[DIARIES] 20141221 Day 5 Guangzhou - Haizhu

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Day 5 - 21 Dec 2014 (p.m.)



After the almost one and a half hour of train ride across Guangdong province's countryside, I finally arrived at Guangzhou East Station. The ride was very pleasant and comfortable despite moving at maximum speed of 200km/h. I went to the very front of the platform to take a picture of the train. (Sorry no selfie!) These intercity trains are named "和谐号" (translate: peace), 


And no, I'm not gonna squeeze myself with the others and prefer to let the crowd to disperse a little before I move on. Thinking the fact that these crazy number of people travelling between cities as if these trains are just like city commuters are just fascinating.


The station itself is also much better than the one in Luoho back in Shenzhen. Just so happened that this lady turned around and posed when I pressed on my shutter button.


Due to the fact that I only managed to get a ticket to the East station instead of the central station, I would need to take a long journey cab to my hotel near 中山八路 (Translate: ZhongShanBa Road). Similarly, I choose to grab a cab by queueing up instead of taking one of the haggler's offer. Where's the queue? It's the other side of the angle.


Luckily the lines cleared up rather fast, thanks to the heavy incoming cabs and also the very efficient distribution of passengers. 

It's not too long before it's my turn and after telling the driver my destination and off I go, travelling through the huge city of Guangzhou. The traffic in Guangzhou is much heavier than in Shenzhen with much more developed road system with a number of flyovers. The driver drove very fast and quite recklessly, cutting through lanes and etc.


The cab ride took me about close to 45 minutes, costing me about RMB45, not too expensive if you ask me given the distance covered. In Guangzhou, reminders and signboards like these are commonly seen around. The one above read as "do not panic during fire hazard". Of course, the people are scratching their head thinking why this dude is interested in taking the picture of such common signboard. Well, it's part of the exploration!


After unpacking and simple clean up, I continue my journey by heading towards the central bus station at ZhongShanBa Road station. Traffic here is very busy with heavy volume of cars and traffic jams.


GZ's version of motor taxi but more professionally presented with uniform instead of those plain shirt motor taxi in Shenzhen. I'm at the busy street of ZhongShanBa, right opposite the ZhongShanBa metro station.


The central bus terminal is right side the metro station, behind the rows of shop lots. I'm heading to the famous Guangzhou Tower for a night shot and chose to travel there via bus instead of metro. The reason is because I get to see more in the bus than in metro, just like when I was in Hong Kong and Shenzhen.


I just drop off some random stop when nearing Guangzhou Tower to look for dinner. Also not forgetting to take a picture of the bus I took. I just noticed that there are two types of buses in Guangzhou, one of which is the normal bus that runs on fuel while another type is electric driven via cables, just like trams.


Despite the huge area of land, Guangzhou has more high rise condominiums than I expected due to the high population density. There are many on-going developments with huge banners to attract buyers.


In contrast, there are also street vendors on the street, selling groceries like vegetables and shirts to earn a living in the cold winter night.


Not knowing what to eat, I randomly end up at a small eatery by the side of a shoplot, selling noodles. Surprisingly the noodles here are better than my expectation with good flavour and texture. Wondering why Malaysian noodles are so boring in comparison.

Read more about Guilin Rice Noodles at a separate post:


After the satisfying dinner, I walk towards the Pearl River 珠江, which the main river of Guangzhou, the river that brings life to the delta. Pearl River is named after the abundance of oysters found in the river but the number has reduced significantly due to heavy pollution. Now it has remained as the main water transportation for Guangzhou with many bridges connecting both sides of the river.


I saw there were a few people fishing by the riverside under the strong winter gust. The catfish that they caught were huge, probably feeding on the contaminant in the river. I definitely wouldn't want to eat these fishes.


The other side of the river is where the Guangzhou CBD is located. I setup my gorillapod and took a few long exposure frames. The passing by tourist boats occasionally spoilt the whole picture but eventually I still get a good one.


After about 10 minutes walk via the river bank, I finally arrived at the Guangzhou Tower. There are many fun facts about Guangzhou Tower, which I have elaborate further in my separate post. It was a beautiful tower with dynamic and colourful light decoration which definitely attracts attention from afar.

Read more about Guangzhou Tower via separate post:


Guangzhou's metro transportation has developed significantly over the past 5 years with the start of 2 lines and has expanded until 8 lines in the present and still expanding. In contrast to our development which is far lagging behind.


It's near Christmas with the xmas tree dwarfed by the huge metal tower. There were some activities on-going and the atmosphere was very good. The above shot was only possible with the ultra wide angle lens.


It was late and most of the facilities was closed. Well, it's not like I planned to pay the expensive entrance fee to go up to the tower anyway. They even had a wax museum, which I doubt the quality will be as good as Madam Tussaud's.

I decided to end my trip and head back to rest after the long travelling today. Tomorrow will be a very busy day as I have to cover quite a few places within the day. After checking on the bus route which will bring me back to ZhongShanBa Road, I safely board the 204 bus and call it a day.


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