Picture this: people swarming around like ants in the rain. Their nest – Canton Tower – a magnificent glowing building, piercing the sky and flooding the area with flashing neon lights. At night, the tower is the hub of attention. Streets are closed to the traffic because of the bustling crowds, and posing sight-seers are everywhere. Of course, we took plenty of photos. Many cringey, many beautiful. Some with us, lots with locals. It was definitely worth the stressful train ride to Guangzhou.

How did we end up in Guangzhou, you ask? It took a lot of luck, stress, and frantic running.

Labour Day Weekend

From the 29th of April to the 1st of May, China celebrates a Labour Day holiday. This meant working six days the week before, and working three days after the long weekend. As Guangzhou is merely a 25 minute bullet train ride away, and we had still never ventured to the main city, we booked train tickets and a hostel, and prepared for the weekend ahead.

We were due to depart at 9:23 in the morning on Sunday from Dongguan Railway Station. With a forty-five minute walk to the subway from our apartment block, and a twenty-five minute subway journey ahead, my friend and I planned to set off at seven in the morning. However, that was not to be.

The Mad Rush

After twenty minutes of waiting for our other friend to join us, we learnt that he was actually no longer travelling to Guangzhou with us. An unfortunate case of miscommunication.

We set off, reached the subway station in thirty minutes, and realised that we probably both needed our passports.

An expensive taxi ride later, we both had our passports and were on the subway. It’s twenty minutes past eight at this point, and the subway takes twenty-five minutes to reach the station. Bearing in mind, neither of us have our train tickets yet. And we also lack credit to text our friends the bad news that we are probably not going to make it.

We reach the train station at around 8:45 and we are FREAKING OUT. We don’t know where to collect our tickets, we’re running out of time, and we can’t contact our friends. We head through the doors and see an enormous line to the ticket collection station. I’m looking around, desperately trying to figure out what to do, when my eyes meet someone familiar. I can’t believe it. Our amazing school photographer and head of design is there! She’d missed her train and had to buy a new ticket. She happily helps us navigate the automatic ticket collection machines. The queue takes twenty minutes. My hands are swimming with sweat at this point. We collect our tickets easily with her help. By this time, it’s twenty minutes past nine. We have three minutes left. We thank her sincerely and literally run to the security check, run through the train station, run to our platform, and somehow make it in time for our train, seconds before our friends enter the platform. They’re as amazed as we are that we made it.

The train arrives one minute later and we board for Guangzhou.

South China Botanical Gardens

After a tumultuous start to the day, we made it to Guangzhou in good time and headed for the South China Botanical Gardens with the help of some friendly locals calling us a Didi (China’s equivalent of Uber). The gardens were stunning. There are gardens dedicated to Australian plants, bamboo, water plants, and ginger. There are giant green houses filled with cacti, indoor waterfalls, vivid flowers, and plants of spectacular varieties. There are valleys filled with towering luscious green leaves, flowers that descend from trellises, and orchids growing in trees. We spent hours exploring the vast variety of plant life, then ate two minute noodles and ice cream outside in the shade. Tired and hot from walking around the gardens all day, we headed for our hostel.  

Our hostel was a lovely building beside the river. We had our own room, bathroom, and WiFi. What more could you want? We made plans to take a river cruise past Canton Tower, go to the top of the tower, and head to the rooftop bar of a hotel nearby so as to get a spectacular view of the city skyline. If you’re preparing to read about how that all turned out, don’t get your hopes up. Amazing plans like this never work out. They get altered and become better, crazier stories.

Canton Tower

We never anticipated how busy Canton Tower would be. So, when we arrived, we were utterly gobsmacked. There were people absolutely EVERYWHERE. The river cruise that we had planned on taking had a giant queue, and so did the tower. So, we spent our time taking photos of the tower, of us and the tower, of us, the tower, and the locals, and of the glowing river cruises aka rainbow slugs gliding across the water. Before we knew it, the tower was shut and the river cruises had stopped for the night. We decided to try and find the hotel bar. However, the queue to get into the subway station from Canton Tower was ridiculous. It was the type of queue that you would find in an amusement park. Except it wasn’t amusing, and we were getting tired. When we finally made it through the queue into the subway station, we decided to head back to the hostel.

And it was on our way back to the hostel when we came across the Bar.

The Bar

You see, this was no ordinary bar. They had live music, drinks with minimal alcohol, and a birthday party all happening at once. The second we walked in, all eyes were on us and we were immediately seated at a table directly in front of the stage. The singer was a western woman who did her best to look out for us while also encouraging us to sing and dance. We ordered pina coladas that tasted nothing like alcohol, but everything like plain coconut milk. And we watched on as drunk older men video called their brothers and showcased our presence to them.

Before we knew it, there was a birthday cake and people singing and bunny rabbit teddy bears and cheap eyeliner being thrown to the crowd. Everyone was more than happy to give their bunnies to us, and we all ended up with one each. The friendly singer finally got us up and dancing, and we danced for a bit. That was until she realised that we were taking all the attention off the birthday boy and encouraged us to leave immediately. So, we left quick-smart, towing our bunnies and eyeliner to our hostel around the corner. The whole thing was bizarre. But, it was interesting. And we got bunnies and eyeliner. So, bonus.

The Temple, Tower, and Food

The next day we visited a temple, ate delicious food, and saw Canton Tower in the daytime. It was stunning. The temple was filled with people bearing gifts to the gods, groups of worshippers dancing together, and rooms filled with towering statues of the Gods. It was incredible to see.

For lunch, we went to a restaurant, chose the ingredients for a meal, and had the chefs prepare the food for us. There were noodles, vegetables, and as much meat as desired. Tasted delicious.

At the end of the day, we headed back to the train station and embarked on a thirty minute journey back to Dongguan. We were absolutely exhausted. That didn’t stop us from meeting up with other interns, experiencing a Peppa Pig themed club, and taking wild photos. But that’s another story.

The weekend was lovely, and so was the city. If ever in Guangdong, definitely visit Guangzhou. It is incredible. And so is the food.