Julia's Blog

This weekend in went to Guangzhou to visut my friend Michelle, who I met while I was in summer school in Minnesota in 2015. Guangzhou is around 80 km northwest of Shenzhen and is the capital of Guangdong Province.

I went to Guangzhou by highspeed train, which reaches a speed of over 300 km/h and therefore it only takes 35 minutes from Shenzhen to Guanhzhou (if you do the math, it doesn’t add up because there was a stop in between). 

In Guangzhou my friend took me to a traditional Cantonese Restaurant where the food was delicious. For the first time I had real Dim Sum (点心) and they were amazing! 

In the afternoon we went to the Canton tower, which is 604 meter tall and therefore is the second tallest biulding in China. 

We went up to 450 meters and up there the view is amazing, but it was also quite windy and a little cold. In the height of 450 meters we also did the “Sky drop” (Freifallturm), where you go up like 20 meters and then you kind of fall down. It was quite scary but also really exciting!

For dinner we went to an area called Party Pier and there are a lot of western style Bars and Restaurants and we had some good, but not so chinese food.

After dinner we walked along the Pearl river, which goes through the middle of the city and I took these beautiful night shots.

My accomodation for the night was also quite interesting. In stayed in a very small hostel, which was basically just an apartment and I stayed in a shared room with four other people. I had a lovely stay there and the evening I had a tea and a nice talk (half chinese - half english) with the host and some other guests.

On Sunday morning we went to Baiyun Mountain 白云山, where we walked a little bit up the mountain and the nature there was really green and beautiful. 

For lunch we went to a vegan restaurant. It was the first time I tried vegan chinese food and it was really tasty! It was an all you can eat buffet and was only around 4 CHF! 

In the afternoon we went to the 东山口 district, which is one of the oldest districts of Guangzhou. The buildings there are a lot different than in other parts of Guangzhou and also the atmosphere is quite different, so for me it was very interesting.

After this it was sadly already time for me to leave and speed back to Shenzhen… I had a great weekend and was really happy to see my friend again!