May 14th

there it is... this morning we finally finished the powerpoint presentation that JZ (john zacharias our teacher) was to present to some shenzhen urban planners. last week was a period of intense counting (pedestrians and vehicles), morphological and other observations and debating about our area of study in shenzhen, Hua Qian Bei, a former industrial area now turned into one of the biggest commercial and electronic industries in china. the discussion with the planners today was very interesting though very slow because everything needed to be translated by our two chinese colleagues (meeting lasted almost 4 hours). i wish i could put some pictures on the blog, but it's difficult to download in so little time. i'll probably be able to do that in shanghai... talking of which, the group for shanghai has been growing day by day. we are now perhaps 5 people in total to go there, including Dale who knows someone who lives there and Zhan who speaks chinese. i'll probably have to be on my own to follow up to bejing but that's not until may 27th or so... emily might join us there i think or perhaps in Hangzhou which is a nice place west of shanghai.
tomorrow we're heading to Guangzhou for a few days (i would like to stay until the end of the week but it seems that many people would prefer to come back to shenzhen earlier... so we'll see) and then probably take the plane to shanghai on the 21st.
pollution is killing us, several of us have a soar throat and no voice but besides that this trip is awesome :) eating mangosteens, fresh mango, the food is gorgeous (i did have a little trouble to get used to it at the beginning (homesick perhaps?) but now the apetite is back!), it hasn't rained so much since the beginning, we've been pretty lucky until now.........................

May 7th

the group is complete, 13 people including the teacher. yesterday visit of 2 chinese new towns north of HK, each developed around a train station. one of them, Sha Tin, was designed in a particular way so as to segregate pedestrians from vehicular traffic. there is a main mall, and a network of ped passageways which are all elevated above ground (2 floors high so as to allow trucs under the bridges). tall buildings perhaps 35 storeys high are located around the center. clothes are hanging to dry at the windows as usual....
we went to the pool at 6am this morning. it's in a park facing our hotel. great weather today: we can see the sky! and it's blue too!
we'll be leaving at 10am for Shenzhen where the real course is taking place.

May 4th

there are people people people everywhere. it's very tiring to go out because there is so much stimulation coming from every part of the city. noise, air, people...
it rained all day today and feeling the cool drops on my skin actually was actually pretty pleasant. walked around downtown. realized how there are very few places to sit, not many public open spaces. people are always walking walking walking to go from one destination to another. very tiring to think about it that way.

May 3rd

umbrella ballet

ads, ads, ads....

it's all about studying lines

ground floor in the middle of the CBD

HK's skyline view from the ferry

Tai chi in Victoria Park

jetlagged. after waking up several times, i decided to get up around 6am. went for a walk in Victoria Park, which is almost next to the hostel to check out if people would be doing tai chi. and they did! reminded me of vietnam. joined a group for 20 minutes or so, and then quit because it was getting late and they were pursuing their exercise with swords (that i obviously didnt have). met with the group (must have taken 30min to an hour to get everybody set). had breakfast in a french deli that the group of 6 had discovered the day before and absolutely wanted

to try out. i guess the superiority of french cuisine had to be proven once again... plans have changed over the night, we finally all(but Dave) decide to take the star ferry to Kowloon which is the area North of HK and walk around there (yet anoher shopping area, supposed to be cheaper than HK). we walk along Nathan street, the main street. after a while i decide to explore a bit on my own because everyone seems interested in shopping and stop every minute to look at the shops. we decide that we'll meet at the fountain in HK at 4:30pm. i wonder for about 45min by myself. smaller streets on the sides, many stairs and passageways that connect between the buildings, which are all very skinny and vertically huge. looks like km and km of social housing. very oppressing. after having walked a few side streets (couldn't go any further because of a highway), drifted back to the west to Nathan Rd. walking along the street, i notice a group of tourists waiting near a mapping center.. my group! joined them again. pleasant walk until it gets oriented once more towards shopping for shoes.... fortunately we split once more.

the majority goes back to the hostel before meeting at the fountain, alex and i stay behind to explore the area a bit more. we're finally seeing stuff. the red light district (kind of discrete, i wonder how it is by night), the night market, a temple, many specialized commercial streets (lots of hardware stores), etc... how nice to be back on the ferry after all that walking. relax a bit before hurrying to the meeting point. walk through the multiple elevated pedestrian passageways (very confusing and hard to orient oneself in those). feet in the fountain ---> le pied! group is late, but it's ok. dave gets there just 5 min after us (he didnt go to kowloon. was looking for a place to work out and wanted to check out the HK university and get a Tshirt). once we're all there, we split again because the group of 6 has already been to Victoria peek (that's where we can have the wonderful overview on HK's skyline) so i go with sasha and dale while the others go to the escalator (another attraction: commercial (of course) setting along this escalator that goes up i dont know where, but probably gets you a nice view too).
a good hour of hiking up the mountain. tropical forest, huge luxurious condo developments alongside the mountain with pools, tennis courts and what not. very steep at some points. the air is a bit nicer to breathe but still heavy and humid. once up there we stay for an hour in order to see the light show. impressed at how many people there are up there (we were almost the only ones to hike up on that trail). Air conditioning is everywhere! the inside of the building from which we watch the skyline (on the roof) is pretty crazy, lights and colors everywhere, looks like a club, casino or disneyworld. half an hour to go back down then hop on the tram. great view from the second floor (like london buses). it's already 10:30pm by the time we get back to the hostel... so soar and tired...

May 2nd

The plane ride was long but not as painful as i had expected. watched movies, ate, tried to read more of the recommended articles on Shenzhen and talked to my Hongkongese neighbour during the first half of the trip and slept through the second half. the plane was very empty, many people were able to lie down on a row of 3 seats (not me of course). we flew over beautiful landscaper: Greenland, Siberia, the Gobi desert... greenland was particularly gorgeous, a white and flat landscape with huge cracks all along... another planet...
the sun never set, i guess we followed it. by the time we were in the HK airport it was dark. got a glimpse of the light show from the bus (crazy lights flashing on some of the skyscrapers).

Causeway Bay

here we are in HK!!! there are so many people everywhere especially in the area our hostel is. i'm sharing a room with a swedish girl and a chinese girl. tomorrow we're heading at 7:30 am for the giant buddha statue on Lantau island. i have to go now , i'm writing from the staircase because they closed the computer room at 11.... grrrr.

Arriving at Causeway bay