Last week was super cold, at least for this area of the world with no central heating. The cold had seeped into my apartment, and staying warm was a bit of a challenge. So I was thankful that some friends and I planned to go to some hot springs for the weekend.

My friend, Clara, is from Yunfu (云浮), so she and Brandon planned out our trip. Since I would have no idea what to do without friends who can help me, I thought I’d share some of our adventures and recommendations with you so that you can try them out if you ever feel like exploring some of the lesser-known areas of Guangdong. Or, you can just experience them vicariously.

But first, how to get to Yunfu? There is a high-speed train that goes there now, and you could probably get Didi’s to the different places in the area, but I wanted to drive, so we rented a car, and it was really convenient to have a place to throw all our stuff and not have to wait for a taxi. We spent most of our time in 新兴 (Xinxing county of the city Yunfu)

1. Lunch. We went to a delightful little place in the village for lunch and had some local foods. Some of the local specialties include a thin taro pancake—savory (芋头糕, yu tou gao), black olive fried rice noodles—one of my favorite dishes from lunch (榄角炒米粉, lanjiao chaomifen), half of a soy sauce chicken (豉油鸡半只, chiyouji banzhi), pan-fried and baked tilapia (煎焗罗非鱼, jian ju luofeiyu), stir-fried snail (炒山坑螺, chao shan keng luo), and oyster sauce lotus root slices (耗油藕片, haoyou ou pian).

I’m not sure about all of those translations, but it’s the best I can do! Snail is a common local food for many of the villages in Guangdong. They’re pretty tasty, but I wouldn’t order them unless there’s someone who really likes them because they’re a lot of work to eat, so I usually give up after eating a few. But the flavor is nice, and when the meat comes out easily, they’re great!

The name of the restaurant that we went to is 宁辉堂餐馆 (ning hui tang can guan), and it was really pretty. They had a garden with little rooms set up. Since it was cold, I was glad they put us in a room with a heater.

Clara had contacted the boss and placed our order ahead of time, so by the time we arrived and washed our dishes, the food was coming. If you don’t live in Guangdong, washing dishes might sound like a weird thing to do at a restaurant. We don’t actually wash them in the sink when we go to restaurants, but most restaurants provide hot water or tea and a bowl so that we can rinse the dishes before using them to sanitize them a little more.

2. Buddhist temple. This temple was called 新兴龙山国恩寺 (Xinxing Longshan guo en si). I’m not Buddhist, but Buddhism is a huge part of Chinese culture, and I like to see the architecture and understand this religion that many people hold on to. I’ve noticed that many people who claim Buddhism as their religion don’t really understand it or what it means to them. I see it as they think they need to check a religion box in their lives, and Buddhism is a convenient option, so they choose that.

Buddhism has idols for studying and money and lots of other things. These idols are popular worship points because young people want help with their studies, and adults want help in earning more money. As I see people worshipping, I’m saddened by the emptiness of the religion. Worshipping feels sort of like knocking on wood. People seem to think, “If I do this, maybe I can get some good luck.”

This temple was set up by a man named Huineng (惠能) and today it honors him in particular. He also planted a lychee tree there more than 1300 years ago.

One nice thing about Buddhist temples is the garden where you can walk. We walked for a while before heading over to the hot springs just across the street.

3. Hot springs! This was the highlight of our trip, and I was very excited to soak in some hot water, especially since I’d been coughing for a week and my muscles were sore from the strain.

We went to 禅泉度假酒店 (chan quan dujia jiudian) just for the hot springs, and it was wonderful! They had lots pools with different temperatures ranging from 38-43 degrees Celsius (100-109 degrees Fahrenheit). The pool where we spent the most time was next to the edge of the hot springs area, and we could look out over the sunset and the trees. It was a beautiful place to enjoy a soak.

They also had more private hot springs that were surrounded by trees, plants, and birds.

Staff walked around offering ginger tea, water, and other kinds of herbal teas. They also had stations throughout the area stocked with warm towels. I was a bit afraid of the cold weather when we got out of the pools, but the warm towels made all the difference.

After several hours, we called it quits and took showers at the park before heading to dinner.

4. Dinner. We were tired and hungry, so we went to a random place that Brandon found nearby. But I’m gonna share it with you because they had the best sesame chicken that I’ve ever had. It was soooooooo good!!!!! The restaurant was called 0766水上农庄 (0766 shuishang nongzhuang—nongzhuang means a local countryside organic restaurant).

The restaurant also had some great tofu and a nice green vegetable and pretty good rice cooked in a pot with eel (煲仔饭, baozaifan with 鳗鱼, manyu; or 鳝鱼, shanyu—I can’t remember which word they used). But we all agreed that the sesame chicken (芝麻鸡, zhima ji) was absolutely the best. Even thinking about it now makes me feel hungry.

5. Hotel. I really liked our hotel because it was nice and it was in a beautiful area that we could explore the next morning. Actually the area is better for exploring at night, but we were too tired, so we explored without the lights and the crowd in the morning.

One of the most interesting things we saw as we were walking around, and one of the few shops that was open in the morning, was a creative creations wire toy shop. The owners started talking to us and wanted to take a picture with us (I’m assuming they wanted pictures with foreigners to use for advertising purposes. Or maybe if I become famous one day, they can say that I was at their shop–too bad for them, that one seems unlikely, haha).

But I enjoyed looking at their creations made from an aluminum alloy. The two brothers started making these creations as boys with their grandfather as a hobby. Then in college, they studied something related to design or engineering (I forgot exactly what it was). During the Covid pandemic, they started the business, and they have some pretty impressive creations. They made keychains with names in them and things that you could put on a wall–dragons, phoenixes, cartoon characters, etc. Some of them were really cool. As a thank you for the picture, they gave me a small cross key chain. I felt like that was appropriate since I’m a Christian!

The hotel was actually a bed-and-breakfast, but it was close enough to a hotel. It was called 新兴禅域小镇•闲庭慢渡民宿 (Xinxing chan yu xiaozhen xianting man du minsu).

6. Lunch. We had simple yuntun for lunch at a place called 老牌云吞（中山路店）(laopai yuntun, Zhongshan lu dian). The yuntun was good, but the location is more important because it’s downtown, so we walked around a bit afterwards.

7. Refreshing drink. The highlight for me today was the passion fruit/sugarcane juice that we got after lunch. We went to a little shop on the side of a very narrow street. The juice was the perfect combination of sweet and sour, and I thoroughly loved it!

So there you have my adventures in Yunfu! If you ever go, I hope that you can try out some of these things, or if you have other suggestions, I’d love to hear them!