Surroundings

Our "1a REAL China Home" is located  in a small guarded 'middle class' residential area ("City Village") of Liwan District in Guangzhou Center. Around there are all daily life appliances, like restaurants, bars, shops, markets, department stores, hotels, subway and bus stations, parks etc. Within about 30min walking you can reach many of the typical places (like traditional living areas, main shopping streets, restaurant streets, parks etc) and important sights (like Chen Academy (5min),  Guangxiao & Liurong temple (20min), Peoples Park & Sun Yat Sen Hall, Yuexiu Park & 5 Goats etc (30min)), several museums and art collections, the hyper-modern opera house, the oldest mosque (since 527!!) & the largest Gothic Cathedral in China, several famous Buddhist Temples & Monasteries, the Guangzhou financial & business center, the famous Canton Fairs, Shamian Island, and many other places of interest. You can also use EASILY the fast & well-developed subway network, whereas using the powerful bus & inexpensive taxi network requires some Chinese knowledge or special preparation!

Guangzhou is not only the first city in China, which was 'opened to Westeners' (as 'Canton' in 1517, see Shamian island!), but also a center of continuous society-development in China, from Han kings over several Dynasties up to Sun Yat Sen & Mao, and today's older and newest "openings". As the capital of the MOST busy&successful province in China, and with more than 15 million people, Guangzhou is a lively cultural center, which at the same time is modern AND traditional, megalithic AND village-like, very busy AND relaxing, very loud AND contemplative, very tech-oriented AND religious... Tourism is not over-developed yet, and the traditional Chinese life in the everywhere "villages" is not mostly gone, like in some other large Chinese cities. So you can discover several nice & interesting places, scenaries, and events in & around Guangzhou on your own, and learn about the REAL China!

Besides, Guangzhou  is connected to the rest of the world by a very powerful transport network of streets, railways, and air routes. So you can go to some interesting "suburbs", like Shenzhen, HongKong & Macau by train in about 2h. And you have a good starting point for traveling the famous minority-colored provinces in southern China, like e.g. Guangxi, Yunnan, Sichuan, Qinghai, and Tibet. Of course, you also can go to any other Asian country, or even any country on this planet...

Special support we can offer:

As we (Chinese, German) live in China AND Germany, we have some background about "Westeners" living in China. Accordingly, we can provide info&help concerning many aspects, starting from travel planning over safe, convenient, and interesting travel IN China (e.g. self-driving a car! You can do it without this "official Guide" normally "necessary"! Is said to be "impossible", but we did it over 4 years!), up to support in case of any trouble you may get into. This way, we can help to make possible for you individual & independent traveling in China, even for "China-un-experienced" people. Of course, you should have some background conditions fulfilled, like a deep interest in CHINA and it's PEOPLE, at least some basic international traveling experience, some English, and some Mandarin or Cantonese, if possible. But also without any Chinese knowledge individual traveling in China is possible!

Most of all, we hope to welcome some new FRIENDS OF CHINA and it's PEOPLE in our home!  - At least, you should have become it after staying at our place...

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