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Geek Tour 09by Nate |
February 18, 2009 |
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Back at Sketching In Hardware 2008, someone (I think it was Dale Dougherty or Tom Igoe) pointed out that we should put together a group of people to tour through China checking out how business is done, what the factories look like, good places to eat, etc. So here I am, seven months later hanging out in Hong Kong (drinking a Tsing Tao). It's 9PM here, 6AM where I'm from (MST)! Needless to say, I feel a bit off.
How do you get from SparkFun to Hong Kong you ask? Checkout the flight plan pictured above. The Continental flight out of Newark, NJ turned out the be the cheapest at ~$1000. One non-stop, 15 hour flight. I need a globe and a piece of string - that just doesn't seem right to me.
International travel reminds me just how much the rest of the world watches the United States. Regardless of your political slant (go Obama!), it was very edifying to see how much coverage the US economic recovery package got. It passed right? I get a check in the mail now, right?
Woot Hong Kong!
There are a lot of people in Hong Kong! This street-market went on for blocks and blocks and blocks. Really, for hundreds of blocks. Hong Kong is wonderfully amazing!
Shenzen is up next. Here's the tour crew you should follow in case I run out of homepage-post energy:
Talk about a list of rock stars.
I almost forgot Che! There is a clothing line in Hong Kong that has now taken the popular t-shirt one step further. It's an entire store of digitized Che! Note the (lack of) hands. For that matter, what is he holding?
How do you get from SparkFun to Hong Kong you ask? Checkout the flight plan pictured above. The Continental flight out of Newark, NJ turned out the be the cheapest at ~$1000. One non-stop, 15 hour flight. I need a globe and a piece of string - that just doesn't seem right to me.
International travel reminds me just how much the rest of the world watches the United States. Regardless of your political slant (go Obama!), it was very edifying to see how much coverage the US economic recovery package got. It passed right? I get a check in the mail now, right?
Woot Hong Kong!
There are a lot of people in Hong Kong! This street-market went on for blocks and blocks and blocks. Really, for hundreds of blocks. Hong Kong is wonderfully amazing!
Shenzen is up next. Here's the tour crew you should follow in case I run out of homepage-post energy:
- Bunnie Huang - Chumby
- Tom Igoe - NYU/ITP and a couple of really good books
- Leah Buechley - LilyPad queen (now at MIT!)
- Jeevan Kalanithi - MIT and Siftables
- David Merrill - Checkout his recent TED talk
- Windell Oskay - Evil Mad Scientist Extraordinaire
- Eric Schweikardt - Computational Design Labs at CMU
Talk about a list of rock stars.
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Turns out the great circle connecting NJ and Hong King does seem to just cross the 80th parallel. If you did this trip in the northern hemisphere's summer you'd have a nice bird's eye view of the Arctic Ocean, maybe even Santa's workshop.
Have fun!
Kevin.
A guy from HK
Right now I am Shanghai, but I will be back in Hong Kong by the weekend. I will be back in Shaghai in a week or two, will you be coming by here at all?
have fun.
2G SD in Hong Kong is less than HKD50 which is around USD 6.41
fancy a drink??
Next I'm going to give myself more time, and maybe even hire a local to help me with the language and the negotiating.
1) Having the Chinese visa in advance was good - there seemed to be a line at the border, but I was able to skip it.
2) You'll need RMB for China. If you're staying in Tsim Sha Tsui and exchanging currency at Chunking Mansions (the building in the photo above with Obama on a video screen), take the stairs up one level and find the tiny currency exchange place there. They seem to have consistently better exchange rates than the places on the ground floor.
3) The Tsim Sha Tsui MTR station is connected via an underground walkway to the East Rail station, which has frequent trains up to the Lo Wu station at the Chinese border.
4) It's very easy to get from the border to the action in Shenzhen: just take the Metro to Hua Qiang Lu station. It's fast and very cheap (less than USD $1.00). The coin operated machines that sell tokens have a user interface in English.
1) Don't forget that there's more to it than just the SEG electronics market: that's just one building. I found an equally impressive building across the road, and then another one behind that one that seemed to specialize in commercial quantities for larger manufacturers. They had racks full of reels, and semiconductor company distributor offices that were packed with cartons of semis.
2) Technically you're not supposed to import components into HK without having to pay duty. I got away with it because I only had a few in my backpack, but larger quantities might have been noticed at the border. There's a post office on the Chinese side of the border and I considered the option of just mailing things directly home.
Check out: Ebenezer's for great kababs. Its very close to Tsim Sha Tsui.
When the electronic industry talks about the "street prices" of components, this is probably where they got the term.
You can get to both of those plaza's via MTR, and viewing the MTR maps.
"The Che cartoon has hands. They look like stub next to the belt. The cartoon is wearing a traditional Chinese suit."