CHINA : Guangzhou

First family trip overseas for a week to Guangzhou, China. Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong Province and is used to be known as Canton. With a population of close to 13 million, it is the third largest city in China after Shanghai and Beijing. The trip was in summer so since Guangzhou is in the south of China, the weather was similar to Malaysia, hot and humid.


Flight          : AirAsia AK 42 KUL-CAN
Aircraft        : Airbus A320-200
Flight time   : 4 hours 

Guangzhou's Baiyun International Airport. A relatively new airport, opened in 2008. We were there during the Beijing Summer Olympics 2008, so in view of the influx of foreign tourists, things were cleaner in China and

there were more English signages. Still, if you do not know Mandarin, communication is very difficult. Well,

there's always the sign language as back-up!

  

View from our hotel room. The city is huge! This is one of the newer part. The hotel is located at the end of

Beijing Lu (Street) pedestrian mall. Very convenient.  

 That's the Pearl River with a view of the older quarters on the foreground. 

Their construction site is very clean and tidy! Or is it again because of the Olympics? Anyway, they really went out of their way.  

 The famous Statue of Five Rams, which is the symbol of the city of Guangzhou. It is located in Yuexiu Park which has other attractions like museums, a lake and a few gardens.

A souvenir stall near the Statue of Five Rams.

Going up the Baiyun Mountain (White Cloud Mountain) via cable car. Very pleasant and scenic ride.

  A closer view of one of the cable car. 

Looks like a scene in a Shaolin movie!

View of Guangzhou city from the top of Baiyun Mountain.

Somewhere at the top of the mountain. The place is quite popular.

One of the five mascots of the Beijing Summer Olympics. This is Nini which is a swift. This particular representation was actually made of flowers.

  The buses run on electricity, supplied through overhead cables.

  An entrance arch to one of the numerous traditional shopping alleys.

And this is a typical shopping alley. Notice the motorised tricycles. They use that a lot here. Beats trucks for delivering goods to narrow alleys like this. Some were even used to shuttle passengers.

  Bicycles are still an important element of the cityscape.

One of the station of Guangzhou Metro, a subway system covering most of the city. Very clean and efficient.

Originally planned to go to Chimelong Safari, about 30km north of the city to see them but found out that they can also be found in Guangzhou Zoo which is right in the city, at the foot of Baiyun Mountain. What did we want to see.......?

  Panda bears!

They were kept in a cage, so viewing them was not so pleasant. Apart from the pandas, the zoo also has a collection of animals that are foreign to us.

The beautiful and unique sichuan golden hair monkey, found only in a small area in southwest China.

These are Bactrian camels. They have two humps. They lived in the deserts in Mongolia and its surroundings. Not to be mistaken with the common single hump camels from the middle east, which are Dromedary camels. Now there is a complete family, mom, dad and the little one!

This particular elephant is actually a gift from the Malaysian government to the Guangzhou Zoo.

Back to the city, at the bank of the mighty Pearl River.

This is one of the docks where you can board one of the popular Pearl River Night Cruise. They looked quite tame during the day.

But at night, it transformed into a city of lights. All the cruise boats were also decked in myriad of colours.

All the buildings on the riverbank also joins the party and were similarly lit.

Coupled with some laser display, the view from the cruise boat was mesmerizing.

The street entrance to Huaisheng Mosque.

The children insisted that this is a Chinese temple and not a mosque!

Peaceful...

Only when they saw these Arabic scripture, were they convinced that this actually is a mosque.

This is one of the earliest mosque and believed to have been built about 1,300 years ago by the Prophet's uncle. The mosque proper did not look that old but the minaret sure does looks its age.

Traditional Chinese architecture.

The main prayer hall. Upon exiting, found out that here were a few halal restaurants nearby, so we had a feast.

The Chen Clan Academy. Built in 1894, it now houses the Guangdong Folk Art Museum. The brick carvings on the walls and pottery carvings on the roof are beautiful. Guangdong is the name of the province and Guangzhou is the name of the city, the capital of Guangdong Province.

The inner courtyard.

Really fine workmanship!

Look at the height of the door! Gosh, it must be damned heavy.

Just look at the intricate carvings!

Some bronze statues of Chinese scholars in the compound of the building.

Below the glazing is actually the surface of the original medieval road of old Guangzhou. They excavated this while constructing the Beijing Lu Pedestrian Mall. It was then preserved and the glass viewing panels were installed over it for all to see. It was during this time that we were highlighted on the impending arrival of Typhoon Nuri. It was lashing Hong Kong and on its way inland towards Guangzhou. All flights in and out of Hong Kong were cancelled and we very concerned about our flight home the next day.

Finally back to the airport. It was raining heavily the whole morning. We did not receive any notifications so assumed that our flight will be as planned. Luckily the force of the typhoon had weakened by the time it reached mainland China. The weather however were still horrendous.

Inside the airport. Spacious, bright and airy.

Outside however, the weather was atrocious! It was raining cats and dogs and extremely windy to boot.

Were informed that the flight was delayed. After a few hours of sitting, had to resort to stretching on the floor. Some ended up dozing.

What a sight for sore eyes! She's finally here.Our glorious red and white ride. everyone was so excited and relieved. The weather was so bad that they delayed taking off from KUL. n 

After a six-hour delay, we were finally airborne. Was glad that at least we did not have to spend another night in Guangzhou. Otherwise it would have thrown havoc to all our other plans. The weather had also calmed down and once we reached cruising altitude, the flight was no longer bumpy.

Glorious sunset over Vietnamese sky.

 

Flight          : AirAsia AK 43 CAN-KUL
Aircraft       : Airbus A320-200