Guangzhou - how you've changed!

I first visited Guangzhou in 1985. It was my first experience of real China, after a few days in Hong Kong, and the city awaiting outside the main train station was a big and busy one, but not one that could be described as a modern metropolis in any way. The streets were narrow, dirty, and dusty. Transport was primitive, as were travellers' facilities for dining or sightseeing, or for anything much in fact.

Roll forward 28 years, and what a transformation I found the other week. It's always been big. Now by some measures, its the world's second biggest city with over 40 million people in its contiguous built up area and the biggest in China (there are many ways to measure these things and by other measures it's about third in China and 20th in the world). It's near the top of any list for numbers of skyscrapers, and it's got one of the best public transport systems I've ever come across. Guangzhou, you've been busy!

A lot of what they've done involves huge fortress tower block residences - a bit like the old Hong Kong. But many of the new developments are tasteful and state of the art. I tried to identify some of the places I'd been to on that earlier trip, but frankly in China, that tends not to work. It's simply not the same country it used to be. And I don't just mean that in a figurative way. Whole districts get flattened and rebuilt in utterly different configurations.

I'm a sucker for a tall building or two, and couldn't resist going up the world's fourth tallest freestanding structure (to one of the world's highest viewing platforms - the highest is a few floors up and costs a lot more than I wanted to pay. The Guangzhou Tower (often known by the old city name: Canton Tower) is quite a building. It's lit up like a Christmas tree at night, and for $20 or so you get to look down on this megacity from 433m.

There are two glass boxes, where you can scare yourself by walking out into clear space, sort of. But as a rule they're controlled by a photography concession, and you pay the photographer if you want to partake. By chance, one of the glass platforms was being installed with its Christmas decorations. The workers took a break, and I noticed people were using the opportunity to sneak in and get their thrills for free. The Chinese are world experts at this sort of thing! So in I went, and down I looked!

Later I went on a Pearl River nighttime cruise, and saw the whole city lit up like a Christmas tree!

In Eastern Guangzhou, the epicentre for all this super-modern stuff, they have dozens of spectacular new buildings, such as the Guangzhou Opera House and the Guangzhou Public Library. They're currently building a massive underground shopping centre. I was intrigued to see that the workers building an access ramp for this next world-beating super-modern creation were using shovels and shoulder yokes to shift concrete around!

See you again one day, Guangzhou!

N