Shamian Island (沙面岛)

Saturday (3 April) Tim and I took a walking trip around an area of town that is pretty close to my house. We found a pedestrian mall, tons of jade jewelry stores, a White-person-infested Island and lots of other cool stuff. I’m not sure about the history of Shamian Island, but there are lots of English signs and white people, and the food prices are set to match those in western cultures. Obviously we didn’t eat there :) There are lots of pictures so I’ve selected a representative subset to show here.

Photos:

This is the center of the pedestrian mall. It is actually much bigger than Beijing Road After the sun set on the mall the yellow lanterns lighting the sides looked really cool This is the first church that I saw in China, and it is on Shamian Island. We stopped into the main hotel on the island and found this huge indoor waterfall in the lobby. Looking out at the river from the 16th floor. (There are cooler river pics to come)

There was also an art gallery (or sales floor) in the hotel, and most of it cost more than my gross income for this whole trip. There is a pearl river dinner cruise with fancy boats. They are very well-lit and they looked awesome against the city lights. Guangzhou is on the river delta. Where these two branches come together there are huge spotlights lighting the sky. This ship looks like an old pirate ship. It even has a (folded down) mast. Another statue of some guys playing fiddle

This is another Asian chef to match mom’s kitchen. We took a ferry across the river, and this is looking back at the island. This is looking over to the other side.