Grabbing Onto Life in Guangzhou

Guangzhou was by far my favorite city out of the entire trip. It may not have necessarily been the city that I loved the most but the group I was with definitely grew a lot closer by the time we reached our last city.

Before arriving to Guangzhou, we took an early morning bus to the city of Dongguan for a couple of site visits. I'm pretty convinced that we saw EVERY library in the city of Dongguan. By the time we reached Guangzhou, I was in desperate need of a shower and food. After dinner, a few of us decided that the night was still young so we spent HOURS in a Papa John's laughing away. The employees were probably so entertained by the four of us.

I was so bummed that my time in Guangzhou was going to be so short. I honestly only had two full days in this city and wanted to take full advantage of the two days. Guangzhou is a diverse yet so chaotic of a city. But, I loved it!

Day 2 kicked off with an early morning site visit to China's second largest asset management firm. We had a sit down Q&A session with the managing director and managing HR director of the company and learned so much about investing in China. It was definitely a wonderful opportunity and another great site visit!

Following the site visit, we changed and adventured out to find some Nigerian food! Authentic Nigerian food is the bomb dot com! So glad we were able to better understand the Nigerian culture and we made a few friends along the way.

With a full stomach, we headed to a park to check out a few museums. For some reason the blue line group just really enjoys amusement parks because after the museums, we stumbled upon yet another amusement park. We spent an hour at the bumper cars and we drew a crowd around the pen. We were quite the attraction! Bumped out, we headed to dim sum for dinner and then the Canton Tower. Y'all, there are no words to describe the beauty of the Canton Tower! This 484m high tower is lighted up at night and has a gorgeous view of the Pearl River Delta. I fell in love! One of the attractions at the Canton Tower is the SkyDrop. Pretty much your standing up, strapped up, and you drop along the outside of the Canton Tower at a slant. Alex, Matt, Madison, and I thought, "Why not? You only live once!" So we dropped 30m (about 100ft) and we yelled like BABIES. It's such a peaceful ride up, overlooking the entire city and ALL OF A SUDDEN, THEY DROP YOU. The operators thought we were adorable so they gave us one extra ride. Honestly, there are no words to describe that feeling! It's terrifying...yet liberating. Makes you really appreciate life as your life flashes before your eyes. Once we were able to feel the ground again, we just laid on the ground for half an hour in silence staring at the Tower.

The Canton Tower! The structure changes colors every few seconds. What a sight to see!

City of Guangzhou and the Pearl River Delta

Sat in on a dress rehearsal at the Sun-Yat-Sen Memorial



My last day in Guangzhou was quite interesting. We were all having a ton of fun and all of a sudden we had a little run in with the police. Nothing too major but I'm glad that we were all able to get out of that situation together! My last night on this trip was great! We all pulled all nighters (as I had an early flight back to Beijing) with some drinks, heart-to-hearts, and card games. I've grown close with the four other people on the trip and I couldn't have asked for a better group to travel with! Thank you so much Blue Line!