We were honestly very pleasantly surprised by Guangzhou. A lot of our expat friends did not give it rave reviews, so I think we went in with low expectation. After some surprisingly great sight-seeing as well as good weather (aka no pollution), which can make or break a trip in China I have decided, we gave Guangzhou a thumbs up! It also helped that we decided to stay in the old section of the city, which offers way more culture and sightseeing than the new business district. In Hong Kong, because land is so sparse, they constantly tear down old buildings to make way for the new ones. In Guangzhou it is relatively flat, so they just left old Canton alone and built the new business district outside of it, making for two very distinct parts of town.
On Saturday morning, we went straight to Yuexiu Park, a large park in the northeast part of the city. We spent several hours there wandering around, and it was really amazing to see how well the park was used! People were practicing every sport imaginable in different areas of the park.
This was an exhibit hall showing different plants and traditional paper lanterns made by school children.
Table tennis! Fun for all ages!
Here people were singing along to a band (like trumpets and flutes etc) playing popular Cantonese songs. They all had song booklets with the lyrics so they could participate! So cool! There was also a pavilion nearby where another group was doing karaoke! Such a strong love for music here!
After the sing along there was a dance performance. These ladies are dressed up in traditional clothing from one of the 55 ethnic minorities that are officially recognized in China. These ethnic minorities are people other than Han Chinese, and they make up only 8.5% of China's population. Not sure which ethnic minority these ladies are representing though.
Another dance in ethnic minority garb.
This is an incredible statue of a guy from a famous Chinese story. His name is Houyi, and he was a famous archer and badass; he was once immortal, but it was taken away from him for whatever reason. To prevent death, he found some immortality elixirs which he planned to drink. However, he got sidetracked doing his badass things, so he left his elixirs at home, along with his beautiful wife Chang'e, who eventually got so bored she drank the elixir unknowingly out of curiosity. So, she floated away to the moon due to the elixir, and Houyi could do nothing to stop it. Chang'e now lives on the moon, along with a rabbit (not sure how the rabbit got there). The rabbit pounds the petals from a tree growing on the moon into her immortality elixir that she must drink forever. That rabbit is the Jade Rabbit, often celebrated around the Mid-Autumn Festival when we eat Moon Cakes. Whew, what a story. The best part of this picture is the man in the blue shirt standing behind the statue. He is actually practicing the violin! More music!
This is a wishing tree. Essentially the red ribbons have prayers or wishes written on them. It is thought that the higher up in the tree you hang your wish, the better chance there is of it getting granted.
Other than the two ladies front and center having a chat, these are a bunch of middle-aged people congregating to play a form of hackysack! Just instead of a beanbag, they were using plastic disks attached through the center with string and feathers at the end, so it's movements were move badminton birdy-esque.
As we started to walk across the hackysack pavilion, this guy wanted us to play with him!
Next to the hackysack pavilion was the ballroom dancing courtyard! It was so cool to see every inch of this park being used by both the old and the young for whatever hobby they enjoyed!
This is one piece of the ancient city wall of Guangzhou. The bottom section of the wall looks more original than the top. The wall was built in the Ming Dynasty, about 600 years ago. Not too old though by China's standards :)
This is the famous five ram statue. Guangzhou is also known as the Goat City, as goats were once a large commercial enterprise in Guangzhou. In Chinese, there is no difference between a goat and a ram. Not bad for one morning of sightseeing!
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