I'm comfortable traveling alone as long as it's within the country and I am able to understand the people I'm visiting. But imagine traveling to a foreign city where only a few people speak and understand English. When hardcore tourists are asked to visit China, the city of Guangzhou is not really their first choice because there are a lot of options like Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu. Nevertheless, this city is almost comparable to Singapore in terms of public transportation and cleanliness, the only difference is the cost of living being not expensive.
The only tourist destination that was on my mind for this trip was the Canton Tower. Standing at 604 meters, this tower is the second tallest tower in the world. I even picked a hotel near this tower so that I can easily visit it. In fact, I can see the tower from my hotel room. When I arrived at the base of the Canton Tower, I was shocked at the number of tourists in the area which are mostly Chinese. I wasn't able to purchase tickets for the rides on top of the tower because the line was too long.
The reason why I visited Guangzhou is to present my research at Sun Yat-sen University. This is my second time presenting research at an international conference (The first was Singapore). The university campus is huge and you needed a bike to visit all the nice places inside the campus. Sadly, I wasn't able to rent a bike because they don't accept Visa or Mastercard credit cards and for some reason, the bike rental doesn't accept cash. They just accept Alipay or WeChat. The payment process is almost true to almost all of the restaurants even the ones at the airport.
I did not explore the city of Guangzhou that much aside from Canton Tower and Sun Yat-sen University because it's hard to travel alone. Another thing that made this trip a little harder is the taxi drivers unable to understand any English at all. Showing them a map on my phone does help and I can see that the taxi drivers are trying very hard to help me. I did enjoy my travel to Guangzhou even with the language barrier but I probably would enjoy it more if I had my friends with me.
