Hi there. In this travel post our group exit the China Hakka Museum and head into a Pagoda area. I also show some night photos.
Temple Area
Our family friend never really mentioned the name of this place. I think it is the Thousand Buddha Temple. I took some photos here. I could have taken more pictures. It was a hot summer day in Meizhou around Sept 2024. Around thirty-five degrees Celsius.
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This place was really nice. Almost as nice as the Wong Tai Sin Temple in Hong Kong. I made sure to take lots of photos from my Redmi Note Pro 13 from the recent trip to Hong Kong.
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The amount of colours on some of these buildings is nice. Like this one.
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Mall Photos + Some Dimsum
Before leaving the temple area we had to wait a bit for our family friend to pick us up. The weather outside was pretty hot and then there was some rain with thunderstorm risk. We made it out okay.
We head to one of the malls in Meizhou. I would not be able to tell you the name of this mall but it does look nice.
Our group have some early dimsum dinner. Dimsum restaurants have a large range of small dishes combined with tea. At dimsum restaurants or teahouses you can find dumplings, rice rolls, fried food, congee (rice porridge), and steamed buns.
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Dimsum Food
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On the left is rice noodles.
The picture on the right is a rice roll with fried shrimp inside. The fried shrimp inside the rice roll is like fried tempura shrimp. In Toronto, you may see this dish but at more upscale Chinese dimsum restaurants. I wanted to try one while in China. It was good.
(The white sauce is mayonaise I think.)
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Left side is the rice roll with fried shrimp inside.
The smaller picture on the right is the rice noodles again plus steamed chicken feet.
Closing Notes
The exploration in Meizhou so far was interesting. Meizhou is not a big city according to China standards. It has around 4 million people but this population number is bigger than some small countries and is bigger than Toronto, Ontario, Canada. For a relatively unknown China city for Westerners, Meizhou has some nice places and food.
Cost of living in Meizhou is very low. However, the locals don't make that much money. For them it could be considered a luxury to be able to go to Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing. Being able to travel to other countries would be really expensive. This realization really stuck with me. Those who come from countries with good purchasing power with their currencies plus good income have many options. One Canadian dollar is around 5.2 Chinese Yuan. Meals in Meizhou can cost under 5 CAD easily. Nicer meals would be around 20 CAD or lower.
We found out that the family friend's SUV is inexpensive. It was a local China Brand SUV called Trumpchi. The price was something like 3200 CAD. In Toronto, an SUV is easily 30000 CAD plus.
More to come as we stay in Meizhou for about 9/10 days. We wanted to enjoy our time with the family friends and explore this city.