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 this week as they have suffered a cluster of recent suicides of their employees. Eight have killed themselves. it does seem a lot but when you get the back story of this particular employer, the massiveness of these factories has to be appreciated. This one factory employs 300,000 people!!!!! No wonder you want your own chair at Ikea on your day off!!!!

So this industrial belt between the two centres is heavily populated with both people and manufacturing. For me - it lead to shopping paradise in Shenzhen. It is the city where Hong Kongers go to find bargains. It is only one hour on the metro from Hong Kong so that too adds to the density. Seven million Hong Kong shoppers, add to it the 25 million or so that live in the neighborhood, and me.



Long story short - unbelievable bargains, but again, so much it was overwhelming. It will have to be another time. Glad I saw it but, without a certain shopping list - it is truly sensory overload at the highest level. downtown Shenzhen is a brand new throbbing mecca to commercialization of the world. The pulse of the City is like a Disco on crack. Everything is for sale and the marketing strategies to try and avert your attention numb the senses.

Physically, the massiveness of everything is quite appealing. They have unusually nice architecture - massive spaces, yet quite appealing. Not livable, but pretty.