Fiction: Group 2
MY JOURNEY IN THE PEARL RIVER DELTA
Diocesan Boys' School Primary Division, Wong, Ethan - 11, Fiction: Group 2
y family visited the Guangdong Chimelong Safari Park in southern Guangzhou last summer,
which is located within the Pearl River Delta that also includes Hong Kong and Macau. The
Pearl River Delta is the general area surrounding the river estuary into the South China Sea.
The Pearl River Delta, commonly known as PRD, is one of China’s major economic growth areas and is
generally considered an emerging megacity that has one of the world’s most densely urbanized regions.
We took the through train from Hung Hom, Hong Kong to Guangzhou and then a taxi to Chimelong
Safari Park. This train only had one stop in Dongguan and took us approximately two hours to reach
Guangzhou. The Hung Hom Station was extremely crowded that day as it was a Saturday and there were
many Chinese tourists with lots of luggage. We had to wait a long time for our breakfast, to get inside the
train platform and eventually onto the train. Because the train was so crowded, it took us a long time to find
our seats. When we finally found our seats, someone already took our seats and they refused to move! We
had to find the train staff in order to get them moved! We finally settled into our seats just before the train
began its journey. What a relief!
The train travelled slowly while we were in Hong Kong, but moved faster when we were inside China.
While in Hong Kong, we passed through Mongkok, just next to my school Diocesan Boys’ School Primary
Division, Shatin, Taipo and Sheung Shui. The scenery around the train was very different to the views from
the car and I saw these places from quite a different perspective. I did not realize some people’s houses were
so close to the train tracks!
We passed by Shenzhen, a city full of high rise buildings just like Hong Kong. However, as we travelled
away from Shenzhen, most of the areas were full of farm houses, farm lands and lots of factory buildings.
The experience of traveling on train in China was quite different than my previous travel experience in the
United States.
We arrived the Guangzhou Train Station and tried to catch a taxi to Chimelong Park. My first impression of
Guangzhou was that it was a very busy and crowded city! There were numerous high rise buildings around
the train station and I could feel the air was quite polluted! My father explained to me that it was because of
all those factories and cars. Moreover, China uses a lot of coal to generate electricity that produces much of
the pollution.
We were very excited when we finally arrived at the Chimelong Safari Park. This park was recommended
by one of my mother’s best friends, who said the park covers an area of more than 1 million square meters
and is the largest safari park that houses the greatest number of animal species in the world. Some of the
animals are very rare and some endangered, and include about 100 giant pandas, 20 Australian koalas and
100 white tigers. We learned that we would be driving our own car to view the animals while they were
running around in the park. This scared me a lot because I was afraid the animals would hurt me or my
family! However, my father told me that the car would be separated from the animals by a deep channel.
Learning this had calmed me down! The drive took about 30 minutes and seeing the real live animals so
close was very exciting! My younger brother also enjoyed the tour very much!
In addition to the safari drive, we spent the rest of the day walking around the park. We saw lots of different
kinds of animals up close. Some of the animals were more beautiful live than pictures in books. As some of
the animals came from very far places like Africa and South America, I thought that it would be even more
interesting to visit these places in person one day!
The Chimelong Resort also has other recreation areas. They are Chimelong Paradise, Water Park,
International Circus and Crocodile Park. However, since this was a two days one night trip, we did not
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