More Adventures across the border...

So as I've mentioned, often after biking up in the New Territories I like to go across the border to the city of Shenzhen (深圳) in China for shopping, eating, getting a foot massage, etc. 

(see some of these blogs for more on Shenzhen activities: this one or this one or this one  or especially this one )  最近よく中国のシンゼン市へ買い物して行った。行ったときもちろん写真を撮ります。見て下さい。

One of my favorite places to go is Hua Qiang Bei (華強北路), where there are tons of electronics markets... everything you could want - computer components, phones, gadgets, basic electronics, you name it:

This is just one floor of one of like 10 places just like this... this one focused on PCs and monitors mostly.  I'm a bit curious how these kinds of places really work, since most of the shops sell pretty much the same stuff at the same price...  I think probably there's a only few distributors and they probably loan out most of the merchandise to all the individual shop runners...  since this is China, they try to make some profits by over quoting the price (especially to people like me) and trying to resist negotiating below their wholesale costs. 

Either way the guys behind the scenes are making most of the money.

Occasionally you get a real strange mix of shops -

OK,  two interesting things about this photo...

Everything iPhone 3G?...  I suspect you'll be seeing a LOT of iPhone branding in China for the next year or so... but in China you'll find that the contents and the label do not always match...   I took this photo in JUNE, several weeks before the iPhone 3G or anything iPhone 3G was even released. :-P

Also strange was that sign on the right side which I didn't even notice til I was preparing this blog:

wow, a store that JUST sells Digital Qurans?  in China???  not in Xinjiang, but Guangdong!

Actually nowadays there are a good number of middle eastern, african and south asian guys coming through here buying stuff in large quanitities to send back home... I guess enough are digital Quran buyers to keep this store in business too... (if anyone wants me to get them one next time, please let me know).

On this particular trip my main goal was a video camera for my dad... he wants to install a rear-viewing camera to hook into the LCD in his X5... (being retired gives an Engineer a lot of time on his hands to do things that aren't really necessary).

Rather than spend US$150 on the camera, I told him I'd get it for him... it only cost US$30 here....

Oooh,  IR LEDs for night vision!cool!  I'm tempted to get one of these for myself. ;-)

Since we've been doing AnD I've started to take notice of marketing materials like flyers, posters, billboards and stickers everywhere I go (Japan, the US, HK, China, etc).    China is definitely unique in many ways... 

Because of the labor market, a lot of companies pay people to put up signs and posters, pass out fliers and business cards at the corner, to stand out front of a store and do stupid things like clap their hands or shout out slogans all day long... 

and they also pay people to put up stickers...  a LOT... EVERYWHERE... 

To the point where they also hire an army of people to just walk up and down the street and scrape off stickers. (i saw one old guy just walking with a big metal scraper walking down the sidewalk zapping stickers in his path like Pac-Man going through the maze... )

It appears there's been a truce declare in at least one place:

Yes... apparently if you put the stickers ONTO the garbage bag, they won't bother to scrape them off...   which just tells you the volume of the sticker appliers..  they probably change the bags once or twice a day, every day, and they get THAT covered in stickers...

A few more from Lowu's Shopping Center...

Freshjy Squeezed...  not to be confused with Freshly...  or Juice...

I don't think this security guard was on patrol... I think he was just taking a joyride in the mall...