Guangzhou - Canton - en

Ok, so I got a little late, and people are claiming for news - right now we are in Gyeongju in the south of Corea, and today we leave for Japan by a boat from Busan, if everything goes right. But let's not get too far ahead ; we were in Yangshuo, almost one month ago. The next stage was Guangzhou. We started from the Guilin for our first night train entirely in China.

We chose the soft sleeper class, and so we had access to a special waiting room, and a special decoration, if a little grey :

 However we didn't choose "cabin for two". A great luxury it would have been, though !

 It was a weekday on a not so important railway line, so we were lucky and were alone in a cabin for four.

After we arrived at our hotel - from the 7 days Inn chain we would also use in Shanghai and Beijing - we went to visit the former international concession in Shamian Island. It is now a chic neighbourhood where even the statues are fashionable :

The Chinese have kept the European buildings :

 It has also become the favourite place for making pictures, especially wedding pictures, as in Asia they are more important than the wedding itself !

 If it was warmer than in Yangshuo, it was still a chilly 8°C - cold for a small wedding dress !

 Then we went to visit an orchids garden. In the middle of winter only a few were flowering...

 But it was also a quiet and nice garden. Far from the noise of the city...

 Because Guangzhou is also a large city.

There are walk only shopping street with many Chinese people having fun...

Although a bit farther the crowds are gone and the streets are as quite as in Ha Noi at night.

 There is also a very modern metro - we had not taken any since Paris. It is made in the same fashion as all others in Asia, with the seats on the side to fit in more people at rush hour ; the names of the stations are told in Mandarin, English and Cantonese, at least...

In front of our hotel there was an elevated expressway, and huge housing towers... The scale of the city is too big, it is hard to walk around.

 The next day we went and visited a park to the memory of communist martyrs, killed by nationalists if I remember well. We also saw a modern tower...

Two thousand years ago, Guangzhou was the capital of the southern Han kingdom which had broke away from the rest of China. In the middle of the city there was the tomb of a king of this country, and a "museum of the Royal Nanyue Tomb" showing the archaelogic finds from that tomb - including a mortuary suit made of jade discs : 

 Finally on the third day, we left for Hong Kong from the new Guangzhou Eastern Station, brand new and in a neighbourhood of very mordern buildings.

The far away, very thin tower is the highest in the city, and its new symbol. We didn't have the time to go there : two full days is a short time. But since we had to leave Hong Kong on the 12 of January, we had to go there fast to have the time to visit !