Shenzhen
8th August 2013
Shenzhen
is one of the most populous and richest cities in China. It is situated
in Guangdong, on the Hong Kong border about 40km north of Hong
Kong Central
Getting
to Shenzhen from Hong Kong is relatively easy. You take the Mass Transit
Railway (MTR) from central, you have to change trains a few times but is
straight forward clean and cheap (40 HKD) and takes about an hour
 | |
Getting into China - You need to buy a
5 day visa at Shenzhen station, its a bit of a administrative process but not
too painful. Fill in the visa application form and go to the first counter hand
it over with your passport, go to the second counter and pay ¥403 then go to the
third counter and collect you passport with the visa...you can now enter the
Special Economic region of Shenzhen
|
The
wife had read the guide books and one said that you are 8 times more likely to
get mugged here than in Shanghai so she was on her guard. There were the usual
number of people offering to take you to shops or tours but nothing too
intimidating
 | |
We decided to get our bearings first so
headed to the Shangri La (opposite the train station) for a cup of coffee. We
were not entirely sure why we were here or what we wanted to do. So we ended up
just going for a walk
|
 |
The Police
|
There are a significant number of
shopping malls, all very much the same as everywhere else in the world and we
ended up leapfrogging between them as 20 minutes outside in the heat was about
as much as we could handle before heading inside for some air conditioning
After a
day of wandering we headed back to the train station, where we were told, we
would find the best market
This has
10 floors of separate units selling (I assume mainly fake goods) clothing, hand
bags, watches, electrical items, paintings...and everything else in between.
I reminded me of the Silk Market in Bejing. You have to negotiate for
everything and I'm sure I paid too much ¥200 for 3 Polo shirts
What I
noticed was:
1) the
quality is actually very good
2) The
attention to detail, it has all the labels and even the carrier bag is branded
Nappies, powdered milk and Yakult!! seemed to be very
popular
Over all, the wife
wasn't that keen on Shenzhen. I think she never let her guard down after
reading to watch out for muggers. I found it reasonably clean, safe and modern
and I think there is more to see and do here but this was only an exploratory
visit. We will be back
 |
| Heading back home |
 |
| The Boarder on the Pearl River Delta |
No comments:
Post a Comment