I spent two and a half days in Guangzhou with Jasmine. Calling it a trip makes it sound more exciting than it really was. We did not actually do that much, did not spend that much money, did not manage to eat especially well, and somehow I still managed to get four long travel posts out of her.
For quite a while before this, Jasmine had stopped updating her blog. When I asked why, she would say, "Take me out more, and the posts will come on their own."
I do want to get out more myself. It is just that the child is still very young, and the grandparents are already the ones looking after things most days. On weekends, if I can handle things myself, I would rather do that and let them rest a little.
So this time I am not going to write much about attractions or food. Jasmine already wrote plenty about that, and did it well. What I want to record here is just how these two and a half days felt.
Before setting off
This trip was much less planned than the last time we went to Guangzhou. Back then, Jasmine arranged nearly everything and spent a lot of time reading guides and other people’s travel notes. This time I only spent about two hours checking what the better-known sights were and how to get around. That was basically the whole plan.
Afterward, Jasmine told me, "If I had been the one choosing, I definitely would not have picked a place like the Nanyue King’s tomb."
She was probably right.
Day one: Sun Yat-sen University and Canton Tower
Our first stops were Sun Yat-sen University and Canton Tower. We took the ferry to get to the university, mostly because we had missed the boat ride on our previous visit and I wanted to make up for it. In pursuit of a better view, I deliberately bought seats on the upper deck. Jasmine scolded me for wasting money. Later it turned out she was right: there was basically no difference between upstairs and downstairs.
Once off the ferry, we were right at the university’s north gate, where a huge ceremonial archway stood. We took a lot of photos there. But after actually entering the campus, we found it surprisingly ordinary. It looked much like any other university campus, so after a brief walk around, we did not bother taking many more pictures.
At the south gate we bought a rice-stuffed chicken wing, which tasted fine, and a bowl of beef offal, which was neither tasty nor cheap.
After that, we planned to walk to Canton Tower. The ferry map made it look as if Sun Yat-sen University was only one stop away, so we figured we could cross the campus and stroll along the Pearl River to enjoy the view on the way.
On the road inside the university, though, we spotted a cafeteria sign and somehow got lured in for a proper meal. So much for just snacking.
After eating, we set off toward Canton Tower. We could see it from far away, which made it seem close. It was not. We walked for more than an hour before getting there.
By the time we arrived, it was already dark. The tower kept changing colors against the night sky, but honestly, I did not find it all that beautiful.
Day two: climbing, ruins, and a terrible meal
The next day we went to Baiyun Mountain. We climbed for more than an hour to reach the summit plaza. To be honest, there was not much to see. Most of the way was just steps and overgrown greenery. The whole thing felt less like sightseeing and more like exercise.
After coming down, we headed to the Nanyue Palace Museum. Online descriptions said it was the site of an ancient Nanyue palace, but what we actually saw looked very close to a construction site, dotted with old wells of various sizes. Jasmine joked that it should be called the "Ancient Well Museum" instead.
From there we went to Beijing Road Pedestrian Street, which was right nearby. Like pedestrian shopping streets in a lot of cities, it felt broadly similar to all the others and was not especially interesting. Jasmine did not go into a single shop. When I asked why, she said, "If I go in, I’m not going to buy anything anyway. Everything’s overpriced. Better to go home and hunt for bargains properly."
So we shifted our focus to finding somewhere to eat. We passed plenty of snack shops, but Jasmine was either not interested or thought the prices were unreasonable. In the end, we picked a small place where someone was loudly calling out a buy-one-get-one-free deal at the door.
Once inside, we found the place almost empty. If you had walked in without context, you might have wondered whether it was some kind of scam shop. Jasmine ordered the combo pictured on the sign outside. Only when the food arrived did we realize the so-called buy-one-get-one-free offer was not two meals at all, just a single rice plate. And it tasted terrible.
Jasmine’s verdict was immediate: "Never come to places with people shouting for customers at the door again."
By the time we left, both of us felt uncomfortable in the stomach. To recover, Jasmine bought a box of extra-spicy duck necks to eat later.
Day three: Chen Clan Ancestral Hall and the Nanyue King’s tomb
On the third day we went to the Chen Clan Ancestral Hall and the Museum of the Nanyue King’s Mausoleum. We had also meant to visit Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, but ran out of time.
The Chen Clan Ancestral Hall was built during the Guangxu period of the Qing dynasty as an ancestral hall for the Chen family. At its height, it supposedly held ten thousand ancestral tablets, all of which were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. According to the information there, the construction had been funded by selling places for those tablets, with better positions costing more.
My own reaction was simple enough: people paid all that money, and only a few years later none of it remained. A very poor return on investment.
Because the site is relatively recent in historical terms, many of the structures and details have survived in decent condition. We are hardly experts, so we mostly just looked at what was there, admired the craft, and wandered around for about an hour before leaving.
After lunch, we went to the mausoleum museum. Jasmine noticed there would be a guided tour at 2:30 in the afternoon, so her plan was for us to look around once on our own first, then follow the guide for a second pass.
We started with the underground tomb itself. It was very small, maybe only thirty or forty square meters. I tried to pull Jasmine down to take a look, but she absolutely refused, so I went by myself.
Once I got down there, I found it packed with visitors. The space was tiny to begin with, and with that many people squeezed inside, it was hard even to walk around. Seeing that I seemed to be enjoying myself, Jasmine asked very cautiously, and with obvious fear, whether there were any "people" inside. By "people," she meant corpses.
I told her there were lots of people inside.
That made her step back several paces and refuse even more firmly to come down.
I had to explain that I meant living visitors. There was nothing to worry about, no bodies there at all, just too many tourists.
And really, the tomb itself had almost nothing in it to see, just empty spaces. Most people took a quick look and then moved on into the museum.
The museum displayed the objects excavated from the tomb. What surprised me was how many things had come out of such a small burial chamber. We spent more than an hour there and still did not finish seeing everything.
After that, we followed the guide through the exhibits for another round, but I still did not feel that I had grasped much of the deeper story. My strongest impression was simply that the ruler of a small state back then probably did not have as much power as one might imagine.
What stayed with me
When the whole trip was over, I could not say I had gained much from it in the usual sightseeing sense. There was no great discovery, no unforgettable meal, no attraction that left me amazed.
What it really was, more than anything else, was two and a half days away from home, just the two of us. I had looked forward to it before we left, and once we were out, I found myself missing home too.