11. Catching up on GuangZhou

We toured GuangZhou on Tuesday but I didn't have a way to post any photos. So here it is, a catch-up post.


First, a picture of the famous GuangZhou Shopping Center, SiLiPu which literally means "the tenth mile area". SiLiPu is filled with old and new shops with a large area roped off from traffic - a typical square-like street that is typical in many Chinese cities. While Beijing has the HuangFuJing Street, Shanghai has the HuaiHaiLu street, SiLiPu is GuangZhou's equivalent.



Since GuangZhou was one of the first Chinese cities to have high rise apartment, it may be interesting to show one. Notice that they are all eight floors high without elevators. The reason is simple, the building code requires that any building with more than 8 floors must have an elevator and since no developer wants to spend that extra dollars, most of the condominiums are 8 floors high; just like in this photo. I've seen the same phenomenon in other Chinese cities, QingDao, in the Shantung province, has the same requirement. But, very quickly, modern skyscrapers replace these 8-story apartments.

The food in GuangZhou is just delicious and reasonably priced. But that's a topic for another catch-up post later.