Tianhe district - East part, GangdingTianhe district is a very large district where you find many modern buildings, skyscrapers, parks, roads and shopping malls. In the west part you find the CBD (Central Business District). In the East part you find the Gangding area and Canton Fair, where our hotel, YuTong was. Gangding was our nearest metro station, from where we had to take a bus from the hotel. It is situated between our hotel in the Canton Fair area and the skyscrapers of Tianhe's first CBD, north of the new town, Zhujiang. The busy Zhongshan Avenue/Tianhe Road is dividing the area into two. Here you will find modern highrises/skyscrapers, hotels, shopping centers, neon lights, nightclubs small messy electronic stores and militaries patrolling the streets in typical Chinese manner. Gangding is an area that is very much alive at night. YuTong Hotel, our 4-star hotel along Zhongshan Avenue in Tianhe district's East part. This 28-storey postmodern building houses a modern traditional Chinese hotel with 270 rooms, 2 restaurants (a Chinese and an international), pool, sauna and conference rooms. The lobby is a postmodern 2-storey atrium in Asian style, the rooms were nice but a bit impersonal in international style with fresh bathrooms. The best feature about our room, that was on the 21st floor, was the view over Guangzhou's skyline, especially impressive at night with all the lights. The staff was very nice and helped us buy metro cards in the local store. However, they didn't speak much English. Last day we wanted to eat breakfast and paid for it, it was very expensive by Chinese standards, but once we had taken our food and wanted to eat, we were told that they will close in 5 minutes. So we wanted the money back for the breakfast. We got it, but why didn't they tell us they were about to close? One other negative thing is that you have to take the bus or taxi to get to the nearest metro station, Gangding (there is a large bus stop outside the hotel) since it is a bit off from the immediate city center (still in central Guangzhou but closer to the fair area then downtown), but it worked. Once you reach the nearby Gangding, there are two large shopping malls, restaurants, shopping malls etc, and just few blocks to the skyscrapers of Tianhe's "old" CBD. |