That evening I went to the hotel, and conked out pretty early. Second day was pretty full at the office, and I was hosted to dinner by the local team I was visiting. They decided that I needed to be toasted by each one individually with some "white wine". I think it was a rice wine which is very strong. Anyways, I was lucky to manage to walk home that evening. Next day more work, and another dinner. Last day I got to drive around town for a little over an hour to see some of the sights of Shenzhen. I got to see:
the Eiffel Tower--no not the real one, they have miniature copies of the wonders of the world there, and the Eiffel tower is visible as you drive by.
Some interesting Architecture. There were a lot of skyscrapers, and even more tall buildings, both residential and commercial. This city was formed about 30 years ago, and now has 14 Million people, that is 500000 new every year. But the nice part was the wide open streets.
Another surprise, or at least an indication that I wasn't in India is visible in this picture. Can you guess.
Yes, the bare legs are on the ladies, not on the men. In south India, you can often see men in their Lungi, with their nobby knees sticking out if it is hot and they have hoisted them up to get some air--but women, almost never do you see bare legs. Also many of the women were carrying umbrellas. Now it did rain a little tiny bit, and it was very humid the whole time I was there, but the umbrellas were for shade.And here is a set of signs for all Bangaloreans to be jealous of
Imagine being able to go 50kph in the city center, imagine that honking was forbidden--and people followed the rules, and imagine there were places for people to walk and ride bikes away from the traffic--heaven I guess. Also they use overpasses for the pedestrian traffic on large roads.I got a few more pictures which are not great--all taken through the taxi windows, but they do give a bit of Shenzhen flavor. They are on my flickr.
After the tour, we drove back to HK airport, with a minor 30 minute delay at customs due to high traffic, and I came home on Thursday.
2 comments:
How odd, a city with no history past 30 years! It sounds like they did a good job on the planning, though? Is there much open space/human space?
You make some excellent observations Bryan. Always nice to read your reports especially the contrasts with India. The women carry umbrellas because no one wants a tan in Asia for the most part. It is related to manual labor/working outdoors and those jobs are for low class people -- def want a white collar, desk job, lol!!
The honking in traffic is terrible in India. It takes a bit of getting used to the first few days of my visit. Worst part though is that lanes near hospitals are normally marked as silent zones but this is ignored.
The bad news about China's construction boom is that most of the skyscrapers are being built with substandard steel and concrete according to Foreign Affairs magazine. Don't wanna be around when the big one hits ;-)
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