Note: Not my picture. Click image for source gallery.

Since flying out of Hong Kong to mainland China is still technically considered an international flight on some level, it costs significantly more to fly from Hong Kong to destinations in China than from Shenzhen. So, it makes a lot more sense to make the quick trip to Shenzhen’s BaoAn Airport and fly out of there.

We missed the last bus from Kowloon that goes directly to the airport in Shenzhen, so had to take a taxi to the new Shenzhen Bay Road border crossing (now known as boundary checkpoints). The boundary checkpoint is right after the very impressive 5km bridge that crosses the Shenzhen Bay. This newest checkpoint is the first to house both Hong Kong and mainland China immigration facilities in one building. I was amazed at how quick it was to go through immigration, but even more so at how much Shenzhen has changed.

In 2002 when I first came to China, the difference between Hong Kong and the mainland was night and day. Shenzhen was dirty, chaotic and polluted, not all that different than some train stations in India. I remember touts flocking like seagulls at me.

Now, crossing the border I could not tell I had left Hong Kong. Not only did it take only 5 minutes (compared to the sometime 2 hour ordeal, fighting through crowds of a few thousand people), the whole area itself was clean, quiet, and very modern.

It never ceases to amaze me what a difference a few years can make in China. Contrast that to Canada where I wonder if now, 5 years later, construction has actually finished on that one block of Bernard Street in Montreal near my old apartment…

We caught a ‘black taxi’ (I prefer to think of them as entrepreneurial car owners), to the airport and made the flight. We arrived in Shanghai at around midnight and checked into a hotel.