I woke up at 7am and was soon up but the toilet was busy with 2 girls doing their hair and makeup. I waited and eventually they gave up the toilet as apparently there were 2 toilets one for guys and one for girls. I packed up my things into the suitcase and left the flat quite late maybe 8.20 and I decided to head to the other tube station and headed that way picking up a snack for breakfast on the way. I saw a pagoda but it looked just a little too difficult to get to and there was a tram stop that went to Canton tower where I wanted to go so I bought a ticket from the machine for 2 yuan and boarded it when it came. It wasn't fast and there was only 1 floor so no great views but I like trying out alternative transport. I walked around the tower and then inside and it was just opening up for the day with people allowed up from 9.30am for 150 yuan and they also had a waxworks. I left going west and crossed the river and then walked through a park. I was heading to a museum but saw a provincial art centre so I had a look and it was the regions art museum and free. The first floor was Chinese art which I don't really get its too watery without enough colour and the floor above had works by John Mclean (English abstract not good) and Enrico Bach (German strong geometric colours I quite liked). There was a presentation going on as I left but I didn't understand what for. I went to the other museum which was the Guangdong museum of people living abroad. It looked ok but had only summaries in English so was difficult to follow and I only found out what the museum was as I left and found a leaflet. I walked around concert hall and then back to the park and through the park to the end and across a bridge. I tried to get to a lake park but was blocked twice which annoyed me and so I went back and found another route in to the lake park but I not enough time to see it all like an island there although it was nice. I left and went along a road, turned and walked next to an Asian river (concrete ditch) with bushes at least and turned north up a road where I picked up some food. I came to a park for the martyrs and went around the lake first. There was a pavilion with no real view and a monument to the Soviets, a stone book. I crossed the lake to the tomb, a grass mound surrounded by a wall and then went to the monument to the martyrs which was a quite good block of carved stone and was tall and ok. There was something bookmarked so I went round the park and there were school kids but not much there to see. On the west of the park was a museum of Guangdong modern history which had only a brief summary in English and lots of artifacts and pictures labelled in Chinese. I left and went across the road to a mall where the information counter pointed me downstairs to a store which had some suitcases however none were cheap. The mall mostly had department store or designer label type shops so I went along the road to what was labelled as the historic area. There was a museum in a tower but it was shut for lunch so I went South to a viewpoint area that was not there and then to a museum that was closed for renovations but had moved to a nicer building. It was the museum of Lu Xun, a writer and was not great and mostly in Chinese. I went back to the main road and across to a park and after the peasant museum which used to be Confucian academy. It had information in English and was used by Mao Zedong to train people for his revolution fight so pretty important. I left and went back the way I'd been to a river museum about the area and life by the river. It was ok and as it was later I went back across to the pawn house museum tower which was open after lunch and like the other places free. Pawn houses were like banks in China so fairly important unfortunately there was no great view at the top. I went along the road and looked briefly at a mall but it was no good so I had a look at the Myriad trees academy, which was small and all in Chinese which at least saved me time. I saw a suitcase shop so I crossed to a Cadibinly shop, but they were 300 or so yuan and I was looking for a similar price to back home or cheaper after all this was China. Nearby was the City god temple so I visited it and it was a decent size place, but as I was leaving I wanted a photo just as a car was being directed to park in front of the temple. I took the shot quickly but it was still in panorama mode so no good and then the cars were there blocking any shots. I went to the next building where an archaeological dig had discovered Nanyue and many generations of wells and walls. It was well preserved and labelled in a big hall and the site continued outside only there the notice boards all said that everything had been reburied for its conservation. They had a small well museum on site as well as wells were important in China. I went to the next place on the map, a museum but it wasn't a museum and there was no entry so I headed on towards a pedestrianised street and a man accosted me showing me pictures of things he was selling. I saw suitcases so went with him and he took me to a locked shop if you can call it that with nice suitcases like Samsonite with locks on the wheels and other features but the price was 480. I said 100 was more my price and he went down to 200. It wasn't a bad price but it was past the time I had planned to go back and repack as that would not be easy moving all of my things into other luggage. Also if the goods were fake they might fall apart a bit like my HP bag and finally this was probably an illegal shop so it wasn't a good idea to shop there anyway. I went to the pedestrian street and there was a suitcase shop, with cases from 229. A bit cheaper than the other legal shops but these were plain cheapish cases and I still didn't have time to get them. I found the tower ruins in the street with a plaque and a glass cover, there wasn't much left of them but China seems to be good at having information boards and mostly with English translations yet there was hardly any foreigners like me around so they were planning in advance it looked like.
I found another luggage shop with lots of cases and similar prices before I got to the big Buddha temple. It was well named as there was a very large building behind the temple with a white Buddha inside and the temple had 3 gold Buddhas. There was construction work around the side though which ruined some pictures a bit. There were still a few places left bookmarked and I was turning the town red (my favourite colour to show I'd been somewhere). Into a shopping mall and downstairs I found another archaeological dig of sluice remains from maybe 2000 years ago and the preservation was quite good. I left and found another suitcase shop with a sale on and cases from 139 but it was way too late now anyway although always good for me to have an idea to speed up shopping next time. I went to a museum which turned out to be the Guangzhou uprising memorial museum. It was all in Chinese so there was not much point in seeing it. Finally I came to the park I had been to when I first arrived but the other end. There was a circular plaque to show the centre of city and nearby people were doing organised dancing. I found a nice building there and then took the train back. I got off the train a stop early to see if there were shops and it was a mistake as it was quite a walk past the exhibition centre back to the apartment. It was late but I still stopped and bought food for the train journey. At the flat I used the toilet and left with my stuff and then went the wrong way as maps was slow. Dragging the suitcase was hard and I ended up going all the way round instead of straight across so I found the tube station at 5.55, about 30 minutes later than planned. The journey was ok and I got to the railway station stop at 6.30 real time, 6.35 on my watch and I rushed to the queue which was not too long. I was through and asked someone the way and then ran through the station as I wasn't going to miss the train. I made the train with minutes to spare but was at carriage 17 and I was in 4 so I had a long walk along the platform and when I got to my carriage there was a queue to get on, but only that carriage. Most seats in the carriage were taken but only 4 for the 6 where I sat which was good. I wanted everything for the journey and got my torch out from my suitcase which I couldn't find at first. I was sweating and the train was hot with others fanning themselves. I put the suitcase under some seats as the racks full and sat down and read and the train cooled down as we moved. There were a couple sitting opposite me once they had traded seats so they could have one person sleeping and next to me was an annoying woman who seemed to be my age but very childish. She was on her phone a lot and had an exaggerated yawn as if to let everyone know - look see how tired I am. I found the train had a hot water tap which I used like on the ferry to part fill a bottle and let it cool. I tried to sleep, and napped a bit but then a bag fell on my head so I woke up. It was the woman next to me's bag and she stuck it on the seat next to her which meant she took up more space. I read a bit more, did my blog a bit and bought a pot noodle from a trolley for 6 yuan. Around 10pm I Couldn't sleep and the train was still light so no need for the torch. I went through the train and found space in other carriages so I sat on a disabled chair and slept there a bit. I woke up and my back hurt a bit but there was even more space on the train now so I left my jacket sonewhere and went to get my bag. Inspection staff came through the train making people take their feet off seats so when I got back I slept lying on the table.
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