So, after my trip to Sichuan province I had only one day in Guangzhou and then I did a smaller trip with my italian and french friends. This time our destination was Zhaoqing, which is about two hours away from Guangzhou. You can get there by train (under 1,2 euros) or with a bus (4,5 euros). Both of them leave from Guangzhou East Railway Station about every half hour. I personally recommend the bus, because then you can get a seat for sure and there is airconditioning. Trains are very clean here also, but you might not get a seat and it is very uncomfortable to stand two hours in a crowded train.

But what did we actually do there? Zhaoqing is much smaller city than Guangzhou and also much cheaper. There is not so much special things to see, but its parks are very different from Guangzhou's ones and it is nice place to spend a calm weekend out of Guangzhou's stressing and chaotic environment. In the parks you can easily spend the whole day just to walking around them, those are huge areas!

During our first day there, at first we went to see our hotel. We stayed in Shanshui Trends Hotel which was a very nice choise. Thank you for this to my friend Julio who had arranged the rooms. :) Rooms cost about 10 euros each but they were absolutely worth it! For this kind of hotel living you would definetely pay at least 100 euros in Finland. Rooms were very colourful and modern. Biggest rooms had a trendy tea tables in the middle and colourful round chairs. Our room was decorated in japanese style. We had no beds but perfect matresses on the floor, japanese lamps and paintings. Bathroom was so funnylooking also. I have never seen a toilet seat with that kind of shape! :D Hotel price included western breakfast. How great it was to have toast with butter and egg and then have proper coffee, yummy! You can easily find much cheaper options to stay in town, but we just decided to take the advantage of this experience, because we could not ever affor a place like this back home.

After hotel we went to a park called Seven Star Grags Park. It is a big park which consist of many smaller islands and small limestone hills. We walked there the whole day and visited some caves also by boat. Remember to take your student card with you (even a finnish one is acceptable) so you'll get almost 50% off from the entrance fee. In the park you can feed fishes, see island with over 420 buddha statues, visit temples etc. Like I told before, not so much special to do but nice place to relax.

We were told that you can leave park when ever you want, just new customers don't get in after 6pm. But, this obviously was not the truth, because when we tried to get out from the park at 6.30pm, all the gates were closed and there was aboslutely no-one in the park than us! We walked in the forest over an hour before we found a gate that we were able to climb over. But the problems didn't end to this. After crossing the gate, we found out that even though we could see the road, we cannot go there. Between us and the road there was a high fence made od barbed wire, then some plantations and farmers house and another fence of barbed wire and one more iron fence. And the worst thing was that we didn't see where these plantions and fences end, we just had to keep on walking along the side of them, and wait that we would see a place to cross them or climb over. We kept on walking almost another hour when we saw a farmer. We started yelling and he fortunately came to help us. At last he let us out from the park and farmer area.

In the evening we went to eat in the city center. Food was avarage and very cheap (under 2 euros each) but the service was something so horrible that I won't recommend the place. At night we visited some nightclubs but it was pretty difficult again to find a place which is not a KTV. Finally we were able to find one and actually it was a very good one. Unfortunately I cannot remember the name... I'm not sure should I accuse the cheap beer or bad memory...

Next day we went out of the city to place called Dinghu Shan. Taxi from the center of Zhaoqing was about 5 euros, not bad at all. Entrance fee to this mountain was 6,50 euros, and with a student card 3,50e. In this area you have two obtions to choose: whether to walk from a place to another (I don't really recommend) or take a minicar with 1,50 euros. This are is very big and there are 4 viewspots. On the way from one to another there is nothing to see and you'll just waste very much time. Roads are just like in a city, not like paths in the forest. You can do many small fun things in the viewspots. For example you can buy bunch of special balls to through to a huge pot (in the pic of this text). In the mountain there is also beautiful waterfall and some paths to walk around nearby the waterfall. Unfortunately when we were watching the waterfall it started to thunder so hard that we decided to leave back to Guangzhou.

We had a nice weekend and I advise you to visit Zhaoqing in the beginnig of your China trip. It is a nice place but after seeing many other places in China (for example the mountains in Yangshuo or waterfalls in Sichuan) this place does not feel so special. But here you can definetely enjoy cheap food and hotels and I promise that you won't see any other westerners here. This is real chinese vacation destination for one weekend. :)