KENA wrote:soku wrote:kena, i have been to guangzhou. it is a tier 1.5 city in china. beijing and shanghai are in their own class, pretty much like dc and nyc. guangzhou is the 3rd largest, way bigger than others, but not quite the same kind as the big 2. it is dirtier, roads crazier, more dangerous. it is in the south china, warm, humid like miami. foods are close to the chinese restaurants here. there are lots of colleges there.
most locals are not very "friendly" to people not speaking local language. (color doesn't matter. i saw obama's brother there couple months ago.) if going out in night, stay in groups. (u cannot tell a college boy not to go out

)
Thanks for the info.
It is the best to have a local tour guide, however, since Guangzhou is an international city with more than 8 million population, one may find foreigner easily. It was said that up to 200,000 from africa to live or do business there. You may compare Guangzhou with Hong Kong as Philadelphia with New York City. Local Food is famous (Cantonese Food) but a bit light taste. One may find food from India as well as Arab, Korea, Japan etc. For western food one has to visit restaurant in hotel. Of couse there are KFC, McDonald, PizzaHut, Starbuck Coffee in the city as well.
As for sight scene, I am a bit picky, I would recommend take a tour boat at night to view both side of the river. There is a museum used to be a king's tomb about 2100 years ago if one is interested in ancient stuff. Local Guangzhou people speak Cantonese dialect in the same way as Hong Kong people speak. English is taught in high school so young people more or less can speak a little bit English if they are not too nervous.
Old CBD was in Beijing Road, nowadays it is in Tianhe disctrict.
There is a subway system and very convenient bus system if you know where you want to go. Bus fare is about ¥2 RMB ($0.3 USD) each way while subway fare is distance dependent. Taxi started with ¥7,with ¥1 fuel charge. 5 km /3 miles will be about ¥20 ($3.25)One may find these information from the web.