Shenzhen is the city sharing the border with Hong Kong. From Guangzhou, it is a quick convenient one hour fast train (travels at 200 km/hr). If only Canada could incorporate some of this transportation technology!!! so fast, so quiet and so easy. Between these two massive cities, are three other massive cities - where the underpants and the Ipods and everything else around you right now came from. The factory that makes the Ipod and the Ipad is in the news t...

Sunday afternoon as I was strolling through Guangzhou, I noticed a big (OK, everything here is big), Ikea. This Ikea was one on the funniest, laugh out loud, days I had in China. It will be a 'forever memory' for me.As soon as I entered the absolutely packed store, it hit me. All Ikeas, all over the world, sell the same stuff and their stores are marketed in exactly the same way.   There is a familiarity with the brand that I have only ever found ...

I know where underpants come from. And jeans and party dresses and watches and purses and socks and medical supplies and accessories. They come from Guangzhou. Just as I saw hours and hours of factories from my train window – in Guangzhou, I saw the world coming to one city, to buy all of these things. Truly mind blowing and amazing: the scale of purchasing that goes on in this city. The whole world was there – in the street, in the massive build...

Arrived In Guangzhou – the train actually took 27 hours and with the added delays of missing the first train, it was a long journey indeed. Even so, I think it is my favorite way to travel. The beauty of hopping on a moving vessel that comes equipped with a comfortable bed and a picture window that allowed for me to see so much of a country as vast as China. The Kunming – Guangzhou line cuts across the whole of southern China and the landscape varie...

Some travel days just don’t seem to end. It seems that whenever I make plans, I wish immediately I didn’t. I can’t seem to learn this lesson.In Shangri-la, after learning I couldn’t do the overland route to Tibet (altitude), I found a cheap $50 flight from Ligiang to Kunming. Because I had already done the fabulous overnight train on that route, I figured I would fly and just get on with my travels and get to Kunming in order to go some...