Guangzhou is the capital city of Guangdong, aslo our last stop

The city itself has over 1,000 years of rich history, and many of the locals there are settled and live here for more than 2000 years.

as we really want to get the first-hand local info, so we decided to travel to Guangzhou by train. We were lucky there were not so many passengers as we had expected. we were told the trains were too crowded to ride so try to avoid the period of Spring Holidays when you travle to Guangzhou.  

The train station was actually quite easy to figure out and the whole process was as well. We waited a few minutes and boarded the train where we were able to sit in comfortable seats. The train ride lasted more than 7 hours from Wuhan where we started.

First things first. We found our hostel, which is on Shamian Island, a quick subway trip then walk from the train station. We stayed at Guangzhou Youth Hostel. Our travel book indicated that it was cheap, but not too fancy. We found it to be cheap,

but fancier than we had imagined, so we were pleasantly surprised. The staff were nice enough, and the rooms were large and clean.

We were all hungry, so we took another short walk to Lucy's, a place we had read about that served a lot of "WESTERN FOOD".

The restaurant sure had an extensive menu, and the decor was a mixture between Red Robin and a 50's diner. Tons of random things on the walls and pictures of celebrities.

I ordered a Hawaiian chicken sandwich and Staci, refried bean enchilada. The food was not very good. We also ordered equally disappointing onion rings. Jimmy, Cali, and Mary agreed. Nothing special, tilting on the side of disappointing. While eating,

an observation we all made was the high number of White people with young Asian children eating with us and walking around outside. We later learned that Guangzhou is were the USA consulate is and where all adoptions are finalized.

As mentioned earlier, the city has a lot of history, and it was fascinating just walking around the streets seeing the old buildings. We tried to visit the Huaisheng Mosque, which is over 1,300 years old. For some reason we, were unable to get in

to visit. We assume it was off hours, or a time of prayer. we were able to take some pictures from the street.

Guangzhou seems to value having pets more so than in Wuhan, where they seem to value eating them. Well, maybe not eating

them, but we never see people with pets here. In Guangzhou, everywhere we went we saw dogs on leashes and various other pets.

At one point, we found ourselves walking down an alley specifically for selling animals. It was quite depressing, but interesting nonetheless.

Later on in the afternoon, we stopped for a short visit at the Temple of Bright Filial Piety, one of the oldest Buddhist temples in the city. Our visit was short due to it closing 20 minutes after we got in, and we were all ready to find our prized destination for the day: all you can eat and drink Italian food.

Yes, you read correctly. Guangzhou is home to a lot of history, but also the all-you-can-eat-buffet.

After a few subway stops and a lengthy walk through the city and a park, we finally found it. The restaurant's name is simple: THE ITALIAN RESTAURANT. For slightly under 100 RMB a person, we each were able to gorge ourselves on salad, soup, bread, pizza, pasta, veggies, and so on. My favorite was the spinach alfredo gnocchi. As much as we love Hong Kong, Guangzhou is now the place for us to go and get a fix of the food we miss and crave. To still have room for copious amounts of eating, I opted out on drinking as much as I could. A wise choice, as after dinner, there was an all-you-can-eat dessert bar. I never thought I'd be eating tiramisu in China, so I made sure to have seconds. Total cost per person: less than 15 US dollars.

After two hours of eating, we crawled out and noticed a sign for the place we will try the next time we come to Guangzhou:

"THE MEXICAN RESTAURANT".

Since everyone was in a major state of food-coma, we had no energy to socialize once back at the hostel. We attempted to watch a movie but found ourselves quickly counting sheep, or in this case raviolis.