18 April 2019
The industrial wasteland of Foshan
Exploring all the sites of Foshan by train on a daytrip from Guangzhou
Well, now I can say I have been to Foshan, which is something I could not say yesterday.
I read on various websites, wikitravel etc that it is an industrial wasteland. The wikitravel article was very short considering the considerable population of Foshan. But the city is connected to Guangzhou via subway, and that alone is enough to tempt me there. How often is it you can travel between megacities via subway? The answer is, nowhere else in the world....unless I am mistaken because I made that up.
The ride on the subway is actually not that long at all, maybe an hour at the most with one transfer, and costs about $3. The subway actually continues on for a few more stops past where I got off as well. Soon you will be able to travel from Foshan to Guangzhou to Dongguang to Shenzhen to Hong Kong all on the stopping at every station subway systems linked up between the respective cities. It will take a long time but you will be able to do it, I probably will.
Damn it in typing the above I now realise that Hong Kong and Shenzhen are already basically connected, you have to get off and pass through customs but then the Shenzhen subway is waiting just on the other side. That is seriously enough text about the subway systems of southern China.
When I got off the subway in Foshan, I had no plan. I probably should have made a plan because I set off in the wrong direction. I was disappointed, there was nothing to see, just standard China streets, wide, tree lined, dusty, very dark and grey today, oh look a starbucks, oh theres a walmart, I can buy a bottle of water....
After looping back to where I got off, crossing the road in the other direction and low and behold, it was much more promising. Rumors of Foshan being an industrial wasteland are now wrong, theres a huge newly restored area of the city, very trendy, and a temple / museum / kung fu hero memorial, as you shall see.
One last thing, my photos recently have been crap, really crap, hard to even suggest something is photo of the day. The very grey weather is not helping of course. Generally it is much darker outside than the photos depict. I am not sure how to lift my game! Weather for next week back in Hong Kong looks promising.
Well, here is what I saw when I came out of the subway in Foshan. A very 'China' large building.
A sure sign you have left the tourist area is when even in the centre of the city, the signs are only in Chinese, no English. Generally in all of Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou etc the signs are always also in English.
As described above in monotonous monotonic detail, I started my Foshan adventure by going in the wrong direction. A highlight was crossing the road.
Here is a park. I enjoyed using the public toilets here. Maybe it would look nice in the sunshine.
China is a bit weird. They dont seem to like gay people much lately, tv loves violence but hates nudity, theres a lot of talk about family values just like all Asian countries are going on about lately, and yet there are thousands and thousands of prominent adult toy shops in busy shopping areas.
The next few pics are from the suprise museum / temple / kung fu memorial. I think they rebuilt a few of Foshan's cultural relics (their term not mine) in one location. Theres a small entry fee.
This presumably was always here, I cant imagine they could have moved it, although parts of the intricate roof carvings were also on display in glass cabinets. It is a temple in honor of some dude that had something to do with a tortoise and a snake.
These gold statues are as tall as me, very impressive.
You can borrow a weapon in case a turtle escapes and comes after you.
Here is the main guy, I cant remember his name! It is not Buddha, there was nothing Buddha related here (I dont think!).
This is inside a house I think was moved to this museum park, a house that has something to do with Huang Feihong, a Kung Fu pioneer, who was also great a lion dancing. If you read the entire plaque, it mentions he always managed to get the AUSPICIOUS LETTUCE. About 200 movies have been made about this guy, every martial arts star you can think of has played him at some point. I think drunken master is about him?
The next Kung Fu memorial hall is for another Foshan legend of Kung Fu... IP Man. He fights to defend intellectual property! Actually that was his name, Ip, pronounced Yip. There are also hundreds of movies based on this dude, who invented Wing Chun. He only died in 1979, there were lots of actual photos of him, and of all the celebrities at his funeral.
I practiced all my moves on these wooden things IP man may or may not have invented. Bruce Lee used them a lot... at least in movies made about Bruce Lee.
The gardens on the museum grounds are very nice, very auspicious. Thats a giant mall in the background.
Bonus shot of tree with red ribbon things, and strangely, light up LED fruits hanging off them. Nothing better than having thousands of little nickel cadmium batteries hanging from a tree.
Yet another part of this museum is underground. I think this is explaining what used to be here before it became a place for some guy to store his Kung Fu DVD collection (they really had rooms dedicated to that!).
You can come in here and sleep on these benches. A great place for all the fat men to enjoy a communal coughing fit.
I should have mentioned that the tree is part of Confucian world exhibit. Which means turtles. Although the first golden guy was turtle and snake related also? I have a lot of questions today. So just like every Confucian temple I have ever been to, especially in Taiwan, here is a pond FULL of turtles. You can throw coins at them, if you knock one off you get a prize.
I kind of expected Foshan to have a cultural relics park. The Kung Fu bits were unexpected. However I did not expect the whole area over the road to be possibly the nicest redevelopment shopping / restaurant area I have seen anywhere in China. It seems nicer than the similar area in Shanghai... the former French concession (I had to look that up). Wait, another update, the place in Shanghai is also called XinTianDi... I went back and updated this it will make sense shortly, but Foshan has literally copied the look, feel, and name of the place I was reminded of in Shanghai.
This building was the something poets society. I presume they are all dead now. Honestly I think my jokes are lost on everyone.
This whole place is really quite large, and very new. There is no reference to it on google and I therefore think it only just opened. It is also called XinTianDi, Xin meaning new. When will they rename it back to just TianDi? If anyone finds this because I am the first person to put it on the internet, the subway station to get off at is Zumiao, then head north east.
It was hard to tell what parts were restored, and what was rebuilt. I presume they didnt just build this tower as it serves no purpose.
At times it feels like you are wandering through peoples houses, only the doors have been removed, but through every door is a boutique, restaurant, art studio, starbucks.
Some areas have added musical fountains and LED lights to add to the historic authenticity.
Last one of Xintiandi. Update: Thats the last one of Foshan Xintiandi.
The restaurants in the new area were a bit too flash and too many huge tables to get my money, I crossed the road to the mall and headed to basement 3, where I found fusion noodles. It had no English so I was surprised to get Tom Yum flavoured beef soup with rice. It was nice enough. Terrible colors in this photo!
This mall is also brand new, only opening in late 2017, called Nova. So there you go, Foshan has gone through a major upgrade since the Internet was last updated. None of what I saw today is even mentioned on any 'what to do in Foshan' English language website I found.