So I have arrived with Michael after he came to pick me up at my hotel in HongKong. We had lunch together in a western food joint just at the end of the mall. Then we took the free shuttle to the airport and then a minivan that took us to the border of China. ( $27- each one way) but that was super fast. We were there in just under half an hour. At the border we got out, and walked to customs for me to purchase a 5 day visa. I let Michael do most of the talking. They wanted my passport, and a new passport photo and with that they made a new piece of paper that became the visa . After that I walked over the the customs control check point. Here I was fingerprinted and the guy looked very hard at my passport photo in my passport, and took ages clicking with his hands on his computer. Then he looked at me and said" smile!". So I did. Then he looked again and again and then he asked me if I had an other type of ID card with me. So I brought out my NZ drivers licence. He looked again and asked me to smile again. By this time I thought, Oh no, whats going on? I said" It is me" and he slightly smiled. Then finally he let me go. Michael explained to me that anyone with a new passport , they think it's suspicious that you haven't been anywhere and sometimes people that know how this all works, bring their old passport to verify that you really are genuine and not a fake passport. Get used to it, he said, this is China. After we walked into Mainland China, Mike found the Metro . After a little hiccup with his card, we both got in and went to just one stop and got out. There we just looked around at the downtown area and then went to a different Metro to go to his place. I am so glad I had Mike with me all this time. I would never had been able to do this without him. The little apartment I have is great, on the 9th floor. His one is an other huge tower 2 minutes walk from mine. He is on the 26th floor. I can't put any photos on my Facebook because China blocks Facebook, Messenger, What's App and lots more. I am now on Mike computer who uses a proxy network to get on to Facebook( VPN) So the photos will come tomorrow when I am back in HongKong. Mike will take me back there too so we can do some stuff there like going up the cable car to the golden buddha statue. Last night we had a nice dinner at a huge shopping mall, we had friend ride , cauliflower in chilli and sweet and sour pork.( sweet and sour pork is quite rare, it is mainly a western thing.)
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| in ShenZhen |
The humidity is very bad here and oppressively hot. Bit better now. Today no rain, cloudy and nice. Bye for now.
Just a little follow up . Had a good night sleep in my cute Airbnb apartment. Breakfast at Mike's place. We then head into an other area of the city. By the way what i noticed is that there are hardly any other white people and the locals stare at me and Mike like we are unicorns. It's quite embarrassing actually. They look at you hard and when you look at them they look away and when you look away, they look at you again. This is specially in the metro. But also in the park. We went to something like the sky-tower. Its 69 stories high. It cost $17- to get up but really worth the view. Took loads of photos which i will post tomorrow when i'm back in HONGKONG. Ok enough for now. We are going to the old part of the city of ShenZhen ( pronounced ShenJen)to have dinner and to see the night life night the street stalls and huge Neon lights bill boards.
Part 3 of China and Hong Kong: Michael took me to the " old town" of ShenZhen yesterday. There is was very similar to Vietnam, with hasslers, Hawkers and people that try to get you to buy there stuff. One lady followed us for ages trying us to buy something off her so Michael said in Chinese Mandarin, " Go away" and she got such a shock that Michael could speak Mandarin, that she backed off straight away. We went through a maze of small streets with lots of foodstalls, the food didn't appeal to me although a few had nice skewers of satay chicken kebabs but we didn't feel it was a very hygienic place. He said maybe you see some scorpions of a skewer stick but we didn't see that. We saw pigs feet ( roasted) and more disgusting stuff I wouldn't touch.But the sounds, the smells and the lights( big neon lights everywhere) were sensory overload.
With going in the Metro and trains, before you go to the platform , all your luggage, bags and whatever you have goes into an X-ray machine. They had a terrorist attack some years ago and since then they upgraded on security. Everywhere are surveillance camera's , when you come out of the station you look straight into a camera, they are really everywhere, in the parks etc etc. It became night and all the people came out and there were also lots of little police stations so the people could see the police was there. Hmmm Brave new world everyone? I was actually getting sick of the crowds and the noise but I had a taste of China.The shopping malls in China( ShenZhen has a population of 17 million and is the fastest growing city in the world) are huge shopping malls. St Lukes is a tiny one to compare to these ones. and they are everywhere.
Also my first squat toilet since 1997( since our Morocco trip) was at the border, not a bad one though. In the shopping malls they have both so you can choose, but at MacDonalds near Mike's place they only had a squatty job so I waited till we were back at Mike's place. I stayed at an identical apartment as his just a few steps away. That was through airbnb. Nice studio with everything in it. So today we came back again from China into HongKong, same way, with the shuttle( like a minivan- like a sharutz) when it's full they go. It was fast , only half an hour from the border to the airport. From there we took the free bus to Novotel here. Today we went up the big buddha by cable car. That was the longest cable car I have ever been on. Several KM's by cable car up and over the mountains, turning a corner and fantastic scenery. Today was 35 C and at 5 pm it was 33 C. Mike left to go back to ShenZhen after we finished the cable car and walked to the top of the hill at the foot of the statue. ( 235 steps in the heat) we drank lots of water. I had a swim in the pool. Had a quick dinner here at a cheap outlet. Now I am ready to go to sleep.
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