How to take a one day trip from Hongkong to Guangzhou

So I'm back to blog Part 2 of my Hong kong trip which we went over to Guangzhou for a night since it was really convenient to take day trips from Hong Kong to places like Macau, Shenzhen, ZhuHai, Guangzhou etc!

Read Part 1 in Kowloon Here

DAY 3

Woke up early on day 3 to have breakfast at a famous cha chan teng near our apartment!

Kam Wah Cafe

47 Bute Street

Prince Edward, Hong Kong

Opening hours: 6.30 am - 11.30 pm

Posters with spread of food for their lunch/dinner menu!

We ordered Hot Milk Tea, not too sweet, so my bf added honey in his!

Their famous Butter Polo Bun (8 HKD) which many of my friends seemed to come here countless times for! I think it was nothing spectacular. Kam Wah is said to serve one of the best pineapple polo buns in Hk!

Typical Beef Gong Zai Mian (Hk style instant noodle) you can find at cha chan tengs. Taste very normal as well, instant noodle la?

The star of the meal has got to be this!

Their Hk Style French Toast (15 HKD) super sinful but damn good and can spam honey from the jar on the toast as much you want. Sweet and savoury done right!

I will recommend to come here for the french toast I guess!

Very very normal Egg Tarts (4 HKD each) which was served late and cold to us after our meal..

We then made our way after breakfast to Hung Hom MTR Station.

A Guangzhou to Hong Kong Train, runs between Guangzhou East Railway Station and Hong Kong Hung Hom Railway Station. There are trains running daily (with about an hour's interval) and the train trip takes about two hours. Super convenient for tourists to travel between the two cities!

My advice is to get to the departure stations 45 minutes ahead of the scheduled departure time. For the train schedules, you can check out this link. The boarding gates will be closed 10 minutes before departure. So just go an hour to 45 mins before departure to ensure sufficient time for ticket purchase and immigration checks etc!!

This is at Hung Hom Railway Station and the ticketing area looks like this! Their ticketing area, check-ins and immigration is all on the first floor :)

We got the 9.30 am tickets which cost us 210 HKD each! That is around 38 SGD for the two hour train ride. Buying from Guangzhou back to HongKong was slightly cheaper though. In China thats why hahaha.

Waiting for departure!

our train cabin, haha saw some cabins with like dining tables and all haha. Should be the more expensive tickets! But eat non-stop for two hours really?

selfies before we fell asleep and there was free wifi for me in this train all the way to Guangzhou. And its the first time I shit(shat) in a moving train! HAHAHAHAH

and we reached Guangzhou!!

Super far and unfamiliar with Guangzhou and the area we were staying at so we cabbed (cab prices in Gz and Hk both reasonable!) and the queue was super long thus this expression LOL.

Metal grills in all Gz cabs. Scared people rob the driver uh? Haha but luckily my chinese (unlike william's) was good enough to tell the driver which hotel we were staying at!

Holiday Inn Shifu Guangzhou

No.188 Shi Fu Road, Liwan District, Guangzhou, China

I'll recommend people to stay here especially if its the first time if you are going to Guangzhou! Most of the hotels in the country have been around for quite some time already, heard and read many bad reviews. Like rude staff and dirty rooms etc :O And I wanted to stay near one of the popular districts for shopping in Guangzhou and this hotel seems to be the most legit compared to the others in the vicinity! So paying around $140 SGD per night here at Holiday Inn Shifu is quite affordable for this newer and more recognised hotel in Guangzhou. We almost couldn't get a room!

Our hotel basement come out turn left is already directly linked to the famous Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street!!!

Look at our magnificent big room!

nothing much to expect from Guangzhou's skyline though hahaha

After washing up, we went down our hotel to walk around Shangxia Jiu Lu.

Shang Xia Jiu Pedestrain Street

Shang Xia Jiu Pedestrian Street is situated in the central area of Liwan district.

Its one of the three most famous commercial centers in Guangzhou and is just stretches of shops down the streets. It is the very first commercial pedestrian street in Guangzhou city.

Prices here are generally lower than Beijing Lu’s (another famous street), but some prices can be bargained. Many shopping buildings can be found down this street and I was so excited to be here but tbh, nothing seems to be really my style :/

Some famous restaurants can be found just down Shangxia Jiu Lu which was just down the road from our hotel like the Guangzhou Restaurant (Guangzhou jiujia) which is one of the most famous in this street! There are three branches of this in Guangzhou!

Guangzhou Restaurant

2 Wenchang Lu (Rd) Guangzhou

(at the crossing of Xia-Jiu Lu and Wenchang Lu)

the interior is also kind of opened air so we were like freezing due to the cold weather (guangzhou was colder than hongkong!)

rare moment of me drinking hot drinks hahaha only in cold countries!

Didn't really know what popular dishes to order here without wifi so we just randomly ordered.

Food here was not bad but I still think China's food is always too oily!!

Some yummy char siew

Duck (OILY LOL)

normal veg fried with garlic, hahaha dk how to communicate properly with the waitress

and tofu!!

Comic City 动漫星城

219 Zhongshan 5th Rd, Yuexiu, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

Decided to check out Comic city which was near to Beijing Lu and its like a subway station mall (near the subway underground) full of teenager clothes and accessories.

But the mall was like disappointingly small but I managed to get a pair of cheap shades and spotted some super artificial tasting but super cute and mini macaron shop inside! hahaha damn cute I finished all of this sinful colouring shit william refuses to devour.

We then walked over to Beijing Lu!

Beijing Road Pedestrain Street

Beijing Road Pedestrian Street is a crowded place to shop and eat during weekends, similar to Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street but the more atas version in my opinion! So its like the orchard road of Guangzhou like in Singapore.

Both Shangxiajiu and Beijing lu becomes more lively at night as you can see many street food/stalls with a variety of yummy food places to dine at, for example the Hai Di Lao outlet in Beijing Lu~

TianHe Tee Mall

Made our way to another place - Tianhe Teemall which is Guangzhou's Top International Mall in the Tianhe district. Said to be the most prosperous and most international business center in Guangzhou. Stuff there are not cheap either with international brand stores like Lacoste, Zara, H&M and Versace!

Around Tianhe area, there is also a HK style cha chan teng which serves delicious food! All these food finds in Guangzhou will be spoke about in another one of my blog entries :)

I think my favourite food in Guangzhou has got to be the street food called Jian Bing. Super tasty, super cheap and found at those road carts along their streets!! King of takeaway delicacies. Have no idea how is this so yummy. I think I rather have this over any food in China any day hahaha.

Back to our hotel area at night! Will recommending coming to Shangxia Jiu Lu at evening to night cause everything seems to be just more happening and lively compared to in the noon when we were here! Most of the shops are opened as well :)

Stumbled across this street food stall in Shangxia Jiu Street which serves super cheap and good garlic oysters and vermicelli scallops!!!

I also love their seasoned chili squids as well!!

thumbs up for street food in Guangzhou!

Had dinner at this China Saizeriya outlet located at Shangxia Jiu as well~

If you thought Saizeriya was cheap in Singapore... think again. We opened this bottle of white wine which cost us like 9 SGD?!?!?!

simple cheap saizeriya pastas

and yeah, got quite drunk/high hahaha which resulted to ordering more desserts, sides and kirin beer!!!!

I'm like Wooowwww so biiiggg LOL ~.~

DAY 4

Tao Tao Ju

20 Di Shi Pu Lu (Rd) Guangzhou

Settled our breakfast at another famous traditional restaurant along Shangxia jiu street near our hotel. And I heard that Yum Cha (chinese style dim sum tea) is popular in Guangzhou so I wanted to try the dimsum they had to offer for breakfast here!

was welcomed by a grumpy lady who didn't allow me to take photos of their carts of dimsum..

Basically the dim sum was bad here, because they were served COLD! The weather was already cold and the dimsum has been pre-made and placed in the carts (served by the grumpy lady) for us customers to order. I guess their standard has dropped here through out the years. I rather order something made piping hot from the kitchen!

looks great but needs so much improvement!!

Another one of my favourites in Guangzhou was actually their Gong Cha drinks! I usually prefer koi over gong cha in singapore but the gong cha in china was just better!! I wonder if gong cha from china?

Super yummy pearls in my drink topped with green tea milk cream above! So unique. Please bring this to Singapore!

Another cart selling Jian Bings in another style which was SO GOOD as well!! haha rather eat jian bing everyday than some of their disappointing restaurants to be honest!

HEAVEN

At night, it was time for us to return back to Hong Kong! Kinda missed hong kong's food because China's one was just not really to my tastebuds. (And I'm not a picky eater) But overall, I had a meaningful short trip to Guangzhou :)

We headed back to Guangzhou East Railway Station to take a train back to Hong kong and the ticketing booth can be found after you scan your bags through this check point and then head up to the fourth floor inside the building for the purchase of tickets & waiting room area.

The queue shown above in the picture was a wrong ticketing area we blindly followed the crowd to on the first floor (WRONG) which will prolly get us tickets to the other parts of China & not hong kong.

Queued here thus missed our good train time and had to wait 2 hours for the next train! T.T

My face after running for our tickets (they stop selling them 20/30 min prior to the train departure time) and I fell down on the escalator + couldn't make it for our train so I cried LOL

While waiting for the next departure time, we comforted ourselves trying fast food in China and we had KFC instead of this Kungfu chain which was a fast-food restaurant chain in GZ that serves rice and soup set meals. (bf hates this kind of chinese food if not I would have tried it)