My Life in China - Nansha Tianhou Palace

Last weekend I went with a couchsurfer friend to Nansha Tianhou Palace which is situated outside Guangzhou. It takes a while to get out of this mega city, I spent 1 ½ hour on the Metro and 30 minutes on a bus. It thought we were never going to get there since we didn't find the right bus on the metro stop my couchsurfer had been told to go to. So after some phone calls we went to another metro station where took a minibus that led to the Palace.

In the entrance of the palace grounds there stands a 15 meter tall statue of goddess of the sea. "The statue is an embodiment of protection of the region throughout the year. Legend has it that the goddess belonged to a fishing background and she arrived during the Song dynasty and died while trying to save others from drowning. The Palace was built to commemorate this act of valour and courage." The palace itself is split into three levels, each of the levels houses a temple dedicated to various deities.

Kung Fu Kid!

View from the second level.

Some kind of dragon god?

The temple's weapons were sadly not for sale.

View from the third level.

Roof decorations, it's the latest thing here and I'm sure it will show up in Europe this spring.

Shrines are made to be colourful and kitschy, no feng shui here!

We even found a beach! In China! Though I wouldn't swim here unless I had a wish to ingest heavy chemicals and other more or less poisonous stuff that the factories put into the rivers and sea here.

Not every beach has their own stranded plastic pirate ship - but this one did!