Culture, culture everywhere...

Despite having fewer engaging activities, the city of Guangzhou certainly has its fair share of cultural sites. A quick afternoon trip out brought us to the Chen clan ancestoral hall. The hall was built over 120 years ago and houses examples of every form of artwork which was found in the Gagnzhou region at that time from sculpture and embroidery to calligraphy and even puppetry. The exhibits are facinating but the building itself is the real spectacle. The level of intracacy with which the carvings on the building have been produced is beyond belief. Even the awenings are covered in ornated painted carvings of ancient chinese battles and scenes of family life in ancient China. This had to be the first time I entered a museum and was genuinly interested in the history of what was on display.
Our next cultural checkpoint was the Temple of the Six Banyan trees. This is a Buddhist temple located at the centre of the city. Constructed in 537 AD the small temple contained at its centre, the flowery Pagoda.

For those not in the know, as I was, a Pagoda is 'the general term in the English language for a tiered tower with multiple eaves common in China, Japan, Korea, Nepal, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia.' - Wikipedia. The 17 storey climb up to the top was tiring, especially as the staircases and rooms were not designed for people of our stature. The view at the top did however give us a view of the whole city.
The final stop was the Guangxiao temple. This was also a Buddhist temple and was one of the oldest structures in Guangzhou dating back to 4th Century AD. The main hallis in the temple were huge with large Buddha and Kuan Yin (female buddha) statues in the centre. Much of the building has been rebuilt over the past 100 years but this took little away from the look or feel of the temple.
Both temples had many Chinese offering insence and praying to the various statues around the temple. On the way in a monk tried to hand us a small gold thing in return for money which we decided against as we did not know what it was, we were probably quite rude and on the way out two other english people were chatting with the monk which we should have taken the opportunity to do (I thought he was a chinese guy dressed up and trying to extort money from us).
After this we didn't do very much in Guangzhou as Laura became ill, the next days consisted of Starbucks, McDonalds and an American Diner called Lucys as well as the Guangzhou English Channel and George of the Jungle. Malachy was a little more adventurous and went wandering round the city, soaking up its many delights such as a huge market at Hauizhu square which had hundreds of shops which only sold one thing. For example on the top floor there was a flower shop next to a vase shop next to a plastic flower shop.
Having taken in as much of Gaungzhou as we cared for, our next decision is to decide how to get to Yangshuo.

Culture, culture everywhere...

Guangzhou, China