Life and Travel in China

A stadium was being built on the route out of Shenzhen, or so I thought. The Universiade is to be held here in a few years. From the outside, this structure looked exactly the same as the Olympic stadium in Pekno, of course smaller. Now, after a few months, it turned out that it was... a bus station?! Its size resembles the Centennial (People's) Hall in Wrocław. The project is similar to the mentioned stadium, where the Olympics will start on August 8. I was shocked yesterday when I saw buses arriving there and parking on several floors. After my last stay in Poland, the bus station never reminded me of any stadium, but in China it is different.

Yesterday, a friend told me that not only foreigners have problems with being in China during the Olympics. It turned out that her sister, who was studying in Japan, could not return to China for the next two months! She is, of course, Chinese, but because of the Olympics, the Chinese government is trying to limit the population throughout the country. It does not grant visas to foreigners, changes the validity of visas, and closes their representative offices. Now it turns out that it is blocking the return of its own citizens to the country. Can you imagine something like this? You can't return to your home country from Egypt because Euro 2012 is taking place.

Until now, I thought that around 10-12 million people live in Shenzhen, but it turns out that according to recent research, 18 million people live here. There are approximately 1-2 million native inhabitants, the rest are visitors from other provinces. It's amazing how this city is growing. Crowds of people in the subway, buses, in parks, not to mention department stores and supermarkets.

I haven't heard from you for a while... I was in Shanghai. During the Olympics, the government issued an order that planes should not be late (the Polish media also mentioned it and made fun of it). Yesterday I was waiting for the plane and it was delayed by an hour, the Olympics are in 8 days, so I don't see the airlines improving, unfortunately they have no influence on many factors and are often late. But I flew from the new terminal in Shanghai this time and it looks really great. I also went from the city center to the airport by magnetic train - Maglev. The journey took 8 minutes (60-80 minutes by taxi), the train traveled at 420 km/h.

Shenzhen and Guangzhou do not have much connection with the Olympics, only in Hong Kong there will be horse riding, show jumping... as Olympic disciplines. Despite this, checks were intensified in the subway, railway stations and airports, also in non-Olympic cities. There were armed police officers and soldiers, as well as dogs, which I assume can detect explosives and chemicals.