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!

Shenzhen the Land of Leisure

We were all VERY glad to wake up early and grab an early flight out of Wenzhou to Shenzhen. But, of course a visit to a city would never be complete without a bit of drama. My question is: WHY must cab drivers feel the need to take advantage of foreigners? Honestly, I don't want to deal with your nonsense at 7 in the morning. Never in my life have I met someone as dishonest nor manipulative as this cab driver. And never in my life have I ever raised my voice like that at someone NOR do I ever want to again. After getting out of that cab ride, I just felt AWFUL for having to yell at someone. NEVER AGAIN.

I was so happy to land in Shenzhen and put behind the morning drama that had taken place. Shenzhen was going to be a happy city! I mean, HELLOOOOO it's the richest city in China! Shenzhen is filled with malls and amusement parks. That's pretty much the entire city. No, I'm being completely serious here! People in Shenzhen have the money to spend! ...as did we. After realizing that we had not been spending much of the money we had been given, the five of us treated ourselves to an amazing, 5-star dinner. I about melted in my seat from all the delicious food we ordered. Steak, salmon, sushi, curry, chicken, pasta... Well deserved treat, I say!

Window of the World Amusement Park

 

The rest of our time in Shenzhen consisted of: site visit with Lexmark, melting in the sun, haggling at the biggest electronics market, trying to see the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, drinking these REFRESHING mango drinks, and also causing a scene at said mango drink store.

I visited both of China's only stock exchanges--one in Shenzhen, one in Shanghai



Most refreshing drinks ever!

Had a wax apple for the first time. Absolutely delish!

It's always an adventure on the Blue Line!

Why Are We in Wenzhou?

"Why are we in Wenzhou?" This question ran through all of our minds...multiple times during our two day stay.

When I thought Hangzhou had very few foreigners, I should've waited for Wenzhou. I'm pretty sure that my friends and I were one of the only few foreigners in Wenzhou besides the Turkish ice cream guy we met. We got some weird stares, people chattered, people pointed.

We got into Wenzhou our first day pretty late so the only thing we had time to do was find some dinner. Thing is, our hotel wasn't really in a "commercial" part of town so we settled on a hole-in-the-wall restaurant on the side of the street. The group decided to pick a restaurant that served Fuzhou-cuisine. If you all know anything about me, you know that this was done intentionally because my family is from Fuzhou. The group wanted to try some authentic Fuzhou food.

After a few confused looks from the owner of the restaurant, we finally got some home-cooked food and chowed down. Over a table full of food and beverages, we all sat around enjoying food and sharing stories with one another. My favorite kind of night!

Funny thing about Wenzhou? There isn't even a full page of things to do in this city in our travel book. Since we didn't have a site visit in this city, we thought: "Why not hit up the amusement park?" The second I got off that ferry and stepped onto that island/amusement park, I started laughing. We all felt as though we were in the Twilight Zone. SERIOUSLY. No one was there and it was completely silent except for the creepy music playing. There really are no words to describe this place.

Sad how this one photo sums up Wenzhou and our time in this city

Top: View of Wenzhou before boarding the ferry to the island

Bottom Left: Tower on the island

Bottom Middle: We decided to have some fun on a kid's playground. Two grown men on a swingset?

Bottom Right: We were highly entertained by the Turkish ice cream man.

Wenzhou was extremely odd and to be honest, I don't even know how exactly to describe this city.