First Impressions: ZHAOQING
This trip actually happened by accident. At first, I was looking to plan a trip to Kaiping to see the UNESCO Diaolou structures. But unfortunately (fortunately?) booked the wrong hotel. It wasn’t until the next day did I realize that I booked the hotel in a complete different city. To my pleasant surprise, this was a lucky mistake because there’s so many beautiful points of interests in Zhaoqing and completely underrated aka perfect for a wannabe-hipster like me!
So to continue my ongoing theme of “First Impressions,” here it goes:
Super friendly and hospitable people. We couldn’t find a cab to one of the sights we wanted to go see so the owner of the hotel we stayed had one of his friends take us. It was a pretty long 25 min drive too. Also in general, people just waved and smiled at us instead of the judgy look. Bus drivers and people were very helpful and offered us directions. Just all around nice!
Kids of locals are so noisy in public! Something I found surprising and annoying is that in general, none of the parents said or did anything when their kids are yelling or misbehaving in public, such as the multiple KFCs that we ventured into…
Underrated for so many reasons! There is an abundance of absolutely stunning natural rock and lake formations but not that well known - such as Dinghu Mountain, Star Lake, Seven Star Rock Cave, etc.
Delicious local zongzi （粽子）. They call it guo zhen zong （裹蒸粽） - because the filling is slightly different from the meat or dates zongzi. It includes smoked pork skin/fat that’s completely melted when you bite into it, mixture of salted egg yolk and chestnuts. So delicious!!
Lovely villages near by with adorable grandmas who weave baskets and ride bikes like they are teenagers!
Fascinating juxtaposition of ancient China, 1950s China with the original red brick buildings, and modern China with high risers, although there aren’t extremely many of those.
I had such a lovely and relaxing weekend there and highly recommend it if you want to take a weekend trip from Hong Kong!
