In early December 2013, along with ten other students and two supervising professors, I went on an eleven-day study tour to China. It was the first study trip held by Griffith University's planning faculty, and as far as I know, there has yet to be a second. It was thus a unique opportunity for us to step out of the classroom to experience first-hand the extraordinary scale of urbanisation in Chinese megacities.

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We travelled to Hong Kong and Shenzhen, where urban development at an unprecedented rate produced booming business and tourism, but not without causing a number of environmental and social issues in the process. Over the eleven days of our trip, we attended lectures at Hong Kong University and Hong Kong Baptist University, visited museums and galleries, and explored commercial, industrial and open recreational spaces to learn about these impacts, observe and analyse them.

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Hong Kong had high-density housing, pocket parks, chaotic traffic, and vibrant, bustling excitement spilling out onto the streets, while Shenzhen - which had grown from a village home to approximately 30,000 people into a megacity with a population of almost 12 million within a few decades - was more visibly polluted, less vegetated, and comparably stark in appearance. However, we were only in Shenzhen for two days, during which time we spent in the more industrial areas, as opposed to the commercial hubs in Hong Kong.

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I was most impressed by the pocket parks I saw in Hong Kong, situated in the narrow alleyways between high-rise apartment buildings, utilised even late at night by young families who resided there. The tram service in Hong Kong was also impressive. It ran frequently enough that the narrow tram stops had no need for seats, unlike the comfortable wide tram stops we now have on the Gold Coast.