Day 1: Guangzhou

We hadn't originally planned to stay in Guangzhou during our vacation, but the train times ended up working out that way. We took the fast train there (it takes about 45 minutes) right after we were done teaching classes so we had an evening to do whatever we felt like. We found our hostel, dropped off our stuff, and went out to explore. We saw something that looked like this:

We thought that the contrast between the old style tower and the very modern tower was rather striking. The modern tower was too far away, but we managed to find our way to the pagoda. It was surrounded by a little patch of rather thick forest with very loud crickets and a dark little path leading up to it. The door was barred so that we couldn't go inside, but it was very cool.

We wandered around some more, decided to go eat somewhere, and ended up just going to KFC. It was very large and super busy. I knew that KFC was popular here, but it was different actually seeing it. I would compare the food to the KFCs in America, but I don't think I've been to a KFC in America since I was about twelve, so I can't.

We finished off the day with a mooncake party in our hostel because, after all, this was the moon festival.