Korea - HK - China - KORKONG! - Page 7

First up, I walked through the peoples park. My hotel overlooks it, last night I got into bed at about 9:55pm and the music from the park for the ballroom dancers was still blasting at full volume. It thankfully stopped at 10pm exactly.

The park was full of dancers, tai chi, badminton, hacky sack with a badminton shuttlecock thing, opera singers and of course, sword fighters. You really do have to watch where you are going at times!

It was both foggy and sunny all at once. The haze ruined most of todays photos.

I thought I could just walk straight from the peoples park into the next park, but standing in my way was the city government building, with razor wire and police with serious looking guns and the metal stick with the spikes. I dont actually photograph them though!

Behind the government building was the next park, the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum. There is a Sun Yat-Sen Mausoleum in nearly every Chinese city I have been to, the biggest I recall is in Nanjing, and theres one in Taipei as well. So did they hack his body up and send bits of it all of the place to be stored in separate buildings? Also wasnt he the main competitor to Mao for greatest Chinese person ever? How did all these places not get destroyed when Mao took over? Am I causing offence by deliberately remaining ignorant about history? Hopefully.

Behind the Mausoleum there is a very large surely man made hill. Almost a mountain. The stairs up are twice as long as pictured here.

I dont actually know what the point of this hill was, other than to have a huge morning tai chi class with a crap but very loud speaker system, however heres the thing on the top, its almost impossible to get a clear view of whatever it is.

Descending man made mystery mountain takes you into another garden area, with an old fortress wall I could not find. There is also this sports stadium, built in a hole.

Apparently a wild panda is climbing one of the trees!

This extensive park had everything, lots of people running backwards, slapping themselves, and croquet. There was a cheating scandal unfolding on the croquet court, lots of yelling and a stick was thrown. Unfortunately I missed it all and by the time I set up for a shot they agreed to play on. Serious business.

Last nights dinner.

Possibly tonights dinner.

Whoever set up this Winnie the Pooh light up theme park restaurant is missing, presumed to be in Xinjiang for re-education.

To give you an idea of the difficulty in getting between park areas, this is one of the crossings, after walking about a km along a highway into oncoming traffic.

Just before getting to the main Baiyun mountain entry gate, I came to a market that had no electricity. It was much darker than depicted here, they have all hung battery powered LED lights. My camera boosted the shadows massively here to make it look like you could see but it was dangerously dark. I have no idea how you would know what you were buying, people were looking into their wallets to get cash using mobile phone torch mode.

The road leading up to the mountain has a children's theme park. There were actually some working rides, but if you look at this one closely you will see it is sitting in about a foot of green water.

I continued on past a lake. Safety first here in Guangzhou, everyone fishing is wearing a bright orange life jacket.

The garden areas around the lake were very nicely curated. Great lawn.

Just before getting to the entry fee collection point, yet another garden. It was while sitting near here I kicked a woman.

The Chinese government recommends 6000 steps per day. Pfffffffffffffft. I have already done 40,000 today without stopping. I can defeat all of China with the power of my steps alone.

This area is actually quite near the top of the mountain park. Due to the cable car and buses there are little cafes and restaurants everywhere.

And a kfc... and a mcdonalds... no dicos though? I havent seen dicos at all in Guangzhou?

Here we have the singing pavilion. I belted out a rendition of Hammer Smashed Face.

Lack of view.

More lack of view but I still enjoyed peering into the smog / fog / mist. Probably not mist today actually.

There is a giant aviary called parrot paradise. I think its free? Not everything is free, some of the temples have an extra admittance fee. The actual fee for the park entry is about $2.

View of the main city area where I am staying... I think? Most of the day I had no idea which way I might be facing.

My lunch came from here. The mountain had everything. Toilet every hundred metres, all with an attendant. From family mart I got red bean bread and pocari sweat. I drank about 9 litres of various fluids and visited 19 separate tourist mountain toilets, I had to get the full value of my entry fee.

You cant see it I dont think, but there is a little waterfall. Fake.

I gave my camera to another guy and took my turn on the zip line. He did a pretty good job of taking my photo as I went across the 400 metre ravine.

After recovering my camera from Mr Lin, it was time to head back down the mountain, here is the descending view. Still no good.

The far side has a bit clearer view, and I think about an hour after this the sun came out. That usually happens to me.

The path to the western gate is very long, 3km at least, but very developed, in addition to gardens like this there were a few tea houses and terraces of tea bushes / trees / vines. I dont know what you call them. Plantations.

More lakes, more fish.

A LOT more fish, emphasis on LOT.

And another lake... it was a much longer walk than I thought it would be.

The final part of the path out of the place was a nice shady canopy. A welcome relief from the recently arriving sun.

Now, most people stopped at the gate, and took a bus. Not me. The map showed a subway station about a km away, so I thought I would just walk to that. How hard can it be? Quite hard actually! I had to circle around a few war zones.

Eventually I got to the subway station. This is it! Its in a muddy field. Of course I could not get a seat, it was a long journey back, but I got to ponder that I had actually walked that entire distance above ground, making many diversions and going over mountains along the way. My million steps for April goal is back on track!

This street is the weather gauge. Last night it was used for sun, yesterday morning flood, before that mist. Tonight it is used for hazy sun at dusk.

These rocks look like jubes. Which are those sugar colored lollies only these rocks are a lot bigger, unless you know of fist sized jubes in which case where can I get one? I tried to eat one but they are not soft at all like a jube. I think they might actually be made of recycled plastic.

The mighty Pearl river, it is not a particularly inspiring view tonight, nothing like the amazing views in Chongqing from last year. The riverbank areas are nicely developed for easy walking.

A gimp ship. What?

More Pearl river in the other direction.

This is one of many many huge restaurants. I liked this one the best because of the giant tv with the soccer / football on the screen at super volume levels.

And now my dinner. I ordered Hainanese chicken rice. A local specialty despite this being Guangdong and not Hainan. Unfortunately, 1 hour wait. So I ordered a weird looking pork thing in a clay pot. 45 minute wait. I asked in Chinese what would be fast? Wonton soup, bbq pork on rice, fried rice or pasta. Vegetarian pasta it is! It was actually really nice once I added enough pepper and chilli to suitably numb my tastebuds. Thats all for now, after 100k steps in two days, I probably need to plan a slightly more restful day tomorrow. I am growing weak with old age.

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.

Its the pearl river. A bit further down the river from where I took a shot last night, also the sky was a bit clearer this evening.

Once on the island in the river, my path took me through a rather large park. It was almost dark by now, and it looks abandoned here, but there were a few cafes and people practicing Kung Fu, as well as a guy walking on his hands while his girlfriend filmed him.

I mentioned the nice path for jogging above. Here it is. No missing parts of the footpath, no piles of rubble, no electric scooters, no cars parked on the footpath, no beggars, no fruit stands, no stupid signs saying 'no running', no auspicious lettuce, no dancing grandmas.... the list goes on.

I went under a bridge on the path. So I took a photo.

Ahhh, the glorious rainbow tower, a beacon of hope for the LGBTIQBNGO's of China. Dont hate me for making fun of your acronym, it increases by one each year and you know it.

The buildings were more impressive than the tower, so prepare for multiple shots. The thing on the right here is that weird stadium I took a photo of from the other side a couple of days ago.

Cool. I really like the way the buildings mess around with the clouds.

Perhaps you prefer vertical orientation. I dont on this occasion, but I am proud to offer both.

Then it rained suddenly, which made the rainbow lights in the ground more appealing for a bonus building photo.

And since it was a 2 meal day, dinner was healthy. Luckily the new mall I found had many healthy options, but none as healthy as this Quinoa salad. It came with a cup of gruel on the side, really! Also the dictionary does not recognise Quinoa is a word. I have no idea what I am doing tomorrow yet!

Here is where I got off the subway, after 2 transfers, and got onto a bus. I got onto a bus that was the right number, heading in the direction I wanted to go, it went 100 metres up the road and did a U turn, and went back in the wrong direction. I got off, walked back to the subway station, walked past to the next bus stop up the road, and waited again for one that was not doing a u-turn. Luckily they come all the time in China (and Korea), unlike Japan. But I hate buses. I swear the one I got on said Lotus mountain. I did notice I wasnt the only person who got off after the u-turn who had just got on, but they waited where they got off rather than walk back.

And this is where the bus stops, at the depot. Where is lotus hill / mountain? Luckily I have google maps.

Tip: to find the mountain follow all the people trying to convince you to buy a bunch of flowers. It seems if you go to a park full of flowers you need to buy flowers to bring with you? Anyway, it was easy enough to find, expensive entry fee, about $10 Australian! Obviously not a government owned / run attraction.

So far it was as I expected. Car parks, kids rides, plastic colored flowers.

Here is a rather disappointing lake. Not raining yet, I thought it might be a short visit, nothing to see.

Hmmmm, this is the main lotus pond. Its been drained. There are no flowers, just mud.

Those birds are plastic. I was feeling ripped off!

Mud as far as the eye can see! It was actually darker than this.

Starting to rain a bit now, but I expected it to just drizzle for a while.

The gardens were all quite nice, but I can see similar for free over the road from my hotel, except there are no giant mud ponds in the peoples park by my hotel.

Wait, now its awesome! Those are walkways on the water down there in the quarry. Theres a man made cave system to explore!

What an amazing view! Those are huge ships out there on the river delta. That sky looks really weird.....

There are little hidden staircases all through here. I cant wait to find the way down to start exploring.... lots of..... (dot dot dot dot)...

Its the end of the world.

High winds and lightning every few seconds (not that I could photograph it. I spent an hour walking around in a big loop under here. Each loop was 89 steps. The drained mud pools filled up fast.

In one of the very small slightly lesser downpour periods I ran to the main temple area. They had toilets and a bigger loop to walk around. It was a very cool view of rain and ships every now and then when the rain was slightly less like standing under 100 fire hoses.

That was all the park area I wanted to explore. You cant see over the awesome cliffs though. Too bad I couldnt get down there, it was now flooded!

Divine intervention was not forthcoming.

Another very brief respite, just 3 seconds after taking this photo, the loudest thunder ever and the heaviest rain ever. The turtle is cursed.

This is under a giant staircase up to see a giant gold Buddha related statue, which is off limits apparently? In the rain I dont think I wanted to get up there anyway, but I also dont think the giant statue is a part of this parks entry fee, either that or it was closed off for renovation. They do that a lot.

This was the closest I could get to giant gold statue, as seen from the corner of the giant temple on one of my many laps around its upper levels. Those steps at the bottom left were boarded up at the bottom for some reason. This was also as clear as the sky got all day.

Off in the distance, a pagoda. It appeared brighter at this point than any point in the 3 hours prior, time to run back to the bus station and start a very damp uncomfortable journey home. Now if only I can get my phone to charge. Also my shoes are a good demonstration of how much water a sponge can hold.

Brace yourself for lots of photos of buildings. Out the front of this building a woman charged over to me and told me she was the CEO of the company who owns this building. She went on to explain CEO is chief executive officer, which means boss! She had surprisingly very good English. She followed me, explaining that this evening only was a one time amazing investment opportunity, they need foreign investors for regulatory approval, and I can make 10x my money in a month, all I need to do is follow her up to the 20th floor and arrange an immediate transfer! I asked her if this has ever worked even once? She did not answer, I told her she was no better than a guy selling fake watches or a teenage girl inviting me to try some tea with her. She got mad and stormed off.

Rain briefly, into a mall. This is an above ground fancy one, with giant birdcage for no reason. Where is the giant bird?

Around this area of town there are lots of highways that go underground to go under the large public green spaces. A lot of money was spent.

A rather boring photo except for the massive old new style bank building.

Here is an exploding testicle, with two smaller shinier testicles supporting it.

Just another cool photo of buildings, the bottom of these are all shops.

There are walkways over the roads, I am standing on one, they make for better photos.

I wandered into a residential area, theres a square in the middle with nightclubs (KTV) around the edge, but strangely, an art exhibition in the street, in the rain.

This is residential area. Very new, I believe it is an upmarket part of town. I am sure it is, its right next to the very tallest buildings.

It may be residential, but the bottom two levels are all restaurants. Probably the basement too.

You can walk along these bottom levels inside the buildings, its like a long corridor of continual restaurants. You can spit in peoples food as you go by. Many restaurants have big lines. Then the buildings are joined up by overpasses over the road. You can go for many miles without going into the rain, very handy.

Dinner was in an underground mall. I think I chose poorly. I wanted to select a few small things, but many of the items I saw on the menu out the front were unavailable. I was committed at this point, so ended up with lotus root, bok choy, pickled veg with tofu. It was all quite oily. I think some of it was many many hours old! Food poisoning perhaps? Just in case I had an ice cream afterwards so it comes up smooth! Thats all for now, whoever has been doing the rain dances, CUT IT OUT!