Okay, okay, I admit it: there might have been another reason why our final stop in mainland China just happened to be Guangzhou.

And that reason would be yum cha – aka dim sum.

Those of you who know Andrew and me will know that yum cha is something of a food religion to us – attendance being the gastronomic equivalent of performing the Hajj at Mecca (just undertaken MUCH more regularly) – so the chance to take tea and eat snacks in the birthplace of this style of eating is not to be missed.

But the other reason I love going to yum cha in Guangdong province is that it’s the one thing in the whole of China that really, truly reminds me of home.

Any Australian will tell you that there is nothing Australian at all sitting in a pathetic ‘Ozzie’ themed pub far from home, being force-fed warm Fosters beer whilst sitting dolefully under a yellow ‘Koalas Crossing’ road sign.

Nothing. Australian. At. All.

But my god, put me in a yum cha restaurant in Guangzhou, and I could just as easily be in Sydney. Now you’re talking. The resemblance is uncanny.

It’s the dizzying number of floors, the gleaming chandeliers, the red and gold décor (I want to take home that massive gilt phoenix with the glaring green LED eye!), and the trolleys laden with treats. It’s touching in its sameness.

What’s different? Well, there’s a bit more offal here in China (we hit the tripe up hard on our first excursion); there’s smoking in abundance; and not everything comes wheeled around on trolleys (some things are prepared at a cooks’ station at the side of the banquet hall).

Oh, one last thing. Did I mention it’s basically a twenty-four hour enterprise here in Guangzhou? The circus just keeps rolling: all morning, all afternoon, and then late, late, late into the insane hours of the following day.

Other than those things, it’s funnily, deliciously, quintessentially the same.