Isofarro

I’m basing my current trip to Shenzhen around the district of Luohu. Luohu has it’s own border crossing; the LoWu station on the Hong Kong side, which is reachable via the Hong Kong train service. Today’s route sees us taking a bus and a train to the border crossing, and a proper Shenzhen taxi to […]

I got a new Macbook Air a year ago. In the weeks I spent setting it up as my main work machine I made the deliberate decision not to install Flash. I figured I would hit a case where it became clear I needed Flash. A year later and I still don't have Flash installed.

Flash is no longer an essential plugin on the desktop/laptop Web. It is non-existent on mobile. It is no longer the default way to consume video on the Web.

When we talk about sites that can support multiple languages we talk about internationalisation (and it’s short form i18n). We also talk about localisation (l10n), and locale, language, and countries.

In China, all foreigners are required by law to register for a temporary residence permit. The correct document name is “Registration Form of Temporary Residence”. The law requires foreigners (referred to as “aliens”) apply for a temporary residence permit within 24 hours of entering mainland Chinaor moving residences within China. This is 72 hours if […]

In December last year China linked up the last piece of the high speed railway line between the two Chinese powerhouse cities, Beijing and Hong Kong. This high speed train reaches speeds in the excess of 300 kilometres per hour, covering the distance between Shenzhen and Beijing (2400 kilometres) in a little over 10 hours. […]

OCT East is another of Shenzhen’s sprawling theme parks, among the mountains east of Shenzhen in the Yantian District. It is a diverse park, so there is something for everyone, from sedate and amusing 3D rides to insane looking rides that make bungee jumping look like a Sunday afternoon hair wash in the sink, and […]

Shenzhen doesn’t have a London-like A-Z that I could find. And since it’s a relatively new city growing in leaps and bound, maps are very quickly going to be out-of-date, inaccurate, or missing useful travelling information (e.g. Metro stops). So I looked out for a few alternatives. Static digital maps At the most primitive, the [...]

I spent Thursday trying to figure out how to get from my hotel in Shenzhen to Hong Kong International Airport. Again, the ferry was a tempting route, but still too much uncertainty, and I didn’t have the time to get to Shekou and scout around and recon, nor was I confident about my knowledge about [...]

I spent this afternoon walking around the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center. It is one of the most recognisable buildings in Shenzhen, and is the heart of Shenzhen. It’s about five or six blocks from my hotel, but with the ongoing construction work there isn’t a straightforward route to it. At least the Exhibition Tube [...]

Yesterday’s successful Metro venture meant that today I could do the touristy thing. I opted to visit Splendid China Folk Village, which is part of the massive Overseas Chinese Town (OCT) segment of Shenzhen (Window of the World is also part of OCT). Splendid China Folk Village used to be two separate theme parks, one [...]