Guangzhou by night
First published in 2014
I was on a business trip to China recently and had the chance to spend a free Saturday in Guangzhou. Unfortunately, the weather was not really cooperative. It didn’t rain a lot, but some 30°C with extremely high humidity makes strolling around a sweaty exercise. And of course, the light was dull and gray. So I spend most of the day scouting or just strolling around and getting a feeling of what the city is all about. Except for the first hour, I didn’t see a single western face.
Like many Chinese cities, the feeling changes as soon as it gets dark. It was still too warm and humid, but the Chinese like colorful lightning. In this picture, you can see two of the latest landmarks: The IFC and the Canton Tower. You can see them for miles, but if you want them together your best option is Flower City Square. A nice place to be anyhow and filled with people in the evening. And if you ever get bored of photographing you can find huge shopping malls all around.
Did I mention that the Chinese love colorful lighting? Well, this is only half of the story. If you want to make it right, things have to blink and/or change the color frequently.
Here is another photo of the Canton Tower. He constantly changes the color, so that long exposures will not show how he looks like. I decided to create a collage to give you a better impression.
You can visit the tower and he offers different attractions from a kind of skywalk to a special version of a Ferris Wheel with transparent passenger cars circling the top. Due to the weather and the low visibility, I didn’t do any of them, but they seem to be one of the musts to does in Guangzhou (together with a river cruise) according to some locals.
