Last weekend I decided to head over to Guangzhou. Since I was on half days, finishing work at twelve (actually sneaked out about 11:30), it made sense to do it that weekend because I could get an extra half day(ish) on the Friday as opposed to a normal weekend.
The train from Hong Kong takes just under two hours, but it’s slightly burdenous since the first hour is taken up using the regular subway track up to Shenzhen, meaning the line is being used by regular subway trains and it really just crawls through until you get over the border. There’s a major new station being built right next to my flat though, which will connect Hong Kong with the mainland’s high-speed network, meaning that Guangzhou will soon become a 45 minute ride away. Until then, it’s easy and comfortable, but slightly annoying knowing that it’s not actually that far.
Anyway, as soon as I arrived I jumped in a taxi and headed to a park not too far away. Guangzhou is massive – the third biggest city in China after Shanghai and Beijing, but with an excellent, and cheap, subway system. However, taxis are also ridiculously cheap; you just need to be prepared with place names printed in Chinese. A local SIM card with a data package is also an invaluable tool.
South China Botanical Garden
South China Botanical Garden is so named because it is a garden, located in South China, what has got some botanicals in it. It was pretty nice, and very quiet seeing as, unlike the vast majority of public parks, there’s an entrance charge. I paid about £2 to get in.
The place was actually enormous, and it took me about twenty minutes to walk over to the amusement park section.
There was the usual selection of crappy rides.
Along with something I hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t running, but looked to be a mini, knock-off Evolution type ride. I managed to ride something similar the next day.
You’ll have noticed that the park is empty, I’m guessing down to the fact that it’s paid entry and on Friday afternoon, but most rides were operational. I’ve noticed with a lot of the crappy little amusement areas that there are always quite a few staff around not doing much, but once you show up with a ride token, someone will appear to run the ride for you.
First up, crappy powered dragon, which I’m not going to dignify with more than one photo:
Next up, crappy Jungle Mouse:
And that was that. I think I must’ve spent a whole ten minutes there before I **** ed off back to get a taxi to the next place.
Tianhe Park
Tianhe Park is another typical, large city park. See?
The taxi dropped me off at the North Gate, meaning I had yet another trek to get to the amusement park area. It would be worth it though, since I was promised 3 CREDZ, including another powered dragon and a Golden Horse spinner no less!
I figured I was almost at the amusement area when I saw these drowning-accident-waiting-to-happen “attractions”:
Across the water, at the entrance to the above contraption, was the much-anticipated, crappy amusement park.
I was shocked and appalled by the sign at the ticket counter. Actually, that doesn’t quite cover it; I was absolutely DISGUSTED:
I know it’s China, but there’s absolutely no need for such flagrant disregard for the rules regarding the correct usage of an apostrophe!
Onto the coasters then. I had a proper look around, but couldn’t seem to find them. I double checked RCDB, which had them labelled as being right inside the West Gate, which I was close to, but not quite right inside. The area right inside the West Gate now looks like this:
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was ever so slightly miffed as there are other crappy parks in the area that I could’ve gone to instead, but by this point it was too late really. At first I’d planned to just head to my hotel after satiating myself with the three coasters, but since I'd been most cruelly spited, I decided to at least do something constructive and go and take a look at Canton tower.
Canton Tower
If you’re interested, this was the world’s tallest tower until the Tokyo Sky Tree opened last year. It still has the world’s highest observation deck though, for now anyway.
It’s on the river with some other cool stuff around it. Yes, the air quality really is that bad.
While it’s really impressive to look at, as a visitor experience, it’s **** ing diabolical. There are about 5 million different package options, which is just stupidly confusing. The cheapest ticket is about £15, but that only gets you to an indoor observation deck nowhere near the top. The actual top deck, i.e. The world’s highest observation deck, is only available as a park of a package that includes everything else. Total cost? Have a guess.
No. £48. Forty-eight **** ing pounds!
I was loathe, LOATHE, to pay it, but figured that it was one of those “do-it-once” kind of things and grudgingly handed over my credit card to the girl behind the counter who looked suitably embarrassed at having to charge so much. She said something in Chinese as she took my card, which I think translated as "stand and deliver".
This is what £15 would have got you:
The second to highest level, which I kind of wish I’d gone for as there were a few different packages to head up there, was out in the open and had a couple of rides on it, including the “Bubble Tram” that follows a track around the perimeter of the observation deck. It’s cool, but it means that unless you’re actually riding it, it annoyingly keeps getting in the way of the views.
The other rides here were two Intamin drop towers: one regular sit-down and one standing, tilting floorless.
The towers themselves are only 30 meters (about 100ft) tall, but because of their location, they’re actually the world’s highest thrill rides, beating out the Stratosphere by quite a big margin.
All the rides were (obviously) included in the extortionate ticket I’d bought, but if you arrived on a cheaper ticket (the £15 one would not have got you here) then you could pay for them separately. The Bubble Tram and Sky Drop would set you back a mere £18 each. That gets you both drop towers though, a mere snip at £9 each when you think about it.
Anyway, I’m glad I did them, since they’re the world’s highest and all that guff. The views were pretty amazing, and it’s the only tilting, floorless one I’ve done other than Drayton’s.
The towers reach up to just underneath the highest observation deck, which means that at the highest point they’re not far shy of 488 meters. For arguments’ sake, let’s call it 480 meters, which is 1,575 feet, almost 500 feet higher than Big Shot at the Stratosphere. The ledge sticking out in the next photo is the highest deck.
Since I was the only person stupid enough to have a ticket for it, I had to get a member of staff to actually open it up to let me get up there. As you can imagine, the view at 488 meters wasn’t drastically different from the view at 450 meters.
It was very cool having it all to myself though I have to admit.
Back down at the bottom, I admired the tower’s lighting display before getting on the metro to find my hotel.
Day two to come when I can be arsed.
The train from Hong Kong takes just under two hours, but it’s slightly burdenous since the first hour is taken up using the regular subway track up to Shenzhen, meaning the line is being used by regular subway trains and it really just crawls through until you get over the border. There’s a major new station being built right next to my flat though, which will connect Hong Kong with the mainland’s high-speed network, meaning that Guangzhou will soon become a 45 minute ride away. Until then, it’s easy and comfortable, but slightly annoying knowing that it’s not actually that far.
Anyway, as soon as I arrived I jumped in a taxi and headed to a park not too far away. Guangzhou is massive – the third biggest city in China after Shanghai and Beijing, but with an excellent, and cheap, subway system. However, taxis are also ridiculously cheap; you just need to be prepared with place names printed in Chinese. A local SIM card with a data package is also an invaluable tool.
South China Botanical Garden
South China Botanical Garden is so named because it is a garden, located in South China, what has got some botanicals in it. It was pretty nice, and very quiet seeing as, unlike the vast majority of public parks, there’s an entrance charge. I paid about £2 to get in.
The place was actually enormous, and it took me about twenty minutes to walk over to the amusement park section.
There was the usual selection of crappy rides.
Along with something I hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t running, but looked to be a mini, knock-off Evolution type ride. I managed to ride something similar the next day.
You’ll have noticed that the park is empty, I’m guessing down to the fact that it’s paid entry and on Friday afternoon, but most rides were operational. I’ve noticed with a lot of the crappy little amusement areas that there are always quite a few staff around not doing much, but once you show up with a ride token, someone will appear to run the ride for you.
First up, crappy powered dragon, which I’m not going to dignify with more than one photo:
Next up, crappy Jungle Mouse:
And that was that. I think I must’ve spent a whole ten minutes there before I **** ed off back to get a taxi to the next place.
Tianhe Park
Tianhe Park is another typical, large city park. See?
The taxi dropped me off at the North Gate, meaning I had yet another trek to get to the amusement park area. It would be worth it though, since I was promised 3 CREDZ, including another powered dragon and a Golden Horse spinner no less!
I figured I was almost at the amusement area when I saw these drowning-accident-waiting-to-happen “attractions”:
Across the water, at the entrance to the above contraption, was the much-anticipated, crappy amusement park.
I was shocked and appalled by the sign at the ticket counter. Actually, that doesn’t quite cover it; I was absolutely DISGUSTED:
I know it’s China, but there’s absolutely no need for such flagrant disregard for the rules regarding the correct usage of an apostrophe!
Onto the coasters then. I had a proper look around, but couldn’t seem to find them. I double checked RCDB, which had them labelled as being right inside the West Gate, which I was close to, but not quite right inside. The area right inside the West Gate now looks like this:
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was ever so slightly miffed as there are other crappy parks in the area that I could’ve gone to instead, but by this point it was too late really. At first I’d planned to just head to my hotel after satiating myself with the three coasters, but since I'd been most cruelly spited, I decided to at least do something constructive and go and take a look at Canton tower.
Canton Tower
If you’re interested, this was the world’s tallest tower until the Tokyo Sky Tree opened last year. It still has the world’s highest observation deck though, for now anyway.
It’s on the river with some other cool stuff around it. Yes, the air quality really is that bad.
While it’s really impressive to look at, as a visitor experience, it’s **** ing diabolical. There are about 5 million different package options, which is just stupidly confusing. The cheapest ticket is about £15, but that only gets you to an indoor observation deck nowhere near the top. The actual top deck, i.e. The world’s highest observation deck, is only available as a park of a package that includes everything else. Total cost? Have a guess.
No. £48. Forty-eight **** ing pounds!
I was loathe, LOATHE, to pay it, but figured that it was one of those “do-it-once” kind of things and grudgingly handed over my credit card to the girl behind the counter who looked suitably embarrassed at having to charge so much. She said something in Chinese as she took my card, which I think translated as "stand and deliver".
This is what £15 would have got you:
The second to highest level, which I kind of wish I’d gone for as there were a few different packages to head up there, was out in the open and had a couple of rides on it, including the “Bubble Tram” that follows a track around the perimeter of the observation deck. It’s cool, but it means that unless you’re actually riding it, it annoyingly keeps getting in the way of the views.
The other rides here were two Intamin drop towers: one regular sit-down and one standing, tilting floorless.
The towers themselves are only 30 meters (about 100ft) tall, but because of their location, they’re actually the world’s highest thrill rides, beating out the Stratosphere by quite a big margin.
All the rides were (obviously) included in the extortionate ticket I’d bought, but if you arrived on a cheaper ticket (the £15 one would not have got you here) then you could pay for them separately. The Bubble Tram and Sky Drop would set you back a mere £18 each. That gets you both drop towers though, a mere snip at £9 each when you think about it.
Anyway, I’m glad I did them, since they’re the world’s highest and all that guff. The views were pretty amazing, and it’s the only tilting, floorless one I’ve done other than Drayton’s.
The towers reach up to just underneath the highest observation deck, which means that at the highest point they’re not far shy of 488 meters. For arguments’ sake, let’s call it 480 meters, which is 1,575 feet, almost 500 feet higher than Big Shot at the Stratosphere. The ledge sticking out in the next photo is the highest deck.
Since I was the only person stupid enough to have a ticket for it, I had to get a member of staff to actually open it up to let me get up there. As you can imagine, the view at 488 meters wasn’t drastically different from the view at 450 meters.
It was very cool having it all to myself though I have to admit.
Back down at the bottom, I admired the tower’s lighting display before getting on the metro to find my hotel.
Day two to come when I can be arsed.
