The last few weeks have been quite a physical drain. I have been packing, unpacking, re-packing, unpacking, re-packing, realising I’ve forgetten stuff, anticipating new experiences, watching many in-flight movies. Dealing with jetlag. Finally, adjusting.

As Dopplr attests, I have just spent two weeks in Shenzhen, China, followed by a couple of days back in England… followed by a week in Texas, US.

I have not had time to process my visit to China, so I am going to clarify my thoughts and experiences here, and will follow up the US technology festival in another blog post. I’m writing this because I’m wide awake at 4am GMT, and still on Austin time. Probably with a bit of China-time thrown in.

This piece of photojournalism was the first thing I read about Shenzhen, which prepared me for quite a different place than I experienced. I’m not sure it is entirely fair. But here is how it starts:

Twin cities usually grow up together. For Hong Kong and its dark alter ego Shenzhen, the relationship is something more akin to step-twins. Shenzhen was virtually decreed into existence: in 1980 Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping clicked his fingers and invited the people of dynamic, British-owned Hong Kong to make something of the 3.5 sq km stretch of fishing villages and rice paddies just over the border. What arose was a kind of twisted sister, a town of skyscrapers and sweatshops, laissez-faire business and institutionalized lust.

Tempting though it is to reduce Shenzhen to sensationalist caricature, I wouldn’t call it a “twisted sister” to Hong Kong. They didn’t grow up together, for starters: Shenzhen is brand new, and Hong Kong has history.

Shenzhen. The buildings are tall, the air is chokingly warm, and it took me about a week to adjust to the smell. There are numerous construction sites sprawling all over the city. Photos from the 1980s reveal how quickly the town has changed, and how quickly it is changing.

The people I met in Shenzhen were warm and almost overwhelmingly curious, especially since tourists and foreigners are unusual sights in the city. A visit to a park got us stared at, and even photographed. Generally, wherever we went, people were more interested in talking than not.

I liked that: there was a patient, genuine, attentive curiosity in nearly everyone I met, even those busy at work – a Starbucks barista was keen to know what I was doing there, and how long I’d be there for. Even if it was just because they wanted to practise their English or discover some juicy gossip, it was nice to be surrounded by interested, friendly people.

Day by day it got easier to cope with the smell, easier to cope with the jetlag. China is eight hours ahead of GMT, and the entire landmass somehow gets by on just one timezone, despite the official times not really coinciding conveniently with sunrise and sunset. I woke up a few hours early every day, which wasn’t such a bad thing.

Food: with some exceptions, I wasn’t a fan. It’s not easy to be a vegetarian, and even pescetarians might have a challenging time. The Chinese seem to really like fish dishes with the fish head still on, and its mouth open in an expression of agony. It’s just a cultural difference. I also remember seeing fried seahorses on the menu, decorating the surface of another cooked sea-creature. Then again, two weeks isn’t really enough time to sample a range of cuisine in a city, or to overcome perhaps superficial cultural bias.

I didn’t travel far out of central Shenzhen. Partly because of time, partly because of fear.

I only spent about eight hours in Hong Kong. I really wish I’d had more time. Really, the mind boggles: everywhere I looked in Hong Kong I saw something interesting. A small, hidden market packed between two skyscrapers; something in a shop window, a Buddhist temple. What I did notice was that the people ignored you more often – a stark contrast from the friendliness and warmth of the people in Shenzhen.

Hong Kong is worn in, like old shoes, or any old British city – after all, most of the streets have British names, and from 1842—1997, it was a dependent territory of the United Kingdom. Shenzhen, on the other hand, has the feeling of being brand new, which is evident from the lack of pollution, the lack of detail, the feeling that everything just sort of sprung up over night. Which it had. Shenzhen is a baby, and I hope that its problems are solved as it (and China) grows up.

I intend to return at some point, and will visit Shanghai, Xi’an, Beijing, and revisit Hong Kong and Shenzhen. It’ll certainly be interesting to see Shenzhen in five years, or even a year from now, after all the new buildings have gone up.

I returned to the UK with a new layer of perspective to filter the world, and found that everything has shifted slightly.

But I will not miss the squat toilets.