Guangzhou Travels: Guangzhou Pearl River Night Cruise

One of my Chinese work colleagues took me and my other Indonesian friend to Guangzhou Pearl River Night Cruise while we were there for a business trip. This boat cruise is supposed to take you around the river, back and forth, to see Guangzhou Tower a little bit closer.

Guangzhou Tower is also known as Canton Tower, I don’t know which one is the popular name. When I was there, I thought it’s famous as Guangzhou Tower instead of Canton Tower. But I’m not really sure because everybody was speaking Chinese, LOL. 

Guangzhou Tower looks like Tokyo Sky Tree, in my opinion. Both of them also functioned as Television Tower. Guangzhou Tower’s height was beaten by Tokyo Sky Tree in 2011. I visited Guangzhou tower during night time so I get to see it color changes. The color changes in like, every 5 seconds, I guess. It came out colorful, or one color like gold, blue, purple, red, etc. See the left picture, it's soo colorful. Meanwhile, Tokyo Sky Tree doesn't change the color periodically in one night, and I visited it in day light, so I only got this picture in the right.

 

From my hotel in Tian He district, it took about 20 minutes taxi ride to reach the boat port. It’s a small port for tour purpose only. I’m sorry I don’t know the port name, or the location name. I just went where my colleagues took me. Haha.

In front of the port building

The ticket was about 80 yuan/person if I’m not mistaken (about USD 16.00). This is for probably around 1 to 1,5 hours ride (vaguely remember).

I went there at around 8 PM so it was a bit windy, but I visited in April so the weather was still pretty nice. The boat was decorated with colorful little lamps around it. I think it’s a little bit tacky, but oh well who cares. 

The boat decorated with lamps all over it

Inside the boat, we were served with Chinese Tea (refill) and peanuts. There were tables covered in white sheets just like in a restaurant, with a wide window right beside these tables.

After sitting for 10 minutes, we decided to go to the top of the boat. There were also tables here, but the atmosphere is more romantic with all the candles and the flowers and the starry sky. Just the right place to propose your girlfriend (yeah right).

The scenery from the top of the boat

All of a sudden there was this Chinese guy shouting with loud voice and was pointing to a certain area on the boat. I was shocked and thought if there’s an accident or someone was jumping out to the water. But people were so calm and they started to make a line. Apparently it was for taking pictures, and people have to move very fast to take turn to get a good picture angle when the boat was passing right below the Guangzhou Tower. 

It was so fast that I didn’t have time to gather up my cute face and suddenly the cameraman told me to move my ass because it was the next person’s turn. The picture was printed immediately while we’re on the boat and we have to pay 20 yuan (USD 2.00) to take it. You don’t have to pay if you don’t want the pictures, though. But it was already printed, and it looks like this business strategy is paying them off really well.

Also they print your picture in a small size to put it into a keychain. It was a D.I.Y. All you have to do is take one key chain and put your picture in it. Voila!

Tada.. Awkwardly posing while holding my camera

About 6 months after I visited Guangzhou Tower, I went to Japan and visited Tokyo Sky Tree. I sent my Mom the pictures of these 2 towers, and I proudly tell her everything about them and how happy I am to have the opportunity to visit them. But she’s all like: “Why are you so obsessed with towers? Last time it was tower in China, and now it’s tower in Japan. What is so special about towers?”. Apparently I suddenly became a tower-freak to her.

Jakarta Travels: Taman Bunga Nusantara - National Flower Park (?)

Last week I went to a place called Taman Bunga Nusantara, roughly translated to “National Flower Park” (?), not really sure though. It’s basically a compilation of themed flower garden in a big flower park. Gardens in a park. Erm..

It’s located a little far outside Jakarta. It’s in Puncak, Bogor. I suggest you bring your own vehicle, because the road is unbelievably challenging.

First you will face the famous puncak road (Puncak means summit).On holidays, this road has a one-way-open-and-close system. 2 hours only for one way up, and 2 hours only for one way down. We arrived at the highway when the road is open for “down way” and we have to wait for about an hour before the road opened for “up way”. Kudos to my friend who drove the car!

On the way, we got hungry and decided to eat at a restaurant called “Cimory Resto”. Cimory is a famous yogurt brand in Indonesia. They open up a restaurant with various food, drinks and dessert menu. It was very spacious and relaxing, especially for an office worker like me who just dying for fresh air and green scenery.

The view from our table

We continued the trip and it took about another 2 hours after Cimory restaurant. I think it’s not that far, but the road was narrow and rocky so we couldn’t drive with high speed. When we finally arrive, the sun felt so hot but the air was chilly. We paid Rp. 30,000 for entrance ticket (about USD 3.00).

It's a VERY, VERY spacious park. So happy seeing various and colorful pretty flowers that look like a big carpet. 

I can say that I’m not a huge fan of flowers, but apparently they ARE pretty.

They even have Japanese Garden and they call it 日本苑 (にほんえん - nihon'en), with all the ponds and fishes and bridges. How nice.

We spent about 4 hours in the park and DID NOT make it through all of the themed gardens. It was sooo huge. Well to be fair we did many stops and these stops took much time because we would take a lot of pictures. Like, A LOT. Oh yes, we are the selfie-nuts.

If you want to visit this place, make sure to wear your most comfortable shoes. Because you’ll walk a lot and the shuttle car only goes in the main road of the garden. No need to bring a lot of water because you can find cafes inside. All in all, the hours of trip was paid off.