IN AND AROUND SHEKOU, GUANGDONG, CHINA

My friend in Shekou, Raymond Ng, invited my wife and me to spend a few days in Shekou, which is where the port of Shenzhen is. We were there from 12 - 23 Sept. This is a street in the old town of Shekou where shops sell mainly food, clothes and footwear. It is located on the street next to where we were put up.

A stall that sells fish and other small pets.

Many mobile stalls in the Shekou old town sell stuff like ginger and garlic. Different sets of itinerant sellers sell different stuff throughout the day.

Mobile bread vendor.

My favourite fruit shop. Fruit biz is done mainly by people from the Teochew dialectic group.

Many shops like this sell cigarettes. China has not made any visible attempt to curb cigarette consumption.

Meat buns sold by the vendor in the rear go for two for 1RMB while bean curd sold by the lady is priced at 1RMB per pack. Many on the way to work will pick up some buns and a pack of bean curd.

A difficult way of making a living in Shekou. I have a similar image in an earlier posting on the streets of Singapore.

A street in the older part of Shekou town being upgraded.

Nan Hai Boulevard is the main thoroughfare of Shekou to other parts of Guangdong. The streets are lined with the Chinese national flag in preparation for China's 60th year of being a republic.

Walmart, an American icon, in Nan Hai Boulevard, Shekou.

The supermarket section of Walmart.

The Garden City Centre, a shopping mall, opposite Walmart.

Interior of the Garden City Centre, Shekou.

My wife arriving with our fast Chinese lunch in an outlet called Ceng Kung Fu or Real Kung Fu. It's a fast food chain selling Chinese food using a logo featuring a silhouette resembling the late Bruce Lee.

My wife and I had this lovely snack costing 38RMB seated in a cafe in the Garden City Centre sandwiched by Bread Talk and Bee Cheng Hiang. Just looking at the ingredients makes my mouth water again.

Bread Talk, a Singapore bakery brand, in the Garden City Centre of Shekou.

Bee Cheng Hiang, another Singapore brand, has arrived in the centre too. If there, no worries about not having your favourite bak kwa.

Image of Shekou from the apt where we stayed as the typhoon struck. When the typhoon reaches State 8, people in non- essential services stay home and schools are closed. We experienced that and found most restaurants closed.

From our apt toward Hong Kong when the typhoon hit. The bridge linking Hong Kong's New Territories to Shekou is barely visible because of the cloudy conditions. My second experience of being hit by a typhoon - the other was in Hokkaido, Japan, where the typhoon followed us with wind speeds up to 23 m per second.