Shopping (and a lot more) in Guangzhou, China

Preparations

Last May, Guangzhou was one of my international destinations. Since I have never been to China, I had to apply first for my visa. It’s relatively easy for flight attendants to apply for visa. The whole process only takes a day and I’ve never heard of someone failing to get the embassy’s approval for their application. For first-timers like me, the embassy allows two entries which are valid for three months.

My flying partner and I were very exited for this trip. It was both our first time in China and we have a 73-hour layover – a long time to do a lot of things.

China at last

We arrived around lunch time at The Garden Hotel. The hotel is huge and grandiose. Everything about the hotel spells 5-star.

The Garden Hotel

I found out that I left my camera’s charger with my friend, so when we went out of the hotel, I was very happy to find a universal charger in one of the stores just across the street.

universal charger

Then we went to buy some Starbucks tumblers for my flying partner’s collection. Following our friend’s recommendation, we searched for a place named Club Basement for a good massage. We found the place even though it was a little hard to ask for directions because of the language barrier.

Club Basement

The place has a cozy bar with lots of wine displayed on the shelves. We ate dinner at the bar before having our massage. It was my first time to have a Chinese Traditional Massage. It is a dry massage, much like Thai massage, but I think the Chinese massage applies more pressing while Thai massage applies more stretching on the body.

Day 2

After breakfast, we went shopping. The hotel reception gave us a card with a list of the popular places in the city. It is written in both English and Chinese. We used this card to show the taxi driver where we wanted to go. It’s good that they came up with something like a tourist guide card otherwise we most likely would have gotten nowhere or gotten lost.

tourist guide card

We went to Shangxiajiu Road. It was a huge shopping area. The products were mostly clothes.

Shangxiajiu Road entrance

As planned, we searched for a salon where we can have our hair done. Tired of walking in heels, I bought and changed to a pair of sandals along the way. At last we found some salons, but they were still closed. We later learned that most shops there open around 11am to 12nn. We had milk tea while waiting for the salons to open. I think the most popular, or at least the one with the most stalls, was Dakasi. My oreo milk tea was delicious.

Dakasi

When we were finished with our milk tea, the salons were already open. We chose the hair salon that was adjacent to a nail salon, because my flying partner wanted to have her nails done as well. I had my hair highlighted. It was the first time I dared to change my hair color. The result? It was not as excellent as I expected. Some areas have more highlight than others. Maybe highlighting hair is not the salon’s expertise. I saw a lot of women walk-in for their hair extensions. When my hair was being blowdried, I asked the hairdresser to put some waves at the ends of my hair just for a different look.

fresh from the salon

We went to shop for about three more hours. We consumed all the money we brought with us for the day. Without any more money to spend for the rest of the day, we had no choice but to go back to the hotel a little earlier than we expected.

day 2 goodies 🙂

Day 3

After breakfast, we went to Beijing Road.

Beijing Road

There were lots of boutiques. There were some international brands as well as local brands. We just explored the area until we found an entrance to a Buddhist Temple.

entrance to the Buddhist Temple

I was in awe as we entered the temple. I wanted to take lots of pictures but it felt wrong to disturb the people as they pray, so we just took a few photos and went out.

the Buddhist Temple

Then, we went to One Link Center. It’s basically a mall. The stuff they sell are mostly accessories, toys, and display items. We bought many small stuffs but this keychain/bagtag is my favorite:

keychain/bagtag

Then we were back at Shangxiajiu Road for a little more shopping. But before we shopped, we ate first at a Chinese resto. I forgot the name of the place but the noodles with beef brisket was the best noodle dish I had ever tasted. It was so tasty and delicious.

beef brisket with noodles and some fried squid

After a few more hours of shopping, we went home with more goodies.

day 3 goodies

The next day, we went back to Jeddah and I prepared for my days-off in Manila. Compared with other shopping destinations, China may not offer the cheapest buys (because it’s really cheaper in Dhaka, Bangladesh. See Shopping in Dhaka, Bangladesh), but they offer a wide variety of stuff that you can buy at a reasonable price. There is everything for everyone. Moreover, each shopping area offers a specific category of products. There is a shopping area for clothes, for gadgets, for leather goods, for toys, etc. It’s easy to find what you’re looking for because you know exactly where to go and since there’s a lot of stores offering almost the same items in one place, the stores become competitive in pricing, meaning you can always expect a good bargain especially if you know how to haggle.