On Friday morning, we started out by having a very
early breakfast buffet at the Sheraton Hotel in Guilin followed by a bus
ride to the airport and then a 1 hour flight to the city of
GUANGZHOU. So far, so good.
I believe that the day had been planned
where by we would be taken to a couple of the tourist sights of Guangzhou
in the morning and then to a nice restaurant for lunch followed by a bus
ride to the Catamaran Ferry Terminal for a 2:30-3:00 departure on a ride
through the Pearl River Delta to Hong Kong where we would arrive around
5:00 or 6:00 pm.
It became apparent that the early
Catamaran boat ride had been changed for some reason to a very late
afternoon departure which presented the problem of what to do with 30 very
tired tourists who were not that much in the mood to see anymore museums or
fight traffic on a bus and were ready to get going for our last city of
Hong Kong where our schedule for the next two full days was pretty much on
our own.
The tour of Guangzhou began with a
visit to the Sun Yat-sen memorial which was a very beautiful structure used
as both a museum and folk art theater. The grounds were extensive and well
cared for with both gardens and lawn areas. I was especially
interested in the unique parking lot blocks of gray concrete with a design
left in them and actual grass growing in each petal of the design . Someone
put in a lot of time taking care of them.
From there we drove around the
city and then stopped at The Chen Family Academy and Museum. Here we
saw many historical artifacts and wandered around the gardens which held
several examples of Bonsai.
From there, we drove around the
city and stopped for lunch at a very large and very unusual restaurant. The
name of this restaurant is Banxa or "Lakeside Restaurant" and the
total complex of it has to encompass several acres and several
themed buildings. The building in which we were served was located
in the rear of the property on the back side of a beautiful lake. The
walk around and through the gardens was most interesting. We came to
one area in which there were live animals, fish and reptiles which were for
sale to be immediately cooked to order and eaten in the adjoining
restaurant building. There were various types of chickens, ducks, geese,
doves, rabbits, eels, turtles, and in one basket there were about a dozed
very large snakes. Just as we were passing, an older lady stopped and
selected a particular snake for her family's lunch. The attendant trapped
the snake with a pole, reached into the cage and brought it out and
proceeded to chop it's head off and skin and clean it as the lady and her
family proceeded to the restaurant. Frankly, the whole thing did nothing
positive to my appetite for lunch.
After lunch and a slow walk back
to the front of the restaurant through the gardens we went down the street
and bought ice cream cones for desert before getting on the
bus.
As it was only about 1:30 and we
had over 3 hours to kill before heading to the Ferry Terminal the guides
decided to let those who wanted to wander around the market area of
downtown and the rest could stay on the bus while it waited in an
underground parking lot until 4:00 pm when it would pick up the shoppers
and head out for the Ferry Terminal for a supposed 5:00 pm departure.
Finally, at about 5:35 we departed
Guangzhou for Hong Kong down the Pearl River for a nice ride in the dark
with arrival about 8:15 at the Terminal in Hong Kong.