Weekend Trip to Shenzhen

This past Monday was a holiday in China –  the Quingming Festival or Tomb Sweeping Day. From that day on the temperatures are supposed to rise and the rain period starts which indicates the ideal time for sowing. It is not only an agricultural holiday but on that day Chinese people also pay respect to the dead. Tomb sweeping is the most important custom of the Quingming Festival. Many Chinese go back to their hometowns to pay respect to their ancestors. They clear away the weed around the tomb and plant new flowers or just bring a fresh flower bouquet.

For me, this meant that I did not have to go to work. Although according to my boss usually these holidays have to be compensated on a Saturday. Luckily, he did not insist on that, so I do not need to go to work this upcoming Saturday.

Me and some other interns used this long weekend to visit another city. We decided to go to Shenzhen which is just an hour ferry ride away from Zhuhai.

Shenzhen is located above Hong Kong and has over 10 million inhabitants. Only 30 years ago this big city used to be a fisher village called Boan Country. In 1979 it was given the name Shenzhen City and the first Economic Zone in China was established there in 1980. Today, it is also called the Silicon Valley of China due to the many technology companies that are based in the area. There aren’t many historical sites or beautiful landscapes but there are several amusement & theme parks. I guess that’s their compensation. I will talk about the ones we visited in a separate post.

From the ferry port Shekou we took the subway to our hotel which was located in the Luohu District, at the other end of the city. It took us over an hour to get there but the subway was air-conditioned and the cheapest transportation mean.

We stayed at the Sunon Hotel which was supposed to be a 4-star hotel, although I would classify it as a good 3-star hotel. Without knowing we chose a great location, because there are many shops and restaurants in the area. After the check-in we enjoyed lunch at one of the street food places. We ordered different dishes and shared them. My favorite was the honey bread.

The Dongmen Pedestrian Street is supposed to be the No.1 shopping center of the city. As you can imagine that attracts tons of people. The shops are small and typical Chinese, so bargaining is highly recommended. I felt a little bit overwhelmed by all the different shops and I didn’t even know what to buy, so we just walked around. You could see many fake products, some of a better and others of a worse quality.

My friend and I wanted to get our nails done. We let a Chinese girl in the streets talk us into it and followed her to a complex with many small shops. At one place you could even get colorful hair extensions and wigs. We sat down in the pink seats and then tried to tell them what we wanted. We were afraid that they would give us fake nails. Instead, we figured out after some time that they wanted to sell us the more expensive gel nails and massages. With much effort and a call to a friend of theirs who knew some English, they understood that we just wanted regular nail poslish. They did a really good job in filing our nails. My nails were done by a man which surprized me a little. The painting part was less pleasing. The polish must have been quite cheap…Nevertheless, it was a fun experience.

Before taking the ferry to go back to Zhuhai on Monday, we went to Sea World for lunch which is very close to the port. Sea World has nothing to do with the American Sea World. It is another attraction park but there is also a plaza with many Western-style restaurants and other entertainment spots. There is a big ship in the middle of the area which probably gave the area its name. We had Mexican food at the Tex-Mex while a thunderstorm suddenly came up. But the food was good and a perfect end for our trip.