I went to Shenzhen, Guangdong, PRC and Hong Kong last week for business. Shenzhen is across the harbo(u)r from Hong Kong. It is possible to land at Hong Kong International Airport but never enter Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; you can go straight to the regular PRC via a ferry and then go through passport control into China when you dock.

That's what I did. It's about 2 hours from landing the plane to getting to the hotel.

Coming back I had a driver take from my hotel in Shenzhen to my hotel in Hong Kong via his car; we had to go through a big-ass passport control area prior to driving across Hong Kong-Shenzhen Western Corridor bridge back into HK.

My outbound itinerary was SAN to SFO to HKG, ferry to Shenzhen. Return was HKG to SFO to SAN. SFO to HKG was about 14, 14.5 hours. Return tip was around 11, 11.5 hours.

Hong Kong still uses its own currency, the Hong Kong dollar, official exchange rate 1.05 to 1 RMB. Shenzhen is in an economic development zone; 15 years ago it was a tiny fishing village. Now it is a huge city with all the hallmarks of fast money and a bubble economy and infrastructure. I visited a factory that manufactures my company's products; it is out behind the glitz of boomtown Shenzhen. In fact it is what we would call a "company town" from the turn of the last century. The company site is literally miles of 10 story tall buildings full of Chinese workers making our stuff. They live in dorms and eat and shop on the company property.

The engineers I worked with were mid-20's maybe and the workers on the line, many of whom are women, had an average age of 18 or 19. It was a fascinating glimpse into how our economy (meaning the US for me personally but really it's any Western country at this point) and China are inextricably linked.

A headline in the South China Daily one morning was "Finance Minister still buying Treasury bonds."

And now here are some photos.

I also went out to Anza Borrego Desert State Park a few weekends ago and took some night sky photos.