gargoylekitty | The City of Guangzhou: Part I

FFFFFFFFFFFFFF.... I accidentally deleted this post. Reposting.

Sorry for the lapse in posts, it being over a month since my last. Been busy(got a job, modeled for a life drawing group, started running more, drawing lots, overdosing on Asian programing, and so on). For the next photo post, I figured I'd focus on the place I spent, roughly, the most time, the city of Guangzhou.

Guangzhou(the 'zhou' sounds kinda like 'joe') is about a one and a half to two hour ride on the fast train from Hong Kong and the third largest city in China. While the general attitude about the city seems to be that it's boring and doesn't have much to do, I liked it well enough. Definitely the kind of place that feels more like someplace you live though, rather than visit, if that makes any sense.

To start off, my cousin lives on the 18th floor(technically the 16th since there's no 4th or 14th) of an apartment building in Panyu. This would be the view from her balcony.

Very pretty, yes?
You can also see a bit of the city...

...and some of the separated area behind her place.

Someone out there had a rooster and every damn morning it'd start crowing from 4am to 9am. And it wasn't normal crowing either. It was like the thing had a frog stuck in it's throat or something.

While I don't know much about it, being separated by a stone wall topped with broken glass, I came to associate the lot with weird and sometimes unsettling noises. Occasional screaming/shouting, an excess of fireworks, dogs howling and yelping at all times of the day, trucks barreling along, and so on. Eh.

Getting from my cousin's place into the city was a bit of a time consuming process, so some days I'd just hang around her neighborhood/wherever the free buses could go. On days I didn't, when not shopping or meeting up with someone, the process was as follows:
1) Get to the internal bus stop at the entrance to the neighborhood park.
2) Pray to the gods that bus isn't crowded and you might get a seat. Take it to the bus terminal.
3) Purchase a ticket from the ticket booth for 7 kuai($1), though if you're coming back you might want to just buy two to cover the return. Don't get in a fight with the ticket women, you will not win.
4) Figure out which bus you want to take into the city. I normally just snagged the one to Haizhu Square or the Garden Hotel, both being good landmarks for getting back.
5) Take said bus into the city, a fourty-five minute to an hour trip, get off at the last stop and remember where that stop is if you ever hope to get back.
6) Yay! You're in the city! What now?

One of the first 'sites', aside from shopping locations, I made a point to visit was the Five Rams statue located in Yuexiu park. I did as directed above then hopped on the metro, hoping I'd figured the directions out(though I did carry this one small book my cousin gave me with the names of major locations in Chinese, just in case). Luckily, the metro stop I picked ended up right at the entrance to the park, and so officially began my quest to find the rams.

I wandered the park for about two hours. Up and down stone stairways, through winding paths in the wooded areas, and accidentally running into teens making out on various benches and boulders. Awkward...

Now, it's not that I was lost, I kept following the signs that indicated the statue was in the direction they pointed, the signs just lied. They lied and they mocked and they seemed to take great pleasure in leading people, me, on. Despite this, I eventually spotted something that seemed promising.

At this point I realized I'd found them and ended up running up the stairs, feeling rather pleased with myself.

Something about the task of looking for so long made them into a big deal for me.

Ta dah!

The Five Rams are, essentially, a key factor in the city's "origin story". Once upon a time, Five Celestial Beings riding these Five Celestial Rams appeared to the people of Guangzhou. Each ram held a sheaf of rice in it's mouth and presented it to the people. This acted as a sign that the city would never suffer from famine and would ultimately thrive. Or something like that.

Today they act as the symbol(s) of the city, nicknamed The City of Five Rams, to the degree that when it came time for Guangzhou, as host, to pick mascots for the upcoming Asian Games there was only one real choice.

So cute! Much cuter than fucking Haibao(I'll cover him in the Shanghai post, so much hate) and found all over the city.
ex.

After seeing the rams it was as though the gates of good luck opened for me, I ran into some cuteness on the way back down.

I then stumbled across this.

The more official entrance, maybe? Idek.
From there I wandered around for a few hours, less concerned with where I was going now that I'd seem the rams. It being the biggest park in the city, covering roughly 212.5 acres, there was a fair amount to see.

Heh, kitty.

On the way back out I ended up just taking a picture of the map and guessing which of the five entrances I'd come in through to get back.

It took me much less time to get out than it took to find my way in. :)

Since I'm basically going in order of my pictures, a bit about my cousin. She teaches history, which apparently is pretty annoying to teach in China since once you reach communism things get tricky and you have to be pretty careful with what comes out of your mouth.

Also, the highlights are different and show a clear cut of Eastern history vs Western history. For example, when she asked her kids what they knew about WWII all their answers revolved around Japan being dicks, not their exact wording but you get the point.

That all aside though, I went in with her one day to meet her students. It was kinda fun, I suppose. I got to see my cousin teach and be interrogated by a bunch of middle schoolers. Since I wore my Batlogo shirt that day they asked a few questions about Batman and at one point, this was so cute, I mentioned Wonder Woman and the whole class echoed me with this kinda gasp, like 'whoa'.

They also asked me if I liked any anime/manga and told me about this one superhero type character they have there. In all it was both awkward and fun. After school let out I helped out with the sports club that my cousin's friend and another teacher ran. Alas, it didn't take long before the whole area was a bit overcrowded as clubs/groups/whatever fought for space.

Still... cuteness.

Then, when I got home that day there was this cute little girl and her father playing with some bunnies in the small field before the wall behind the building.

Oh gods.

Errrr... moving along, I visited a fair number of art museums while there.

Loved these.

One room had a lot of work that had a rather political feel to it.

There was also plenty of more traditional work.

Saw this in the taxi I took back from there, lol.

In case it's not clear it reads: The average taxi ride is 17 kuai, 4 minutes, with nothing to do but look at me... Lucky you!
Heh.

Some random shots from the bus.

Another museum, less pictures here since the camera hated me. Alas, I visited two that day. Oh well, ~memories~ live on.

And then some from this shopping district area whose name escapes me at the moment yet was pretty alright. I bought a few shirts with Chinglish on them from there, one of which features a pirate panda in a line-up and the phrase 'you make me happy when skies are gaay'
Also, the rams!