Canton residents say they, that eat everything summer, outside air, and everything that has four legs off the table. Walking is best to start from Guangzhou Shamian Dao (dao means island), the old colonial district.
Until the nineteenth century it was the only place in China open to foreign buyers. British and French settled on Shamian Dao after losing China's wars. They built elegant mansions with gardens, churches, merchants' meeting. After 1949, the island fell into disrepair. Today is a green oasis in the heart of the city revived. Renovates a residential, organizes parks, open restaurants. The paths stand "as live" figures in bronze. I saw a boy trying to feed the children of bronze set in the middle of the lawn.
With Shamian three bridges leading to the traditional Chinese street market near Qingping, at which a quarter of a century was one of the first private markets. When it was liquidated, traders moved into the neighborhood. There are avenues hides snakes, huge hubs, mushrooms and dried sea horsesi in bags and other specialties of Chinese medicine. You can buy glasses with mandarin final period of the Qing Dynasty, or a pipe for smoking opium from the Ming Dynasty. Real or fake? Whoever cares! Western tourists ever come here after a dose of horror, because the market sold deli dogs, cats, monkeys, Pholidota, rats, bears and łaskuny. Trade in exotic animals moved to the area where the Baiyun airport) where they are up at four locations (Xinyuan, Chatou, Dongbao and Nanjin) where you can watch sad dogs, snakes, cats, turtles and scorpions.
Qingping night lost in the twilight turns into a scene of Chinese film about a ghost. In the darkness barely visible to the hen houses with strange superstructures paws and plants that shoot from each slot. Intensely fragrant herbs and fruits of prickly durian. And now to table! And in Canton most of it does not get up, because nowhere in China it is not as good as here. Canton residents say they, that eat everything summer, outside air, and what has four legs off the table. Some add that if the table Fry, who knows ... From six in the morning eating large rooms filled older crowd. An hour earlier, in parks and riverside practiced qi gong, gymnastics health. Now, indulge in the ritual yam cha, Cantonese breakfasts. Drinking tea in tiny, eat dim sum (tiny steamed snacks) made and served in bamboo baskets and immersed in reading the morning newspaper. Caring daughter, mother pours tea, full of attention son accompanied his father and grandfather make the dish boy. Harmoniously and peacefully - we are in old China.
Question of where to sit down to dinner, to be the most difficult, because Guangzhou has more than 10 000 restaurants. You can taste dishes from the cobra, shark fins or dog stew or order a pizza or hamburger. In Sichuan Yi eating on the street for the equivalent of 30 USDł eat a "drunken pork, tofu hot sauce, cabbage and chili, all washed down Qindao beer. Sichuan cuisine is the tougher of the Cantonese, but Cantonese has become a worldwide symbol of Chinese cuisine.
There is no way to taste all the dishes are more than 4000 counts Worth a try at least some. Dim catfish next to the circulation of the waiters at tables with wheels, Cantonese cuisine is famous for its chicken in a hundred ways, such as steaming, previously malt sugar solution, in the middle of the maotai vodka (alcohol made from sorghum, the traditional method), ginger, onion, aniseed or beef in oyster sauce, rice in cakes with shrimp and pork, seafood and roast suckling pig with garlic.
Barely alive from overeating get into a modern, electronically controlled underground and Wio! an exhibition of orchids. In the local Botanical Park is a 5000 species of tropical plants, a hundred varieties of orchids. From there you can go to the Museum of Art, the largest museum of contemporary art in China. Knocked us out of the prospect of seeing feet in the tropical heat of 12 pavilions are full of paintings, ceramics and sculptures. We went for it to Nan Yue Tomb Museum 2000 years. Listed in him, inter alia, mummy wrapped in king of jade armor related red ribbons, and 1000 of ritual objects inserted into the tomb (the archaeologists unearthed it in 1983). We went to visit a famous Buddhist temple Six Banian Trees. Which is the age? If, as the guide, the sixth, then why it looks as if erected yesterday? Age relics in China is a permanent cause confusion. We understand that dating literally, they are contractually agreed on the principle of "something like that happened here since forever." So instead of insisting on the suspected ancient temples, to the rest of the time poświęćmy great shopping. Guangzhou is at the end of the heart of the Pearl River Delta, the factory of the world. Here is cheaper than in Hong Kong, and it is everything. The memorabilia is worth to look for jewelry with jade, ceramics, kite, painting on silk or rolls. Hypermarkets in the city center is the will, but it is full of alleys, which sells handicrafts.
Guangzhou, China Chicago, fascinating pace at which everything is changing here. At the same time captivates remarkable contrasts of old and new villages to the city.
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