| My new life, so far... |
FROM SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA
[click here to view China map]
Hong Kong Views...
HONG KONG, Oct 21 - I was warned before the drive from Shenzhen to Hong Kong that I'd be doing it across the world's busiest border crossing. It was not an exaggeration. I can't believe the number of buses and the people disgorged from them that were lined up in a hall the size of several football fields. By the time we made it through the line, I felt as thoroughly processed as a sausage.
An hour or so later, just as I thought we were done, after a short drive, we came upon another checkpoint. This time, it was the Hong Kong border control. And here I thought that since 1997, Hong Kong was a part of China. The only difference is that here we did not have to leave our cars to get processed. But the long line of cars was moving ever so slowly. From time to time, people would get out and walk around until they had to move their cars again.
Here's, for example, my last look toward China from this Hong Kong checkpoint. You can see some of the drivers behind our car loitering around.
And this is what the other side looked like... the Hong Hong border control. That's when something else happened that was truly startling. After we finally made it to one of those booths, a bored looking border control officer stamped my passport and leisurely gave it back to my driver. We proceeded to wait for a few more minutes. Finally, a woman wearing white gloves and a surgical mask appeared. She opened the door and pointed what looked like a taser gun at me. Instinctively, I ducked. Then she did it to the other passenger in my car, one of my Chinese hosts.
"What was that about?" I asked after she shut the door and we started moving again.
"She was taking our temperature," my host explained. "They want to make sure that no one entering Hong Kong has high fever. It is all a part of the health controls established when the SARS flu outbreak occurred here a few years ago."
As we proceeded our drive toward the city, I realized that the air quality and the visibility in Hong Kond weren't much better than Shenzhen.
The Hong Kong airport was huge, as you can see...
...though not quite as big as the Shanghai Pudong terminals.
As we were taxiing for our flight back home to the States, I saw this DragonAir flight taking off. I thought the name and the design on its tail were so cute, so I took a picture of it. And then, we took off as well...
...and as we climbed and then flew over Hong Kong, I kept snapping pictures...
The views of the city from about 10,000 feet...
After that, I settled down for a 12-hour flight to Los Angeles. I worked on my business project for about nine of the 12 hours, which made the time pass quickly.
Then with about three hours to go, I open the blinds to see this wonderfully ethereal dawn over the Pacific.
Then just before landing, I took this picture of the San Bernardino mountains on our approach to LAX.
And that's all she wrote from this trip...
