Guangzhou

After reviewing our respective schedules, it turned out that we would be rather constrained for the first phase of the China trip as I had to be back in Macau by Monday and Jason had to be in Dongguan on Friday and then in Chengdu on Monday.   As a consequence, it was not really feasible to travel to far from Hong Kong at this stage. We decided on spending an evening in Dongguan then travelling to Guangzhou on the Saturday.

The journey from Hong Kong to Dongguan was by train, which was very modern and efficient, with great service all the way.  After checking into our hotel, I had a relaxing afternoon wandering around while Jason was at his meeting.  Dongguan is essentially a city that serves the vast industrial complexes in the surrounding Guangdong region, so not a lot of cultural sites to take in.

Talking of culture; in the evening I had my first experience of an Asian karaoke club. This seems to involve participating in various types of drinking games, designed to get the guests into a sufficiently merry state that they become uninhibited enough to sing, or conversely, not to notice the appalling efforts of other singers.  I think I did rather well with my covers of various British classics.  I don’t think Jason’s Chinese business colleagues were sufficiently familiar with the originals to spot the way they were being massacred!

On Saturday we made the short train journey from Dongguan to Guangzhou, and spent the remainder of the morning looking round the Guangdong Museum and some of the temples in the city.  In the afternoon we took a bus to the Baiyun Shan Park, which is a few km north of the city.   This turned out to be a vast area and we could only cover a small part on foot.  Even so, there were some spectacular mountain views and various temples to see on the way.  The evening was spent dining on more delicious Cantonese food and checking out some of the local bars.

All in all, I would say that the parts of China I have seen in the past two days, whilst not being on the normal tourist itinerary, were nevertheless well worth doing. Even though I had already gained some idea of modern China from my trip last year, it is still impressive just how advanced everything is here compared to the UK.  Guangzhou in particular seems to have become a very sophisticated modern city.

Tomorrow, on to Macau.