Trip Day 20 - Guanzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong

Jan 14 - Monday

We went out for a couple of hours. John wanted to find a market described in Lonely Planet where they sell live animals from cages and slaughter then butcher them for the customer.

Fortunately we did not find it. The taxi driver took us to a street where they sell pets, and this was next to a meet market, but all the animals were already dead and skinned. It is quite possible that the government has cracked down on some of the less sanitory food handling practices.

The kids enjoyed looking at the fish and turtles, puppies and kittens. We also picked up a number of aquarium decorations - fake rocks and plants which cost from a few yuan, which at home cost $10 and more.

Back to the hotel, checked out and got a bus to Guangzgou East station where we got tickets on the next train to Shenzhen.

We had trouble finding the departure gate and missed our train. However we got on the next one with no problems. There were no ticket checks on the train, just at the entry and exit barriers.

At shenzhen we checked our luggage at the Left Luggage counter and caught the local metro. We found one of the large computer markets we were looking for, but while there was plenty of hardwarwe, there was very little software. As we wereracing we bought a dozen CDs at $2 each. We expect most of them to fail or be demos only, but if only a couple are good then Jack still got good value.

Next we head back on the metro and go to the large mall nearby. I leave John and the kids and check it out.

The clothes are cheap but not exceptionally so. Bargaining is the norm here and I got a few things at a little less than Dimmy's prices. With more time to check out competitors and simply walk away from a few shops I could probably have done better, but I'm not good at bargaining and was very short on time.

I get a few items for Tom, a couple of t-shirts for myself, and some shoes for Tom.

We then go back for our luggage (this took some time as the station was huge and the Left Luggage counter at the far end from the mall) and walked across the border to Hong Kong.

It was then just a matter of getting on th HK MTR back to our hotel.