The world in a port
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The place is owned by a Chinese but the chef is from Burundi. We had some fufu, a staple food made of starchy root vegetables, and sakasaka sombe, beef with vegetables. I wouldn't say they were my favorite foods from Guangzhou, but it felt nifty to travel from one culture to another within the same city and taste the difference.
In a way, Guangzhou feels more cosmopolitan than Beijing and Shanghai, with shops catering to Arabs and Africans shopping for vegetables at the local wet markets.
After dinner, as we strolled along Taojin Road, we walked past what looked like a Russian neighborhood, packed with Russian restaurants and bars. Close by was a Lebanese restaurant packed with people smoking shisha, or water pipe.
We decided to end the day's tour with a night cruise on the Pearl River. At 10 pm, Guangzhou lit up and shimmered like a woman in her party best.
From the ship, we saw old buildings like the Aiqun Hotel and Nanfang Mansion, some of the first high rises in South China that were built in the first half of the 20th century. In the distance stood glittering Canton Tower, completed just before the Asian Games and now the world's seventh tallest structure.
The night cruise offered more than sightseeing; it was like a trip through time that connected the city's past and future.
On my way back to the hotel, the taxi driver told me that all city taxi drivers had to learn some English before the Asian Games, and staff from the city's traffic management bureau would stop a taxi on the road to test if the driver's English was up to scratch.
When I asked him how he would greet a foreigner in English, he thought for a while, and said loudly, " ... Come to Guangzhou!"
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