China

Though not strictly part of our ‘big trip’, our time in Mainland China was really interesting. We stayed in the popular manufacturing district of Dongguan, and made day trips to Shenzhen and Zhongshan. This meant lots of travelling time and plenty of opportunities to gaze out from our windows and see these rapidly expanding landscapes. The difference between rural and urban, ancient and new, is astonishing. It is not hard to see that this is the producer of most of the world’s products, but it is hard to get your head around the scale of what this means.

We met suppliers, who were friendly, eager to introduce us to local cuisine, and intrigued as to whether we could handle chopsticks and drink lots of tea. We were shown old buildings, and taken to restaurants as well as trying out street food, with their translation help. We also made a visit to a supermarket to see the strange produce on offer. The factories were really interesting too, and got our minds quickly back into work-mode again. It was great to see so many manufacturing processes that we had previously only been able to read about.

Inside one of the oldest Dongguan buildings, now a bar

Olly contemplates the little chicken

Yummy dishes

Popular Taiwanese jelly ball drinks were everywhere!

We visited around a dozen factories