Shenzhen(China): 1N/2D

December 2017 (by YK)      Itinerary Link

It was supposed to go like this is in Shenzhen:

We arrive at Shenzhen North Station just after noon & take a taxi to our Airbnb studio, about a 10 minute walk south of the Convention Center. After a quick lunch nearby, we take  the metro to Dafen Oil Painting Village, at one time the birthplace of 60% of all the fake paintings in the world. It’s not as busy now, but I’ve heard it’s still a vibrant 24-hour operation. Being the daughter of a painter, the whole notion of mass production of oil paintings was mind boggling, and I wanted to witness it.

Coming back to the Convention Center area, we’d look for the Peking Duck place recommended by our host and have a feast. Satisfied, we would walk some pounds off our belly at the Window of the World park, a miniature replica of the world’s architecture. This is not the kind of thing we’d do for a big admission fee, but you get 50% off after 7:30 PM. And anyone over 70 gets in free. You can reach there by metro. After a tour of the world, we’d be ready for a nice full body massage.

Well, it didn’t work out that way.  Our host gave us wrong directions to her place, and we wasted a couple of hours just to get into the right place. By the time we dumped our bags in the studio, we were starving and dead tired. So I had 6 pieces of chicken nuggets at KFC(we had to be there to use Wifi). By this time, it was getting dark already.

After recovering a bit, we walked to the convention center area to find our Peking Duck. Nope. The Chinese name she gave us did not help much, and we could not find it. After a good search, we gave up & walked into a restaurant that seemed to serve ducks. Surprise! We ordered a half of a duck, and there was plenty to eat($16), and it was one of the best we’ve ever had, including the famous Peking Duck places in Beijing. Tong Shun Ju restaurant is a chain, it turned out. Pretty fancy but not too expensive. We spent about $30 for the duck and a seafood dish + beer. Great food.

We could not find a massage place, either. The next morning, it took less than 10 minutes to get to Futian border crossing, just an 11 Yuan cab ride, and that was good! The border processing building was huge & it was quite confusing to figure out where to go. We saw a sign for MTR & thought it meant the MTR in Hong Kong. Shenzhen, too, calls its own system MTR, and Hong Kong MTR runs the Line 4 metro of Shenzhen. Confusing! Finally, a lady worker for Shenzhen MTR, who could not speak English, took us by hand to the right area. It was very nice of her!

After exiting China border control, which had long lines but processed quickly, we walked over to Hong Kong immigration. Long lines & quick processing. Then we followed the signs to Hong Kong MTR. Yes, signs in English. What a relief! much to our surprise, the metro cars were not crowded. We could not help wondering where everyone had gone.