Chimelong International Circus

Now, now, now, at last something in Guangzhou that managed to impressed me a bit. It is none other than the circus show. Actually I attended the circus fully expecting to watch the Chinese-nearly-humanly-impossible-acrobatic stunts; you know, where they turn their seem-like-boneless-bodies 90 degrees in every or any angle they like. Turns out this is an International Circus. Meaning, there is only a small fraction of Chinese actually performing.

You see, Changlong / Chimelong is like a resort town. You can stay at the Chimelong Hotel and explore all the parks in this area including Chimelong Paradise (which is a theme park with rides), Safari Park (the one I blog about last week), Water Park, Crocodile Park and finally this International Circus. The thing is, this resort town is trying to attract local Chinese visitors and not foreign visitors like us. So, that explains why the circus are perform by foreigners because the Chinese are not interested to watch their own comrades performing or rather they've seen enough.

The performers are mostly foreigners

Perfomance starts at 7.30pm

The circus starts at 7.30pm and ends at about 9pm. However the door to the circus park opens at 6pm. So for us who went to the Safari Park that closes at 5pm or so, it just fits nicely into our schedule.

This is the circus performance arena

Large screen at the back that helps to do the interactive opening act

Some pretty blondes doing stunts on running horse

Artistic performance

Perfect jump and catch

Beautiful poise

Motorcyclists daredevil

Best show of the night
Watch video below for clearer idea

Since I managed to take short clips of the circus show, I have edit and compiled it into a short preview or rather highlights of the show I managed to catch there. I would say it is a very impressive show.

Chimelong International Circus Highlights

Location : Guangzhou, China
Next, Shop yourself crazy in Guangzhou

Xiangjiang Safari Park

While the tomb and the ancestral home is a desperate measure, the Xiangjiang Safari Park on the other hand earn a little bit more points.  Located in a place called Changlong / Chimelong, its about slightly more than an hour train ride from downtown Guangzhou.

I don't know if you've read my post about Singapore Zoo, but I haven't been to zoo for the longest time, like a few decades long. Suddenly for my 6 year old, I am going back to zoo all over again. So, I'm not going to write in length all over again about all the animals you can see in the zoo but just show some of the interesting photos I managed to capture in this park.

Whole lot of flamingoes

To show you want you get to see in this safari park

One of their really lame show

This talking parrot comes out to mingle with visitors

One of the reason why we went to a zoo in Guangzhou is because we want to see the oh-so-freaking-cute panda bear which is an endangered species. China spend a lot of money and time and resources making sure that do not happen. There are estimated about 1,000 pandas in the wild and about a few hundreds in captives (meaning in zoo).  If you go to China especially for the first time, visiting the panda is almost like compulsory.

They are probably the only herbivorous bear

These pandas looks all lazy and slow. All they do is eat and sleep

What are you looking at? Past me more bamboo will ya?

I'm oh so cute

Another animal that is more in danger of being extinct is the white tiger. There are apparently about 300 over left in the world and this safari park have more than 100 of them. How is that even possible? Surprise!

They are so much more gorgeous looking compared to the normal tiger

Another of this safari park's show. Cool to see more than 20 white tigers performing

Finally, one of the so-called highlight or more interesting offer of this safari park is the safari experience. The ride took about 1 hour.

Aafari??!!?? 

This is the train / car that took visitors around the safari

Don't know what it says. Most probably from here on you go in at your risk. Haha!

Sightings : Kangaroos

Sightings : Lamb?

Sightings : Bull

Sightings : Camel

Sightings : Mother and kid elephant playing, so sweet.

Sightings : Big brown bear. Drive faster please

Sightings : Deer (I think)

Sightings : Deer with no horn

Sightings : Africa Africa

Sightings : Zebra

Sightings : A group of giraffe running. Beautiful.

Location : Guangzhou, China

Next, Chimelong International Circus

The tomb of a king and the ancestor's hall of the Chen

In my desperate attempt to become a tourist in this not-so-touristic city of Canton, we picked two places that was highly recommended in Trip Advisor.

The first being the tomb of a Nanyue King, the Emperor Zhao Mo. Actually this tomb is probably even older than the great tomb of Shi Huang Ti because Nanyue Kings are of Han dynasty that was later took over by the Manchu dynasty. 

So they found the tomb in 1983 and then decided to build a museum / mausoleum around it. It wasn't a very big tomb but 10,434 relics were unearthed from this tomb!

Brief description about the tomb at the entrance to the site

My son all excited to explored the King's Tomb

The knocker on the door to the tomb estimated about 2,000 years old.

One of the chamber inside the tomb. The relics has been cleared.

The relics has now been moved to this museum.

Jade Burial Suit of King Zhao Mo (reigned 133BC - 122BC)

Jade garments are known normally to be connected with gold, silver or cooper. This jade suit of the king is sewn with silk which makes it one of a kind in the world.

This is the diagram of the bodies found in the tomb when it was excavated. 14 sacrificial victims are buried alive with the king. Guards, cook, and of course the concubines.

Next we head to the ancestral hall of the Chen family. For those who are not familiar with the Chinese custom, ancestral halls are very common in China where the people with the same family name (surname) are being given a 'space' for ancestor worship by its descendant as introduced by Confucius.

What makes this ancestral home so unique is because of its size. The Chen clan has managed to raise the money to build this 15,000 square metres comprises of halls, rooms and beautiful courtyards.

Another notably unique features of this ancestral home is the extensive lime sculptures on all the ridges of the entire complex. It is so detailed and intricate. 

OK, I will save you to agony of going through picture of gloomy halls and room of this ancestral home but you gotta see this. It is a wood carving sedan for god that apparently being paraded on streets during certain festival to show how great the Chen clan is.

Since this ancestral home is so huge, it now also houses the Guangdong Museum of Folk arts and crafts. I am captivated by 2 types of art.

 This is the art of embroidery. 

The art of etched glass. Somewhat like the stained glass of the west.

OK, seriously, only visit if you have nothing better to do in Canton. Otherwise, just go shopping.


Location : Guangzhou, China
Next, Xiangjiang Safari Park