Friday, May 22, 2015

Visit to Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou

I visited Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou in early May and spent a total of 5 days in these cities. It was a pleasant trip. I met many nice people and found the shopping and food to be very good in these cities.

I liked the early morning yam-cha in all the three cities. The food is good and the prices are inexpensive. The early morning crowd are mainly the elderly people, who spent their time in leisure to eat the dim-sum, read newspapers and chat with friends. What a contrast to the hectic life and the relative lack of socializing in Singapore.

The restaurants in all three cities are packed in the morning, afternoon and night. They have a high turnover of customers, indicating a high level of productivity. In spite of the large crowd, their service is excellent. They service staff are well trained.

Prior to this visit, I had the impression that it is not safe to be in Shenzhen and Guangzhou. This fear was unfounded. I did not face any problem with criminals in these cities. Everybody is busy with their work and daily activities.

Shenzhen has a population of 10 million, which is almost twice of Singapore. Guangzhou has a population of 15 million. It did not seemed to be too overcrowded.

I stayed at the Holiday Inn in Shifu, which is next to one of the popular pedestrian streets.  On my free morning, I took the underground train in Guangzhou for four stops to visit the shopping center in Beijing Road. The train system is well organized. It was quite full, but not packed. I liked their signage and the announcement of the stops. They numbered their train lines, which made it easy to remember. My station served Line 1 and Line 6.

I like Guangzhou and will make a longer visit in the near future.




No comments:

Blog Archive