h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's a lifetime since I've been in the PRC (if you are a seven year old child that is) and it has changed greatly in that time.
They are constructing an underground railway system, so crossing roads is even more precarious than usual - pieces of iron over VERY steep drops. They work day and night and work extremely hard, with shovels of heavy clay at shoulder height.
This means the noise doesn't stop either which is hard going for the friend I went to visit in hospital, but my hotel was back from the road and I didn't notice.
My friend is having better care than she had in Hong Kong and her partner is also able to sleep at the hospital. It would help if any of us spoke Mandarin, but various translators have been found/volunteered and how many native English doctors or nurses could manage even the basic smattering of Chinese that her doctor has in English?
The visa process was easy as even Brits are now allowed to buy them at the border, but Shenzhen now has its own home-grown taxi touts and it's quite a job fobbing them off to walk to where the local licensed ones operate from. And of course, although I used to visit often, I don't recognise any of the new skyscrapers. So I didn't know if we were going the right way.
I'm going to spend most of today (Thursday)lazing on the sofa

It's so strange when you are somewhere so familiar but at the same time so different.