Riding the train became quite relaxing. We all enjoyed looking out the window watching the busy city life fade and the Chinese countryside come into view. It was interesting to note, as we left the city, all the new, modern buildings being built amongst the run down ghetto looking older buildings with laundry hanging out half the windows. It was quite the contrast.
Through the countryside there were lots of fields growing vegetables and rice accompanied by shacks made out of what looked like scraps of wood and tarps found at a garbage dump. Whether these were homes or sheds of some kind, I do not know. I wondered, as we passed, if any of the veggies we ate came from these farms. I think that I would rather not know. The fields really didn't have the appearance of clean and fresh, as I like to imagine a vegetable garden.
Moving along, we saw the occasional cow and buffalo. At one point we saw a huge pile of burning garbage, with a cow grazing beside, a vegetable garden and a run down shack all in one scene. If the train wasn't moving so fast I would have taken a picture.
Entering Shenzhen meant that we were about to cross the border into Hong Kong, YAY!!! Shenzhen is one of China's younger cities and it looked it too. It was full of new modern buildings without the contrast of the broken down older buildings. It was cleaner too. It is easy to forget, living in a rather dirty city, how refreshing a clean city can be. Crossing into Hong Kong it only got cleaner and for the first time since we left North America, we had this strange sense of being home. Maybe it was the cleanliness of not only the city grounds and buildings, but the cleanliness of the people as well. I compared it to, feeling able to breathe again.
Now that we were in Hong Kong, we would still ride the train for about an hour getting to our destination, Kowloon.
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