Trip - Guangzhou Day 3

The next day, we spent most of the day at Yuexiu Park (越秀公园站), the largest park in downtown Guangzhou which is famous with the Statue of the Five Goats.

Inside this park, there is also the Zhenhai Tower (鎮海楼) which was first built in 1380 at the beginning of the Ming dynasty as well as the Guangzhou museum.  

We can see the Yuexiushan stadium from the top of the tower.  It would take another 30mins to walk over to see it so we didn't bother.    

Near the park exit, there was an area with rocks and the kiddies just had to climb all over them.

We went out for dinner after this.  There was a really good restaurant just around the corner from our apartment called 炳盛 Shing Bing.  The food was great, prices were reasonable and portions were good.  They usually use peanut oil here but we told them about the peanut allergy and asked them to use regular vegetable oil.  

We ate at this restaurant 2 nights in a row.  Wong relatives came out for dinner with us.

Trip - Guangzhou Day 2

We spent the next 2 full days in Guangzhou and the relatives took us around sightseeing.  We traveled around via MRT.  Apparently, the fares here are determined by your height.  Both J#2 and J#3 didn't have to pay for the MRT if they are tagging along with someone who is paying.  So every time we went thru the turn thingies into the MRT, we had to either carry them or drag them across with us when we beeped the card.

The first day, we visited the Canton Tower but we didn't go up since we thought it is similar to the Taipei 101.  There was a long walkway along the water which had nice views.

Then we had lunch and checked out Beijing Street (北京路步行街) to shop and eat.  The current street is actually the same street that existed during the Song Dynasty (960-1279)!  There are 2 archeological sites in glass that shows the road underneath.

We walked down an alley way and found this!  A quiet temple in the middle of nowhere.  It was so peaceful inside but once you stepped outside of the gate thing, you are back onto Beijing street with the buzzing noise.  

We tried alot of different snacks here. Here is Tweet showing off his super spicy stinky black tofu. Try saying that 10 times super fast!  It was black!  It was very spicy!  I could only eat one bite and that was it.  After that, we ate dinner at a restaurant and called it a night.

Trip - Guangzhou Day 1

We had a 9am flight leaving Taiwan to HK so we woke super early to get ready and pack our bags.  William picked us up around 6:30am to take us to the airport.  Good bye Taiwan!  We enjoyed our stay.

After arriving into HK airport, we took the bus #629 (pic above with Jules fast asleep on the bus) from HK airport to Hung Hom station and then took the 2pm fast train to Guangzhou.  The fast train was pretty comfortable (below pic) with designated seats for each person and you can even order hot food and drinks.  There was access to a toilet.  Because we hadn't eaten anything since the morning, I pretty much bought a gazillion buns from the bakery before boarding the train so we had plenty to eat and drink.

The girls found out the ugly truth about toilets in China...via the train.  It's a hole!  No toilet seat, no toilet paper and no soap.  Aaaack!  I spent a good 10 minutes "training" them and at first, they hated it.  But after the 3rd time using the washroom, they were pros.  I convinced them that these are great because it's easy to clean instead of our bulky toilets.  Just dump soap and spray water, all clean!  Jules then commented she wanted to convert our house washrooms into these...silly girl!

We arrived at Guangzhou station at 5pm but we missed the relatives who were supposed to pick us up.  Apparently, they waited at the station starting at 3pm!  They waited for 2 hours and left just as we arrived.  Too bad.

We didn't have a China cellphone so we could only call using a phone from one of the shops which charged by the minute.  After many unsuccessful attempts to reach the relatives, we decided to buy a SIM card which gave us phone access and data.  That should have been the first thing we did!  So much easier.  The relatives will meet us the next day.

I contacted our landlady to get to the apartment where we will stay for the next 3 days and took a cab.  We finally arrived at 9pm.  What a day.

Trip - Taiwan Day 4 - Jiufen and Shifen (video)

This is our last full day in Taiwan so I jam packed the schedule to fit everything in.  I asked William, our driver, to visit all of the places below:

Yeliu Geopark (野柳地質公園) - sedimentary rocks that was formed from thousands of years of geological movement and sea erosion.  We spent 2.5 hours in the morning to explore.

Below is a famous mushroom rock called the Queen's Head.  It got the name because after the top of the rock fell off in 1963, the rock looks like the side-view of Queen Elizabeth's face.

We drove by the Nanya Rock formation (南雅奇岩) - we actually thought it was something else and took the wrong pic. Oops.

Yin Yang Sea (陰陽海) - could not get a good pic

Golden waterfall (黃金瀑布) - the water is a gold color due to sulphur, rainfall and mining in the nearby areas.  Toxic water but beautiful.  We were here for 2 mins for the pic.

Jiufen old street (九份老街) - pretty much a night market on a mountain in the middle of nowhere. There was only 1 steep bendy road up the mountain to get here so it had massive traffic jam. No where to park. Do not attempt to rent a car and drive here yourself. Just take a cab. The kids bought shells and little gifts, and we tried different types of food. 

Shifen waterfall (十分大瀑布) - This is a popular waterfall that is 20-meters tall and 40-meters wide.  By the time we got to this location, we found out that the tourist area will close in 15mins.  And there is a 15min walk to get to this waterfall too so if we wanted to see this place, R and I would have to do it alone.  

The two of us ran our butts off to get to the tourist area and made it through the gates, with 30secs to spare.  We took a nice pic of the waterfall and headed for the exit.  Problem was, there is only 1 exit which led us to some other entrance.  Aiya! 

We walked through this bridge "on the other side" and then started to freak out.  Our driver was waiting at the other entrance which we couldn't get to and we didn't know where the heck we were.  We had a TW cellphone and it was low on battery, but thank god it had just enough battery to dial him to tell him we were on the other side of the mountain.  William figured it out and picked us up.  

Shifen train station (十分老街) - This was our last destination of the day.  The Shifen train station is well known for releasing lanterns, which supposedly brings wishes to come true.  It was already dark outside so we had to decide on a lantern to decorate quickly.  We chose one that had multi colors just because it was pretty.  Immediately after we paid, the store owners brought out mosquito repellent for all of us to use (almost eaten alive!).  

Here we show off the 4 sides of the lantern which the girls worked hard to decorate (with the help of Mommy in Chinese).  The pic below show the train tracks behind us.  

And the train did pass by while we were still there.  Be careful not to stand too far out!