The Old Railway Station (Guangzhou West, or should that be North?)

This is the hotel Vicki, Bindi & I stayed at in 1990. It's not a hotel now & the lobby has been turned into a real-estate salesroom.

Other than this hotel & the railway station, nothing is recognisable. Apart from anything, this area is now right in the middle of the massive wholesale clothing markets, so the whole area is buzzing. In 1990, there were shops selling 5 washers - as in the nut & bolt kind - in a saucer. The only mall was the Friendship Store, which had an interior stocked with 1960's leftover appliances, and which only foreigners, with their special FEC - "foreign exchange currency" - could enter. Most people on the street knew two words of English "Change money". American dollars were the best - worth up to 50% more than the bank rate - but even FEC had a black market rate.

Well, the money changers are still there, but only two accosted me in the afternoon. Now I feel the money changers are there as a convenience, to save you going to the bank to conduct business. Their rates today are worse, not better, than the official rates.


In 1990 I was "arrested" for consorting with money changers. IWhat actually happened is that an elderly man on a bicycle rode up behind me and the 50 odd money changers previously surrounding me vanished & the elderly man turned out to be a member of the police who took me back to his hut for questioning. He only spoke Cantonese, so that didn't work very well & eventually I had to take him to a bank so they could explain that travellers cheques & exchange fraud don't easily mix.

The policeman in the blue shirt - that's his chair on the median strip - reminded me.



This little guy was on the bar table in the hotel where we stopped for airconditioning (and a toilet break). He sells horoscopes for 1 RMB.

Apparently my favourite colour is black?

In this hotel we found a cup of coffee that was even worse than Starbucks, and even more expensive. So, Schultz is doing something right.

I still haven't mastered the flash on this camera - but you knew that aleady.