Guangzhou By Night

Guangzhou won't win any prizes for most beautiful city in China, but at night it really came into it's own. Every important building was lit up with neon lights and made quite a show. The first two pics are of the tallest building in Guangzhou, at Citic Plaza, just down from our hotel. The third is Teemall, a huge shopping mall near Tianhe stadium, while the last two were taken from a ferry boat on the Pearl River.

We took a two hour trip along this stretch through the centre of Guangzhou on New Year's Eve, and it was the best part of the night. Every building no matter how big or small was lit up and there were even TV shows being broadcast on the sides of some towers. It was quite something. We were on a fairly late trip and it must have been the last, cos as soon as we got to the furthest point and began to turn back, bang on 10.30pm, the entire riverfront was switched off. The whole city just turned black. We thought we'd just witnessed a massive power cut, but the streetlights were all
still on. Guess they're still pretty economical, even here in the big city.

As I mentioned, it was New Year's Eve. In hindsight it would have been better to spend it in Sanya where we'd made friends and there was a good backpacker spirit, but Guangzhou it was. The ferry didn't dock again until after 11pm and then we were on a mission to find someplace to celebrate the New Year before it passed us by completely. We managed to find an Irish bar which seemed to fit the bill, but no sooner had we arrived than we realised we had no money! It was 11.50pm by now and we were running about trying to find a cash machine that would take our cards. We were finally pointed in the right direction and made it to the bar with just enough time to order a Guinness before the countdown. At least, I think we did. No-one in the bar had thought to check the time, and the girl who was supposed to do the countdown was nowhere to be found. In the end they pulled someone out of the crowd who pulled out his mobile,
took one look at it, put it back in his pocket and just said 'five, four, three, two, one! Happy New Year!'. Whatever. It was ok. We stayed for about an hour and had 2 drinks. There were tons of ex-pats there but everyone seemed to know each other. It felt like being at someone else's party so we weren't too sad to leave. That and the fact that we had a 7-hour bus ride home at 9am the next day...