November 15, 2014 Beijing to Guangzhou, China
After our official whirlwind four days visits to five cities, we stayed an extra night in Beijing before heading down south to the city of Guangzhou. We would join another budget tour in this southern part of China and this tour was named 7-day "Gourmet Tour" of the Pearl River. For $99USD, this tour covers 5 nights of hotel stay, tour, and meals. Of course, there's the mandatory fee of $180pp for the selected entertainment that everyone must attend to, plus the daily tips for the guide and bus driver. All in all, still a cheap way to visit some parts of China that we probably won't get to on our own.
On board the CZ 3104 flight to Guangzhou. This was a full plane.
Dinner was served.
We arrived Guangzhou airport at around 7pm. I thought we were making good time but it seemed like everybody else left the baggage claim area by the time we got there. After we claimed our luggage our driver from the tour came hurry in. He said he was stuck in traffic and barely got to the airport. The four of us took the 45 minutes drive to town in this van.
We were dropped off at this hotel--Guangzhou Vertical City Hotel for the night. This hotel is pretty nice, near the subway station and plenty of shopping within walking distance. It's also inside a high-rise that housed offices and stores. I don't remember exactly what floor we were in, but our room was way up near the top of the building.
After checking in, we decided to take a walk and get something to eat. We just walked across the street and there were many restaurants and stores that looked interesting. SC bought a small rolling suitcase and we enjoyed a light snack at one of the restaurants before getting back to our hotel rooms for the night.
We woke up to this--a great view of the city way up high.
After a nice buffet breakfast at the hotel restaurant on the top floor, we gathered our things and met our guide and other members of this tour to start our adventure.
These low cost tours are basically designed for overseas Chinese, so everyone on these tours would be from either USA, Canada, Australia or other countries. These tours are of good value if you don't mind all the shopping stops that you cannot get out of. We were told that these businesses sponsor these tours, that's how they can run them at such low cost.
Passing water bottles from the front of the bus to the back--a fun morning exercise.
Shots taken from the bus as we were driving through the city on our way to Foshan.
南風古灶 'South Wind Ancient Kiln', Foshan--this is an old kiln and supposedly been burning non-stop for 500 years. Other than the ancient kiln, the old banyan tree, the ancient village, and traditional handicrafts can be seen at this location.
All these Bruce Lee's statues...
inside the kiln
old village that turned into an artists alley
The ancient tree.
One of the artists workshops
The Wing-Chun (a type of martial arts, which Bruce Lee was famous for) museum.
A wall of roof tiles
Show room
Entrance to the Ancient Kiln, many students were there for their field trips on that day.
I think this is the 'yellow eels' rice pot--one of the 'gourmet' item.
The restaurant where we had our first lunch on this tour.
