Geek Tour 09
Checking out Hong Kong and China with a group of digital media geeks.
Back at Sketching In Hardware 2008, someone (I think it was Dale Dougherty or Tom Igoe) pointed out that we should put together a group of people to tour through China checking out how business is done, what the factories look like, good places to eat, etc. So here I am, seven months later hanging out in Hong Kong (drinking a Tsing Tao). It's 9PM here, 6AM where I'm from (MST)! Needless to say, I feel a bit off.
How do you get from SparkFun to Hong Kong you ask? Checkout the flight plan pictured above. The Continental flight out of Newark, NJ turned out the be the cheapest at ~$1000. One non-stop, 15 hour flight. I need a globe and a piece of string - that just doesn't seem right to me.
International travel reminds me just how much the rest of the world watches the United States. Regardless of your political slant (go Obama!), it was very edifying to see how much coverage the US economic recovery package got. It passed right? I get a check in the mail now, right?
Woot Hong Kong!
There are a lot of people in Hong Kong! This street-market went on for blocks and blocks and blocks. Really, for hundreds of blocks. Hong Kong is wonderfully amazing!
Shenzen is up next. Here's the tour crew you should follow in case I run out of homepage-post energy:
- Bunnie Huang - Chumby
- Tom Igoe - NYU/ITP and a couple of really good books
- Leah Buechley - LilyPad queen (now at MIT!)
- Jeevan Kalanithi - MIT and Siftables
- David Merrill - Checkout his recent TED talk
- Windell Oskay - Evil Mad Scientist Extraordinaire
- Eric Schweikardt - Computational Design Labs at CMU
Talk about a list of rock stars.
I almost forgot Che! There is a clothing line in Hong Kong that has now taken the popular t-shirt one step further. It's an entire store of digitized Che! Note the (lack of) hands. For that matter, what is he holding?
