City Tour of Guangzhou

Today, we took a sightseeing bus tour of Guangzhou. Guangzhou is the capital city of the Guangdong Province located in southeast China with over 13 million inhabitants. The city is considered one of the key financial and commercial centers in China. As we drove around, you could see many banks and financial institution. Guangzhou was one of the first Chinese cities to be opened to foreigners. So, there is a more western flavor in the air. More people speak English. And, according to our tour guides, there are over 47 McDonald's in the city. By the way, there is even a Papa John's Pizza place very near our hotel, and they do make deliveries!

Our first stop was to a Buddhist Temple called Six Banyan's Temple. The temple was built over 1,450 years ago. In the center of courtyard, there is a Flower Pagoda tower that stands about 57 meters high. What is unusual about this tower that it leaning to your right as you face the tower from the entrance - a Chinese version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in northern Italy.

Next, we visited the Old Chen House. This house is considered the best preserved Qing Dynasty building in Guangdong Province and was built about 100 years ago. The house featured lime sculpture and colored porcelain on the roof, stone carving and wood carvings all over the house, brick carvings on the wall, different kinds of Cantonese folk arts, exhibitions in each room including ivory caring, Qing dynasty furniture, embroidery, Chinese paints and sculptures of Qing dynasty life. According to our tour guides, the surname Chen is one of the most popular names in the Guangdong province. Chen happens to be Simon's mom's maiden name.

Finally, we went to the Provincial Art Crafts store. This store is one of the largest art crafts store run by the Guangong government. The store has a large selection of colored porcelain ware, jade ware, pears, embroidery, silk, bone carving, and traditional clothes. Here, we bought some souvenirs including a nice jade necklace for Duo Duo. Jade is a very popular precious stone among the Chinese people.

We returned back to hotel around 1:00 p.m. and decided to all take a cat nap. Later this evening, we'll be taking Duo Duo's visa photo, and we'll be having a group dinner at a Thai Restaurant nearby.