While walking through downtown Guangzhou I thought I found a little shop that was a dream to anybody studying Electrical Engineering or at the very least had an interest in robot building or general electronics. As I stared in shock at the randomness of a shop stall in the middle of China selling only oscilloscopes (all of them used, old and huge), I began to look around and to my further amazement, I didn’t just discover one shop… I discovered an entire district that spanned ten blocks by ten blocks. It was covered with tiny little 10′x20′ shops that were side-by-side. I started drooling and felt a little dizzy, so I drank some more water — it must have been the heat.

There were thousands of these little stalls, and each shop specialized in something that would make the heart of any geek, like me, flutter. Some specialized in just coils. Others in transformers or relays or switches. Others still in LCD displays or LEDs or test equipment. I’m glad I’m not traveling with a female (no offense Dee), as I would have had to concede, in compromise, several hours of my time to clothes shopping to make up for subjecting them to six hours of my aimless wandering.

I found the holy grail of shops as I walked up on three stalls in a row that sold nothing but geared motors. Everything from the famed Pittmann motors on up to high precision medical grade motors, down to stuff that was pulled (rather violently) from children’s toys. My mouth literally started to water — and it certainly wasn’t the heat.

Sadly, as I began to realize that at the prices things were going for, and the money I was willing to spend, I’d never be able to carry it all home. So, I –and this really was a very hard thing for me to do– took the path of absolute self-control and walked away.

If I ever end up living in China, I now know which city I’ll be living in.

[20070805] — Pictures have been added.

Finally found a cheaper hostel in Kowloon. It’s actually less than half the price of my last one.

Southern China right now seems to be going through a bit of a heat wave, which has prompted some safety scares here — there are even night heat-shelters for those to get some cool A/C blowing in their faces. If my room didn’t have A/C, I’d be in one. It’s only 95F, but at 100% humidity, your sweat just stays on you. No cooling effect at all. I’ve been drinking in upwards of 3 liters during daylight hours and slightly less at night.

Tomorrow, I head out to the Yangtze river, which I hear is actually warmer than here, but not quite as humid. Several days heading down river might do me good. Thank God for motion sickness patches.

Internet access here in Kowloon and Hong Kong is relatively easy to find, and free in some places (though you can’t plug in a USB device).

Shopping here is insane. It’s a shoppers Mecca. Too bad I’m not much of a shopper — or at least not one when I know I have to stretch my cash and carry everything for another four weeks. Things will be different on my way out of the country.

Photos to date are now in my gallery:

[20070728] — Somehow all of the images that I uploaded became corrupted and wouldn’t display on any computer other than the one I uploaded them from. Don’t know why. I’m re-uploading them right now… hopefully it’ll work this time.

Oh, and of course, these photos are raw, not rotated, not color adjusted, etc. I don’t have a ‘lite’ version of PhotoShop that I can carry around on my thumb drive — yet.

After a flight that seemed to take forever –I can’t sleep on planes– I’ve finally arrived in Hong Kong! As tired as I was, what with moving everything out of my apartment and traveling, I still couldn’t sleep upon arrival… thank God this city never sleeps! Hong Kong is amazingly beautiful, and there really are a ton of people here. I can look out over a crowd (being somewhat tall here) and see nothing but heads for as far as I can see. Everywhere. What surprises me, though, people are very friendly and warm to eachother. You can see it just walking down the street. New York and Paris could learn a lesson or two here. You can walk through a crowd and not hear a single word spoken by anybody — no loud conversations, no cell phones, nothing. Almost creepy at times.

Hope you all are doing as well as I am. Pictures will (hopefully) begin to follow shortly.