An Airport Is Still Around Me

Tombs and Towers: A Day in Guangzhou

 

June 29, 2015

By Sarah Ann

 

We stayed two nights in Guangzhou in a super fancy hotel. It was the fanciest hotel I’ve ever stayed in. The breakfast at the hotel was awesome. It was a really yummy all-you-can eat buffet.

 

After eating breakfast, we went to a museum called The Tomb of the Nanyue King. The Nanyue King was an emperor – or really a king – of the area that is now the Guangdong province in southern China who lived two thousand years ago. They discovered his tomb deep in the hillside in what is now Guangzhou and we got to go down inside it. They buried food and cooking materials with him in case he got hungry after he died. They also buried fifteen people with him who drank poison when he died so they could be buried there too (they didn’t have a choice about drinking the poison). We got to see the remains of one of his four concubines - it was only dust. They think one of the reasons he may have died is because there were these stones they would grind up and drink because they thought drinking them would make you live forever. But actually one of them was poisonous.

 

Inside the tomb of the Nanyue King

 

After a lunch break, we went to the Chen Clan Ancestral Hall. It was a place the Chen family, a rich family in the area, built to honor their ancestors. The buildings were really colorful with carvings of animals on the roofs, especially bats because they mean good fortune. While we were waiting for my dad there (he gave a lecture at a university), us kids played hide and seek. Christian had a really good hiding spot. I had a hiding spot and Christian looked right at me and didn’t find me.

 

Rachel and my mom in front of the Chen Clan Ancestral Hall

 

Here’s my hiding spot

 

The third stop was a Buddhist temple called The Temple of the Six Banyon Trees. It was only the second Buddhist temple my dad had been to, but we’ve been to lots. We also made a quick stop of the Sun Yesten Memorial Hall. We saw where he was buried in Nanjing too.

 

Next, we went to dinner. The type of dinner we ate is famous in this area of China. It’s called dim sum, which actually means desserts. Instead of brining big dishes, they brought out tons of really small dishes. I loved the fried milk and this fried bread that you dipped in something that tasted like icing. There was something our host called blueberry jello (but it wasn’t really jello), shrimp dumplings, this pumpkin jello-like stuff, meatballs, bitter melon (it was REALLY bitter), rice, and lots of other things. We thought it was the best food we’ve had yet in China. We were stuffed afterwards but they told us with that type of food, we would get hungry soon. But we didn’t.

 

Then we went to see the Guangzhou tower in the downtown part of the city. Because it was night time, it was all lit up with lots of different changing colors. On the ground there were also lots of colorful lights. First Christian wanted to play follow the leaders where we jumped on the lights. Then he wanted to play tag but he cried when I tagged him.

 

In front of the Guangzhou tower (sometimes called the Canton tower)

 

Because it was late, we went home after that and I got to take a bath in the best bathtub ever. There was shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and bath gel. I haven’t had conditioner anywhere else in China and that was the first place in China I could take a bath (instead of just a shower).