The City Of Guangzhou, China!

Those folk who don't believe that Guangzhou, this city in South China ...

... on the banks of the Pearl River ...

... is 8000 thousand square miles in size ... well, you're right. I have the Official Guangzhou Tourist Guide book here with me, and it says categorically that the city is 7434.4 square miles in size, which means I was wrong by roughly 500 square miles!

Still, 7434 square miles! Do you know how HUGE that is? Viti Levu, the main island of the Fiji Group, is roughly 4010 square miles, so this city is nearly twice the size of Viti Levu. My mind boggles! The entire island of Viti Levu entirely city and then double it! Oh wow!

So, really, put like that it's hardly surprising locals don't know what they have in there, so I now take back my criticism that no one knew where Bao Mo Gardens were.

Honestly, I can't get over such a size. You know, going out to Panyu District, to Bao Mo Gardens, took over one and a half hours, and that was all city. And we travelled on by-passes ...

They have literally thousands
of fly-overs and by-passes.

... and freeways ...

The roads to the outer suburbs
nearly all look like this.

... the whole way without a single moments hold-up anyplace, so that entire 1.30 hour journey was all city, city, city ... although I must confess that it quickly started to look like this:

The still-under-construction city

And then this:

The more-rural version of city.

But still! Wow, this city is immense!

And old. This kick-arse modern city of Guangzhou is also astonishingly, amazingly, mind-bogglingly old:

Model of the city as it was back
during the Ming Dynasty,
when it was already known as an ancient city.

I've already told you that Peaceful Markets, over there near beautiful Shamian Dao, were discovered by archeologists to be over 10,000 years old. Yup, even before they had a concept of money, the Cantonese were already entrepreneurs; Peaceful Markets were the place where Tanka Fishermen traded wares with Hakka Farmers! Ahhhh! Doesn't that just grab you! 10,000 years of trading, bartering and much, much later, selling, and, unlike other not-quite-so-ancient cities like Ur which exist now only in ruins, legends and folk memories, this Market existed on this very spot from way back in the dawns of time, always the site of trading - oh, apart from during the Cultural Revolution when Maoists shut it down ... but no one has ever accused the Cultural Revolution of understanding the significance of HISTORY!

But here's something else I came across this visit that blew me away. This is Beijing Road:

Trendy shopping district.

Several years ago, while widening Beijing Road to turn it into a Pedestrian Mall, they stumbled across this ... no, I can't identify a decent photograph in among the thumbnails so I'll only throw in a whatever to give you the idea, and then do an individual and proper post on it later ...

Beneath modern Beijing Road are other earlier Beijing Roads. Yup, Beijing Road existed in five other incarnations, during five completely different periods of Chinese history, in exactly the same place!


They were so astonished, they didn't want to cover it all up again, so covered the area with glass so everyone can now see all the different roads this road had once been. This so blew me away, I will show you more on it at some other time.

So that's all on Guangzhou today, kiddies. Can you remember that? Guangzhou: HUGE and OLD! Massive and Ancient! Got it? Good. Exam on Wednesday!

Sorry, I've been a teacher too long and I just can't help myself when I come over all Pedagogic like this! I'll go now!