Saturday Tour with Looey

Today, we went on our last tour of Guangzhou with an English student
named Looey. This tour was the top winning tour of the 3. Katie,
Angie's sister also came with us. We met Looey at the metro station
and traveled to an area called Xiguan in the western part of ancient
Guangzhou city. This was the traditional Cantonese area with
traditional architecture and mansions. The streets were actually
really old world and beautiful. It was nice to see how Guangzhou would
have looked a very long time ago. They did a great job of rebuilding
and fixing up the old without making it look too new or modern. First,
we went to the Renwei Temple. This was a taoist temple that was pretty
similar to a few others we went to. We walked through a traditional
market in an alley, where they had all sorts of goodies. We had to
look away several times, especially where the meat was or where we
thought they might be selling dog, rat, or any other gross meat! It
was a very cool thing to see though. It was only a walk that would be
done by a local, not a tourist. People were staring at us, but seemed
to not care. Also, throughout the whole area of Xiguan there were
majority older Cantonese people that live there.

Next, we walked through Liwan Lake Park. There were tons of people
doing all sorts of activities there from playing card game to chatting
to tai chi to amusement park rides to paddle boats on the water. This
park had entertainment for all ages. It was very big and really neat
to walk around in. After walking to the other side of the park and
taking lots of pictures of the beautiful houses and architecture, we
arrived at the restaurant we would be having lunch. It was a very
famous place called Panxi, where we tried the Dimsum and other
Cantonese dishes. Now, I know we have made it very clear through some
of our other blog post how we feel about Cantonese food ha. Needless
to say, lunch was very interesting but we tried everything for the
most part... everything but the pork tendons! The dimsums were my
favorite part. The chinese water chestnut was amazing. It tasted like
jello almost. We were still hungry after all the food came so we order
a plate of broccoli. It was very hard to eat most dishes because the
all contained some sort of meat. I would never recommend a Vegetarian
to come to China. They would have an impossible time eating.

After lunch, we walked through the rest of the ancient town on the way
to the metro stop. We go on and went one stop over to the Chen Clan
Academy. It was a building that the prosperous Guangzhou Chen family
had built to honor their ancestors. It was really big with many rooms
and court yards. We walked around through most of it and decided we
were pretty tired! This tour also had a time limit because we had to
be at Jenny's school by 4pm to teach an English corner. We left the
academy and went to Starbucks to hang out till it was time to go to
Jenny's school. Looey had class that day as well so she left us there.

Looey was definitely the most knowledgeable about Guangzhou out of all
of our tour guides. She seemed to love her city and culture the most
and really takes pride in being Cantonese. It was really an awesome
thing to see that. She was only 25 but was very mature and traditional
for her age. She had actually given this same tour to other people so
it ran very smoothly and didn't have any down time. I really liked
that about this one because it all seemed to connect a lot better than
some previous ones and we actually got a history lesson out of it. I
can see why this was the winning tour!

We left Starbucks and got to Jenny's school at 4:00pm. They do these
English corners where they discuss different topics and compare things
so Jes and I were the guest speakers for the discussion today. The
topic was to compare and contrast college life in America versus
China. For the most part, it seemed that the student were either
attending a college or had already attended so they were very
interested in what we had to say. We did small groups first and
answered question and then had a large group discussion. My table kept
the questions coming the whole entire hour! Luckily, I was able to
respond to most of them. They actually spoke English pretty well so I
could easily understand them. The thing they thought was the coolest
about American universities is that we did not have curfews and some
places had coed dorms. They were shocked about both of these things.
Also, they were amused by how easily and readily available parties,
alcohol, and the social aspect of college was. Jes had some pretty
crazy questions such as, "Have you ever done drugs?" ha. It was a
great experience for me as well because I learned about about young
adults and college life in China. This was one of the most fun things
I have done since we got here. It was also nice to meet the other
teachers at Jenny's school and to see Jenny teaching.

We went home to rest and shower up since we still had another activity
for the night. Jenny's coworker Angie, is the lead singer in a band
called The Panda Band. They were the opening act for another band at a
foreign bar tonight. We got ready and took a taxi to the bar. Steve
went with us thankfully or we would have never found the bar! We got
there just in time as they were taking the stage. They were actually
really good! Angie had such a good voice. I really felt like I had
stepped back home into a live music bar. Katie was there so we hung
out with her and met all of Angie's roommates. We also made a few
other friends from the US and Canada. It was nice to have a few
drinks, dance, and just talk to other people that spoke English. We
spent a lot of time outside of the bar though because people smoke
everywhere in China. Places say to not smoke in them but everyone
still does, so it was getting hard to breathe in the bar since it was
so smoky with low ceiling and no ventilation. We said our goodbyes
around 12:30am and heading home. Overall, this was one of the best
days I have had so far :)

Pic 1: Entrance way to the Renwei Temple
Pic 2: Inside the temple