Guangzhou - Pearl River, Shamian Island and shopping streets

 


I visited Guangzhou in 1991, but I don't remember much. I have vague memories of the river, the small houses and maze of alleys, some of the colonial buildings that were quite run down. It was all grey and grim, no big buildings, metro, shiny shopping streets and all that. (To be fair, Budapest was no different in the early 1990s in this sense.) What I remembered clearly from Guangzhou were the restaurants selling all kind of living creatures from buckets and cages. We had snake in one of them, the waitress just picked tree from a bucket and we had it served in a little time. It was actually quite nice. Seeing dogs on the hooks in restaurant windows was quite bizarre, however.

Today, Guangzhou is totally different. It's a modern metropolis with a comprehensive (and very efficient, easy to use) metro system, pleasant pedestrian streets with shiny shops, nicely restored old buildings and new skyscrapers all over the city. And no snakes or dogs in restaurants. Today people keep dogs as pets, not to eat them, it seems. 

From Shenzhen, I took a high speed train but it didn't reach really high speeds. But it still only took about 40 minutes to get there, with a couple of stops along the way. What I liked is that there are smoking areas at the stations, something that is unthinkable in the West. 






Ticket machine in the Metro. It has an English version and accepts cash. Easy to use, very convenient.


I got a good deal in a fairly central location, a huge rooms with a queen-size bed.





On the first day, I started off in my neighbourhood that reminded me of the times when I first visited Guangzhou. 







Reaching the Pearl River, you could really see how many new skyscrapers appeared. 











Shamian Island's old colonial buildings were beautifully restored and this area is one of the main places of interest in Guangzhou today. 

























Across from Shamian Island, there are more traditional quarters with a Chinese medicinal market. 








There are some elegant and posh pedestrian shopping streets, but you still find little old alleys and traditional shops between them.













The Sacred Heart Cathedral at night, and back to the Pearl River.










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