This last weekend was Dragon Boat Festival, and by this time of the semester, I’m usually ready for a little trip. Several years ago, my roommate and another friend went to Qingdao, and last year, a few friends went to Qingyuan (a town near Guangzhou). I didn’t have any plans, but on Sunday afternoon, some friends and I were at Starbucks, hanging out and chatting.
“Does anyone have plans for Dragon Boat Festival on Friday?” I asked.
“Nope,” everyone answered.
“We could rent a car and drive somewhere nearby,” I suggested.
“Oh! I know a resort that Timothy and I stayed at when he performed a concert there on Children’s Day!” Jessica said.
With that, our trip was basically planned. I contacted Brandon who helped us rent the car, Jessica booked the resort once we had confirmed that we could all go, and Joshua did some research and found a paddleboarding/kayaking place about an hour from the resort.
The resort was a bit expensive, especially since we were going on a holiday, but for everything that we could do at the resort, I would say it’s worth it. Also, I just booked a hotel in LAX since I have a long layover, and I hate staying at that airport overnight, and when I compare the prices (the LAX hotel was several hundred kuai more), I find that the resort is not so outlandish.
First, where is this hotel? It’s actually in Huadu, a district in the north of Guangzhou, and when I checked the map, it’s about an hour’s drive from most places in Guangzhou.
Chinese Name of the Resort Town: 中旅·阿那亚·九龙湖度假区 (Zhong Lv, A nay a, jiu long hu du jia qu)
The resort town is beautiful, and the buildings made me feel like I’m walking through a European town, there are several large swimming pools, excellent food, a place in a square for kids to play in the water, and ice cream!
This is a resort town, so there are several hotels. We stayed at the Princess Hotel (公主酒店, Gong zhu jiu dian), but there are others to choose from. I loved the Princess Hotel, though!
Chinese name of the hotel: 九龙湖公主酒店 (Jiu long hu gongzhu jiu dian; Nine Dragon Lake Princess Hotel)
Address: 广东省广州市花都区九龙湖路3号
What are some of the interesting things to do in Anaya Resort Town?
1. Just walking around. The resort town is beautiful, so walking around was lovely. There were fewer people in the morning and evening. I think some people just went for the day, so the afternoon was a bit more crowded. I think just going for the day requires you to buy a ticket for the area, but if you booked a hotel, when they ask you where you’re going, you can just show the booking, and they’ll let you in—no need to buy another ticket.
The church is beautiful, although they don’t call it a church, they call it something like the Unfinished Hall. The roof was removed, perhaps for artistic flare? The stained glass windows were lovely.
2. The castle. One of the highlights of the area is a castle (at least a highlight for their advertising). I’m not sure how it got there, but it’s quite beautiful. We drove by it on our way to the mountain peak, but it was pouring rain at that point, so we didn’t get out. One couple in our little enclosed golf cart did get out, but a moment later, they hopped right back in. The rain was too intense. And those moments were enough to get them pretty wet. The castle is beautiful, and I heard there were lots of cats around it, so we’ll have to go next time.
3. The mountain peak. We took the hotel bus—it was like a glorified golf cart—to the top of the mountain to enjoy the view. It was beautiful, although I felt a bit like I had cheated since we didn’t hike up. We saw a maze with some cool bridges off in the distance, so I convinced my friends to walk down to it. There were other hiking trails, but we didn’t start early enough to really do those, and it was also steaming hot now that the rain had stopped.
We were really thankful that the downpour started when we got into the enclosed golf cart and stopped right as we were leaving. Perfect timing!
The maze was a fun place to walk around, but it wasn’t trimmed very well, so the bushes were growing over the path in many places, and there were lots of mosquitos. Thankfully no ticks though. I’m very happy that I’ve never found a tick in China, and since the ticks in America seem to love me, I think I would know if they were here!
After exploring the maze, we hiked back up the hill to the lookout point and waited for the next bus to take us back to our hotel. The buses come by about every 30 minutes, so we didn’t have too long to wait, and with a view like that, we couldn’t really complain.
4. Swimming! There was a beautiful swimming pool right outside the balcony of our hotel room, and that’s where we went swimming. We went at night, and I loved that because there were only a couple other people in the pool, and I loved having it mostly to ourselves. As with most swimming pools in China, you need to wear a swimming cap. They said you could buy one there, but thankfully, we had enough in our group, and Matias borrowed one from a guy on the side who wasn’t using his. In another part of the town, there was a long swimming pool next to the river. It looked nice from a distance, but I didn’t make it over to that one in our adventures. They also had an indoor pool, but if there are outdoor pools available, I almost always choose those. The indoor ones tend to be loud and full of echoes. Also, lots of Chinese seem to prefer the indoor ones so they are sometimes more crowded.
5. Board games. Since my friends and I were there during Dragon Boat Festival, we were expecting lots of rain. This festival usually has buckets of rain, so we went prepared to spend some time indoors with board games. There are lots of nice cafés, and we played board games in a café/restaurant when we first arrived and then later in the hotel room.
What are some good things to eat in Anaya Resort Town?
1. Pizza! For lunch on the first day, we found a pizza place that claimed to have pizza from Naples, Italy. The pizza was a bit different from Napoli pizza, but it was still delicious.
2. Burgers! Jessica recommended a burger place that she really liked, so we had that for dinner. The burgers were amazing, and we also had some fries, sweet potatoes with lemon sauce, and chicken nuggets that we all shared.
3. Bagels! This was one of the highlights. We wanted to have the bagels for breakfast, but they didn’t open until 10 a.m. which was a bit late, so Elizabeth and I had some bread first, and then when the others woke up, we all had bagels. Seven, another friend from Guangzhou had recommended this bagel place because she said there is also one in Guangzhou (near 体育西路, ti yu xi lu). I looked for it, though and couldn’t find it, so I can’t confirm that information.
But these bagels were incredible. They had lots of different options to choose from with a regular bagel as a free sample. We got an apple bagel that looked like an apple with red bread and filled with apples and cinnamon. We split several bagels with four of us so we could all try them. The favorite was the salmon one. I’m not usually a huge fan of raw salmon, but this one was fantastic. I loved it. When we went back for seconds, we all opted for another one of those. The cream cheese on that one was perfect. The last one we tried was a lunchmeat with butter. That was also really good.
4. Chinese canteens. After the bagels, we weren’t very hungry for lunch, so we extended the check-out time and had a late lunch at the canteen. They had lots of different options, including changfen (肠粉) which is a Guangdong specialty and something that I really enjoy. I’ll have to tell you more about that later when I get a picture. They also had dishes of meat and vegetables that you could get or dim sum. This food was a bit cheaper, but the canteen was very crowded. We had a difficult time finding a table, and there were lots of people also searching for tables. I felt like I was back in university at Sunday lunch, trying to get a table when everyone on campus was also ready to eat.
5. Spanish food. We didn’t try this one, but the restaurant was beautiful and probably a bit expensive. They had paella, though, so perhaps it was authentic.
6. Ice cream! We had a couple of different ice creams. The first one was gelato at a milk tea shop, and that was really good. The second time that evening, we got ice cream from an ice cream truck. That time we had apple, and it was also delicious.
After lunch, we were ready for our next adventure, so we packed up, checked out of the hotel, and headed to the paddleboarding/kayaking place that Joshua had found. It was about an hour away in the direction of Conghua, but we had a car, so we figured we may as well use it.
The drive went smoothly, but when we arrived, we realized there would still be a long wait. Apparently, water activities are popular at dragon boat festival since it’s hot. We thought about going to another location, but when we called them, they also wouldn’t confirm that they could save us a spot, so we decided to just wait it out. We played chameleon in the shade and the line went faster than we expected. The kayaks were ready, so we took those rather than waiting for a paddleboard.
I enjoyed paddling around to the different parts of the river. I was a bit disappointed we couldn’t go further, but that probably would have been tiring to return, so perhaps it was a good thing. The mountains rose up around us, and a bridge provided a boundary on one side. We dipped our feet in the water and splashed each other which gave a nice reprieve on a hot day. But the river was also surprisingly cool. I was afraid the sun would be too intense, but there was a nice breeze, and the water was refreshing.
Our last stop was dinner. This time we ate at a 农庄 (Nong Zhuang, which is a kind of restaurant that is supposed to have really fresh and delicious ingredients—straight from the farm). We went to one that Matias had visited before. The owners were kind, and the food was delicious! What a wonderful end to a great trip!
