South China Tour Day III Part II

After the "Stone Chamber Buildings" it was back on the mini-bus and an hours drive to the Kaiping Li Yuan Garden.

Owned by a rich trader who made his money in America until the Communist revolution. Once again the buildings and formal gardens has a distinct Sino-Wastern flavour, with the influence of fung-sui casting a major influence on the layout of the place.

Residential Buildings in the Li Yuan Gardens. Notice the 4 houses for each of the 4 wives.

Interior of Main House. 

Cannel with Koi

Next stop was the really a filler on this trip; it was a stop over at the "Banyan Islands- Bird Paradise"; basically a mangrove swamp with lots of estuary birds roosting in it.

Bird Paradise Boat

Bird Paradise Mangrove Swamp

 

Chinese Highways

An observation about the highways in China is that they are truly Inter-city highways, in that they literally connect up the cities, city center to city centre (well almost) unlike highways/motorways in other countries, where the highways will travel through the vicinity of the city/town where a link road then links you into the city. Hence the need for many elevated roads in Chinese cities. 

Hogging the Menu

 For all the odd stuff that we ate on this China trip, the one item which was always on the menu was the old roast pig. I believe that the count was 5 hogs to 0.

We were well stuffed with pork in all it's forms

One dish which I could not keep down was the "Home Style Soup Noodle"; with a mutton stock base. God it was gamy!! It smelt and tasted like a wet yak after a shag. Yuk! 

Tour of South China

0.1 The Appetizer

To kick the tour off, we decided to start at Elcardo in Changkat Bukit Bintang in Kuala Lumpur.

With our flight leaving at 5am in the morning, some idiot (i.e. me) suggested we start the holiday by driving up to KL the previous evening and have a slap-up meal before begining the tour. Unfortunately some other idiots AGREED!! So off we went, and the first boar was downed before the actual tour kicked off.

                           Andreas of Elcardo chopping up the boar with a side plate. (1st Boar of the trip)

1.1 Ghuangzhaou "The first meal"

After an uneventful flight, we were immediately brought to the first meal of our trip. 

This was in a "small" local restaurant. Small indeed! It had a sitting capacity for at least 100 and at least 3 private rooms! 

 Specialties sampled included pineapple beer, the local rice wine and

 the "low yee" (fish). An "Entry Level" start to the trip. 

The pineapple beer being sampled in Pepsi cups.

1.2 Ghuangzhou (City of Smog and Elevated Highways)

I'll just let the pictures do the talking. Please note the highway over the cables of the cable-car in the last photograph.

 

to be continued.......

 

Gourmet Tour of China

We are off on vacation

With the Sith Lord to South China

We look forward with anticipation

To a date with Angina

It's the Sith Lord we're following

Who'll be doing the ordering

Lead us not to temptation

As it will fill us with damnation

It'll be smart

Before we depart

To do a load of packin'

A ship-load of Statins