19 April 2019
Trapped in a thunderstorm
Getting to and from Lotus mountain near Guangzhou via Shiqi station and a bus
Well, right now on the English language Chinese news, they are advising people in Guangdong province to restrict their outdoor activities due to an ongoing surprise storm, severe flash flooding, severe lightning, possible extinction event. Tell me about it.
The forecast was for a possible thunderstorm, lasting about an hour. I checked this morning before I left. Sure it was dark and grey but it was dark and grey all day yesterday and never seemed to rain.
Today I planned my journey to involve 3 subways and a bus, to get to Lotus hill (LianHuaShan), on the far south eastern side of Guangzhou on the outskirts of Panyu. Lotus hill might be a place you can walk around and enjoy the scenery of a former quarry turned garden / amusement park. You might enjoy that if there wasnt a flood and you were not concerned you would be killed by lightning. It was probably the most impressive lightning I have seen for a decade or more, unrelenting for 3 hours. A little different to the lightning in Australia, it seemed to be coming from very low altitude, in mist and fog. I normally equate lightning with high clouds.
So, I got absolutely saturated, to the point where my supposedly waterproof phone is currently flat and refusing to charge due to moisture in the micro usb port. I am very familiar with a couple of locations at Lotus hill because I was trapped there for hours, running between them and getting wet, then pacing around and around the temple much to the amusement of others trapped there also.
The others that were trapped actually had umbrellas, but were still too terrified to go out in the rain. I of course had no umbrella, I hate them, also they conduct lightning really well.
There was maybe 2 x 30 second brief periods of slightly less rain, where I ran to another spot before it started bucketing down again. Finally the next time the sky appeared to change from why has day turned into night? to wow its super dark for day time... I decided to run back down the hill to the bus stop, getting very very much even more wetterer on the way.
The above paragraph had some great Engrish.
Despite the warnings on the television, I guess I will head back out into the rain now!
Here is where I got off the subway, after 2 transfers, and got onto a bus. I got onto a bus that was the right number, heading in the direction I wanted to go, it went 100 metres up the road and did a U turn, and went back in the wrong direction. I got off, walked back to the subway station, walked past to the next bus stop up the road, and waited again for one that was not doing a u-turn. Luckily they come all the time in China (and Korea), unlike Japan. But I hate buses. I swear the one I got on said Lotus mountain. I did notice I wasnt the only person who got off after the u-turn who had just got on, but they waited where they got off rather than walk back.
And this is where the bus stops, at the depot. Where is lotus hill / mountain? Luckily I have google maps.
Tip: to find the mountain follow all the people trying to convince you to buy a bunch of flowers. It seems if you go to a park full of flowers you need to buy flowers to bring with you? Anyway, it was easy enough to find, expensive entry fee, about $10 Australian! Obviously not a government owned / run attraction.
So far it was as I expected. Car parks, kids rides, plastic colored flowers.
Here is a rather disappointing lake. Not raining yet, I thought it might be a short visit, nothing to see.
Hmmmm, this is the main lotus pond. Its been drained. There are no flowers, just mud.
Those birds are plastic. I was feeling ripped off!
Mud as far as the eye can see! It was actually darker than this.
Starting to rain a bit now, but I expected it to just drizzle for a while.
The gardens were all quite nice, but I can see similar for free over the road from my hotel, except there are no giant mud ponds in the peoples park by my hotel.
Wait, now its awesome! Those are walkways on the water down there in the quarry. Theres a man made cave system to explore!
What an amazing view! Those are huge ships out there on the river delta. That sky looks really weird.....
There are little hidden staircases all through here. I cant wait to find the way down to start exploring.... lots of..... (dot dot dot dot)...
Its the end of the world.
High winds and lightning every few seconds (not that I could photograph it. I spent an hour walking around in a big loop under here. Each loop was 89 steps. The drained mud pools filled up fast.
In one of the very small slightly lesser downpour periods I ran to the main temple area. They had toilets and a bigger loop to walk around. It was a very cool view of rain and ships every now and then when the rain was slightly less like standing under 100 fire hoses.
That was all the park area I wanted to explore. You cant see over the awesome cliffs though. Too bad I couldnt get down there, it was now flooded!
Divine intervention was not forthcoming.
Another very brief respite, just 3 seconds after taking this photo, the loudest thunder ever and the heaviest rain ever. The turtle is cursed.
This is under a giant staircase up to see a giant gold Buddha related statue, which is off limits apparently? In the rain I dont think I wanted to get up there anyway, but I also dont think the giant statue is a part of this parks entry fee, either that or it was closed off for renovation. They do that a lot.
This was the closest I could get to giant gold statue, as seen from the corner of the giant temple on one of my many laps around its upper levels. Those steps at the bottom left were boarded up at the bottom for some reason. This was also as clear as the sky got all day.
Off in the distance, a pagoda. It appeared brighter at this point than any point in the 3 hours prior, time to run back to the bus station and start a very damp uncomfortable journey home. Now if only I can get my phone to charge. Also my shoes are a good demonstration of how much water a sponge can hold.