Guangzhou, part 2

… continued from Guangzhou, part 1 Guangzhou Canton Tower

New Guangdong Museum

The next day we ventured back to the museum in the morning and waited out the line. The wait wasn’t too bad. The building is an extreme of modern architecture while inside it houses exhibits on the history, both natural and human, of the province as well as some traditional arts exhibits. So, you might say this building is exploring the yin and yang that is China.

The exhibits are very well designed. The most impressive display told the history of the province. It was a very large set of exhibition halls that led you through the history with excellent artifacts, architecture, and artwork to tell the story. However, it might be interesting to note the small pieces of history that may have been brushed over or missed all together like the Opium Wars and the Foreign Concession. Both are not highlights of Chinese history, but they do tell an important part of the area’s history and how it came to be like it is today.

Another great display was the natural history exhibit. You can learn all you ever wanted to about the rocks and minerals from Guangdong as well as the animals and the best part the prehistoric creatures. China has a very rich dinosaur heritage and so there was a great display of some of these giants and other fossils from those ancient days.

Western Influence and Goats

Other highlights of Guangzhou include finding Dr Pepper and other western foods not available in Hefei like cheesecake or Swedish meatballs at Ikea. We also wandered around the former Foreign Concession with all of its beautiful European buildings and through some of the city looking for a cathedral built by the French way back in the day.

After these adventures we also went to find a couple of the other images that were on every poster of the city like a statue of goats and a red tower. We found them in a very nice city park then we found our way to the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall. We made it to all of these places after dark so we really just wandered around outside them. Unfortunately, my memory card with these pictures self-destructed, and no matter what I’ve tried since, I can’t recover the images, so you’ll have to go search them out on your own.

I hope they keep the city clean and well oiled like it is now as a result of the Asian Games. It is one of the biggest cities in China and didn’t have to be designated a special economic zone to make itself that. It seems to be a great balance between Beijing and Hong Kong. This city holds so much for anyone who wants to visit and I’m sure we could have spent much more time there.