. I've never been so scared of metro stations all my life hahaha.
And we met Yee Han's friend for dinner at Tan Yu at a nearby mall.
I was already sick at this time and partially lost my sense of smell and taste, but the fish still tasted good to me!
My friends were also full of praise for this dish.
Various branches throughtout China
Price: a treat from her friends so I really don't know
We then walked out of the mall and into the cold. What welcomed us was this amazing view of the city skyline, and the famous Pearl Tower within reach.
I recommend that u walk this route instead of taking the cruise along the Zhujiang river cos u can take many photos of the Tower from here, and its FOC!
That was the last I saw of Yee Han's friend and we went to Beijing Road after that via metro.
It was late and there were still many people along the streets here.
Famous sausage that I felt was so-so. Maybe cos I lost my sense of taste but well street food is still comforting!
After that, we were so tired that we decided to dadidi, or in Chinese, 打滴滴 using this app called 滴滴打车.
It is China's form of Uber or Grab as we know it. As u know, China bans Google, Pokemon, and even kicked out apps like Uber to have their own Baidu, Pokemon-knockoff game, and 滴滴打车.
It works pretty much the same way and is really cheap after converting to SGD so we used that pretty much throughout the rest of our trip.
That's all for Day 1.
Click below for
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