Guangzhou, Canton at the Table

Guangzhou has traded with the outside world for longer than almost any city in China, and Canton's long habit of dealing with strangers still shows — in the Middle Eastern restaurants of Xiaobei, the African market streets around Sanyuanli, and the twice-yearly Canton Fair that fills entire hotels. The Pearl River runs through the middle of it, and the simplest good evening here is a night ferry or a slow walk along the promenade with the Canton Tower twisting pink and violet on the far bank.

History is easy to reach. Shamian Island keeps its banyan-shaded avenues of colonial banks and consulates from the concession era. The Chen Clan Ancestral Hall of 1894 is a showcase of Cantonese craft — ridge friezes of glazed figures, carved granite, ironwork and blackwood. Yuexiu Park holds the Five Rams statue of the city's founding myth and a stretch of Ming wall; the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees has its Flowery Pagoda; and the Nanyue King Museum displays a jade burial suit from a 2,000-year-old tomb found on a building site in 1983.

But the reason to be here is breakfast. Yum cha means hours over tea and steamer baskets — har gow, siu mai, cheung fun, lotus-leaf rice, egg tarts — in old teahouses around Liwan and Shangxiajiu, followed later by roast goose, wonton noodles, double-boiled soups and late-night congee. Autumn and winter are the pleasant seasons; summer is hot and wet, though the kapok trees make spring worth it. Guangzhou pairs naturally with Hong Kong and Guilin in southern China.