[Guangzhou 2016] Part Fifteen: Three Surefire Ways of Knowing You're Near a Chinese Temple [END]

One of the chambers inside the temple.

During my last day in Guangzhou, I spent it walking around accumulating 6 hours worth of steps. Sometimes I'm really amazed at the stamina that I have. My motivation that day was to look for Liwan Plaza believing that it might be a spot for selling wholesale beads. I was very immersed in DIY crafts at the time and I was hoping that I would find some sort of wholesale market. Sadly, I am not a native to the land and I didn't find it in the end. However, it did earn me some interesting new information.

[Guangzhou 2016] Part Fourteen: Thank You For the Meal, But Not Really

Sometimes when you are on vacation, you are not too sure what to do. You want to rest, but there's something to keep you from doing so. As I re-read my old entries on my 2016 trip, it would seem that this would occur frequently.  I simply didn't know how to spend my day. It was too hot to stay at home and it was also too hot to enjoy activities outdoors. That's when I always end up walking around until I get hungry.

[Guangzhou 2016] Part Thirteen: Lost in the Rain I Stumble Upon Ancient Ruins

I am nearing the end of my Guangzhou series. My month long trip in 2016 had me exploring a lot on my own and getting familiar with the city. I still consider myself foreign to the place despite coming back for trips multiple times. This is also to add to the fact that I find myself getting lost from time to time. I remember places I've encountered before, but I don't know how to find my way back. Sometimes names on the maps confuse me because even when I follow it, the place either no longer exists or is really hidden deep inside. Of course, never believe everything you read, but some of the maps and information needs heavy updating. Even the places I put in my blog posts I try to include a full address so that I can reference it in the future. Who knows, maybe it'll be gone next year. So on one day near my last week in Guangzhou, I was trying to locate a restaurant along Beijing Road, but couldn't quite find it.

[Guangzhou 2016] Part Twelve: The Largest Wholesale Mall in Guangzhou

If it were not for frequent trips to Guangzhou, I would not be aware of the commodity trends on the market. It is from these trips that I learn about what's selling to customers and why. I also note that from these trips I learn to tell counterfeit from genuine. Overall, they are fruitful learning experiences. My visit to the Onelink Plaza combined all my experiences said above.

[Guangzhou 2016] Part Eleven: Genki Sushi/ The Conveyor Belt Sushi That Restored My Faith

If you remember in my second post of the Guangzhou blog series, I went to a Chinese based conveyor belt sushi chain for lunch and had a terrible experience. I wanted to sit by the conveyor belt so bad just so I can enjoy picking moving plates of food. My wish finally came true at this wondrous chain called Genki Sushi.

[Guangzhou 2016] Part Ten: Chen Clan Academy: Museum or Gift Shop?

Apart from the metropolitan seductions the city of Guangzhou has to offer, there is also a historical side worth visiting. There are cultural relics scattered in the city that are now made into museums open to the public. I made the effort to visit the Chen Clan Academy to see the results of the restoration effort from a few years back.

[Guangzhou 2016] Part Nine: Beijing Road, Shangxiajiu District, and Shopping Haul

The two shopping districts of Guangzhou that are arguably worth visiting would be the Beijing Road Pedestrian Mall and the Shangxiajiu District. Both are built very similar; wide streets and old Cantonese styled buildings. They both have adorned themselves with red lanterns and run very long. Even as I sift through my memories, I am unsure which places I had visited. In hours of high traffic, the streets are bustling with people. Had they not sealed the entrances off barring any sort of vehicle to enter, it would have been highly dangerous.

[Guangzhou 2016] Part Eight: Bubble Tea and Fast Food

If you guessed right in the previous post, this is another food based post. I should probably go ahead and create my own food guide in addition to a travel guide. Today's guide is going to be all about fast food and bubble tea. These two things seem to be inseparable upon my travel. You have one or the other.

[Guangzhou 2016] Part Seven: Comic City and Bookstore Haul

Here am I back again with another guide to travel Guangzhou. I am really starting to think of compiling a personal guide on traveling this wonderful city. This entry will be a focus on anime culture and books.

[Guangzhou 2016] Part Six: There's a Mini Shanghai Under my Streets?!/Typhoons are the Best Days Out to Go Eat

During my 30 day stay, my greatest find was perhaps this underground mall called Fashion Tianhe Plaza (时尚天河商业广场). I had no intentions looking for another mall to browse through, but hey, you're right there in front of me outside the train station. I believe there are a number of ways to enter the underground plaza as it is very big. Upon first visiting, it is very easy to get lost and I wasn't able to find the same vending machine I used last time.

[Guangzhou 2016] Part Five: Exploring MUJI and the Vankely Mall

To experience the cosmopolitan side of Guangzhou, you would need to visit the Tianhe neighborhood. Calling it a neighborhood is too much of an understatement. District would perhaps be the better term. However sometimes if you venture further off into unknown neighborhoods, you would find malls where you least expect it.

[Guangzhou 2016] Part Four: TOP is on My Bottle of Oolong Tea and Gourmet Supermarkets

Going to a market is taking a look at the life of the average person living in the place you are staying at. If there's one thing I know about Chinese supermarkets is that they're big and they try to sell a whole variety of things.

[Guangzhou 2016] Part Three: Miniso

In 2015, I had discovered Miniso. At that time it was smaller in business with one or two stores in the Beijing Road Pedestrian Street. It was even shady as suspicions arose of Miniso being a fake company with a fake address in Japan as covered by RocketNews24.  On the old posts covering Miniso, there were some negative comments as to calling it "shit quality products" and "a knockoff". Even to this day, the Miniso website had not been updated much and still is written in broken English, but what is it that made this now chain store such a huge success in China?

[Guangzhou 2016] Part Two: Underground Malls and What ... Inedible Sushi?!

Underground malls have been around ages in Asia. You see vloggers around the world go to them and cry at home when your nearest mall is a dated infrastructure raised from the ground. Guangzhou has managed to transform itself into a city of shopping attracting people from even the remote provinces of China.

[Guangzhou 2016] Part One: A One Man Travel Diary Plus Tips on Getting Around

Image courtesy of Pinterest

I didn't expect to see myself traveling to China so soon again. And by soon, I meant one year later. The only difference is that this time, I'm traveling alone.

China Part 22: Departure [END]

This entry concludes my China trip of 2015. There were some hits and misses on this journey though there were more disappointments. However when looking back, I remember the good times more than I remember the bad times.

China Part 21: Guangdong Museum

How can you visit a country without going to at least one museum? I won't allow it! I add museums to my list of places to go. Last time I was in Guangzhou, I got barred from the Guangdong Museum. What was it that I did?

China Part 20: Zumiao, The Ancestral Temple

It was one of the worst days of my trip being that it poured terribly and ruined the day out. It was nearly another day wasted. I pestered everyone that I wanted to go really badly because I go there to pray and offer a donation.

China Part 19: Huangsha Seafood Market

The seafood market is a place I visit every time I go to Guangzhou. It's pretty far away from where I live, but I make the effort to go there at least once. So what's the big deal with this seafood market? It's open air and it's huge. The stalls change every time you go there and you can bet that it's the freshest you can get.

China Trip Part 18: Departing Huizhou

Guangzhou Railway Station. Image from Wikipedia.

Even on the final day of my Huizhou visit, we still had to see one of the grandma's friends. For breakfast of course and you guessed it, dim sum. The old man had an extremely thick accent on his Chinese making it nearly impossible for me to understand. As usual, I paid more attention to the food than the people.