A less bustling, less overwhelming — okay, I’ll say it — more Westernized part of town is Shamian Island, a territory created as a result of the Second Opium War and deeded to the British and French in 1859. Americans arriving for adoptions come here to process the papers. (The U.S. Consulate General operates from four locations scattered throughout Guangzhou. A centralized building, now under construction, is expected to open in 2013.)
On a rare solo excursion, I wander Shamian’s broad pedestrian walkway, lined with elegant Baroque, neo-classical and Palladian architecture. Newly minted American families push babies in strollers alongside soon-to-be-hitched Chinese couples who pose for formal wedding portraits in rented clothing, while other visitors snap pictures next to life-size bronze sculptures of hillbillies playing fiddles, leapfrogging children and male photojournalists with extra-long camera lenses. We all mingle in Starbucks, where there’s a decidedly non-Western black sesame green tea roll, though a Frappuccino is still a Frappuccino, and costs about $4.50.
My last day. As an antidote to the city’s bustle, we pack our bathing suits, two kids (Shea and Kiki), two friends of kids and their mom into the van and set the GPS device for Bishuiwan Hot Spring, an hour and a half north of town. Jenny promises a spa with dozens of hot springs pools, some filled with roses, lemons, hibiscus tea or wine. Women in pointed straw hats will serve ginger tea and place pale chilled green cucumber slices on my face. Tiny fish will nibble dead skin from my toes. Hot waterfalls will pummel my aching back.
But — and in China there’s often a but — it seems that the spa’s driveway is closed because of work crews on the highway. We attempt to persuade them to let us through. We point and smile. The children whine. The workers spread hot asphalt and wave us away.
Backtracking, we find an adjacent spa and ask to park so that we can walk from one property to another. Phone calls are made. Managers are summoned. We tour the second spa, decide it’s inferior and decide to leave.
Then a woman speaks — we have no idea what she’s saying — and points to an open gate that leads to the property we seek. Could she have shown us this an hour ago? Certainly. Does it matter? Not really. In a flash, we scurry away.
“Tin bu dong! Bye-bye!”
Guangzhou, China: How to get there, where to stay, what to do and more
Regis is a Boston-based travel and food writer and a founding member of the literary blog Beyond the Margins.
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