I thought this was interesting....

On the 5 Yuan, they have a picture of Chairman Mao. On the 20 Yuan, they have a picture of Chairman Mao. On the 100 Yuan, they have a picture of Chairman Mao.

Why waste time putting different art on each bill when you can use the same drawing on each of them? 

When staying in China, do make sure your room has a suitable gas mask in case of emergency.

Seriously though, the Grand Howard was fantastic.  Huge room, bathroom had a nice large shower and even a sauna, cable TV with more channels that I get at home and the food was fantastic.  After taxes and everything it was only $159 a night and was way better than what you get for $159 a night in the U.S.

So the Hong Kong airport has two fast food places for breakfast: Burger King and POPEYES!!!! That's right! Popeyes! I had a Crossainwich at BK and then kicked myself for not having the Popeyes. I mean... I can ALWAYS have breakfast at BK. I don't get to see Popeyes often even in the US and when I do... it's not like they're serving breakfast!

There was also a toy store that had every Hot Wheels car known to man, which is kind of funny because according to Hot Wheels's website they're not sold in Hong Kong (just Japan and South Korea, which is kind of funny because I think the cars are actually made in Hong Kong).

There were these "Since '68" cars, which I initially thought was the Asian equivalent of "Hot Wheel's Classics" which is a 40th anniversary series sold in the U.S., but looking online I found some vendors selling Since '68 and apparently they're "collectors edition" cars within the "classics" series. I should have bought a bunch while I was there because the vendors online were selling them for $4 to $8 instead of the usual $1 that you usually pay for a Hot Wheels car.

They also had a VW series, which I had never seen before, but again seems to be a "collectors series" that are sold online for $2 to $6 each. The only "VW series" I've seen at the stores usually come as 6 packs and not as individual cars. Oh well... maybe next time I'll bring about $100 and just buy a bunch of toy cars.

Before I got in my van that would take me to Qingxi Town, I snapped some pictures of the train station in Shenzhen.....

Once settled in my room at the Grand Howard Hotel, I took this picture outside my window:

In the lobby of the Grand Howard, they had a pretty impressive Christmas display:

They had bunny rabbits living at the base of the tree though...

I think they may have had Christmas and Easter confused. Not sure.

Yeah.. there was rabbit poop everywhere.

Here are the guards outside of a computer chassis manufacturer in Dongguan City:

I'm not sure if they're keeping baddies out or keeping workers in.

So I took a train into China.... 

The train is great.  It puts Chicago's CTA and Metra to shame.  It's clean, fast, quiet and cheap!  I was in China in no time!

Once in China, I knew I wasn't in Hong Kong anymore and this isn't anything like Taiwan either! 

I couldn't find anywhere appetizing to eat.  I should've eaten before leaving Hong Kong.

Maybe if the bird didn't still have the head on it... I don't know.  The look on his face tells me he was probably fried alive.   

Ok.. I'm reaching for the Engrish.  "Keep caps firmly after use"?  Is "Refillably" a word?  Anyone?

I have to catch a train that will take me over the Hong Kong/Mainland China border.  But before I go, here's some pictures of the city view from my hotel room.... 

And check out the Hong Kong money....

Wait a minute.... Hong Kong's bank notes are backed by a private bank?  Cool!  Funnily enough, Hong Kong uses their own money so I need to get some Chinese money before I cross over into China, but I was pretty surprised to find HSBC bank notes, as opposed to some sort of Federal Reserve type of note, used in Hong Kong! 

This is cool.  JAL has a camera on the front of the plane! 

The first picture is the plane waiting for take off. 

Naturally, I had to shut off all electronics, put my tray table up and put my seat into the upright position during take off and landing.... but I took a second picture after take off showing Chicago below the plane. Hey! It looks just like Google maps!

In flight entertainment was pretty cool.  Check out the "hits of the 80's".  When's the last time you heard "The Riddle" by Nik Kershaw?  And ELO's "Twilight"?  That song didn't even chart.  I don't even think it was released as a single.  But then I found out that it's a "cult classic" with the Japanese.

What's a trip to Asia without a little Engrish?  During my layover, I hung out at Kirin (yes, as in the beer) City bar. I can honestly say nothing on the menu looks good. Maybe I'm just not hungry enough.

After arriving in Hong Kong and taking a cab to the hotel, I find myself in a room that's bigger than a bread box, but smaller than a college dorm. 

I feel like I might be a pampered little bitch complaining about my hotel room, but this room in Hong Kong I stayed at last night wasn't cheap (1100 HKD, which is about $142 USD), yet has to be the smallest, most dingy room I have ever stayed in.

That's a full size bed in the middle. There's only 1 foot between the foot of the bed and the wall (I have to turn sideways to walk past the bed). There's an LCD mounted about 5' up the wall, but the room is so small that you can't see the LCD well and everything is kind of dark. No, the LCD is not on any kind of mount that pivots so I can't point it down. On the other side of the bed is a tiny 2' wide desk.

The whole room is smaller than my daughter's room. When I say whole room, I'm including the bathroom. I mean.. it's THAT small.

The bathroom is just 6' x 6' with 3' squared sectioned off for a shower. No shower door.. just a curtain.

At least it's only for one night.

In China, the water is barely drinkable.  Fortunately, the natives are well aware of this, and so bottled water is provided everywhere.  This is the water that came with the room.  "Game Over"???  Umm... ok. Cute... but odd.

Yeah... it LOOKS like Colgate, but it's not Colgate. At least in Taipei I got Colgate. Sure, it was made in Malaysia... but it really was Colgate!

So... I'm off to China to meet up with a manufacturer.

I was scheduled to fly out last night at 5:45. That would get me in Hong Kong at 5:45AM with my 2 hour lay over at LAX.

Unfortunately, Chicago had a snow storm and despite leaving for the airport by 3:00 PM, I was still stuck in traffic by 5:45. It was almost 8PM when I rolled into the parking lot of a hotel near the airport. A trip that normally takes me 45 minutes has taken me 5 hours. Below is a picture of my car from this morning (yes, I drive a Hyundai Elantra.  Yes, I'm ok with that and yes, it's paid for.)

I called American Airlines and they switched my flight to a Japan Airlines flight leaving at 10:55 this morning. This gets me into Hong Kong at 10:30 at night after a 3 hour layover in Tokyo.

Unfortunately, crossing from Hong Kong into China is like crossing over from one country to another. There are customs, security, etc. Because there's a chance that it will be too late to get transportation, I now have to book a room at a hotel in Hong Kong and not head out to my final destination mainland until Friday morning. *sigh*

I keep this electronic hockey game at my desk at work.  A few of the "gamers" at work don't quite know what to make of it.  It's so simple, it's confusing.  But when I was a kid, this was how games were until Atari 2600, ColecoVision and Intellivision came out (and it's not like those are much more complex.) 

In this video I do a quick overview of my old hockey game....

...And we managed to get the tree up!

Chantel just built a mini gingerbread house with mom too.