The books say that Shenzhen is a modern but “soulless” or “characterless” city, having grown up very quickly from almost nothing some 30-odd years ago to a major commercial and financial centre. I can’t really say from my brief visit whether that assessment is correct or not, but it seemed slightly unfair. … Read more...
This evening I will leave Shenzhen, so for the day, Lulu took me to a very old part of the city, but which had some modernisation going on – “Where the old meets the new”. A place called, I think, “Gan Keng Kejia Xiao Zhen” (甘坑客家小镇).
It was a strange place, with some really nice parts and some really, really run down parts.… Read more...
Returning from Splendid China, having quickly freshened up in the hotel, I met up with Lulu and Maribel. I really enjoyed it. I hope she felt is was worth coming all the way from Guangzhou just to see me!
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Despite being soaking (with sweat, not rain, ewww!), I gained another fan in the Metro on the way back…
“Cassie” just wants to practise speaking English with any foreigner she sees.
Being in China sometimes felt like being a celebrity. I assumed it was because I am British / white. But Maribel had a few of her own theories (which I won’t share here).… Read more...
This morning, another rainy morning, Lulu came to my hotel to wait for the delivery guy to come to package the things I wanted to send home. This was a great help as not only would I have been charged excess baggage on three flights, I was breaking my back trying to haul 30kgs around, plus my rucksack. … Read more...
Claire had asked to meet up, so in the evening I joined her and Ana for dinner. It was lovely to catch up with them again (especially Claire, because I had already seen Ana in Beijing :p ).
We talked for a long while, even after Ana had left for her hour-long journey home, but I can’t really remember what we talked about now, which is sad, because I feel perhaps that means it wasn’t of much importance :'(
When we parted, I headed to the metro thinking I had enough time to catch the last one, but it turned out I was too late – it seems my app had the wrong times.… Read more...
Because of the heavy rain this morning, Lulu took me to the museum and we spent a pleasant time just looking at the artefacts. There wasn’t always much English, so I didn’t learn very much – I recognise it is quite tiring for someone to continually try to interpret things, but Lulu did her best to tell me about a number of things of interest.… Read more...
Everyone got home safely last night.
The wind does not seem to have been as strong as it could have been – unless I slept through it.
Just torrential rain.
The area I’m in doesn’t seem to be too badly affected, but Bona shared these pictures of her way to work this morning:
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British understatement. Shenzhen has heavy rain at the moment and getting worse.
It’s “warm” too.
View of the area near my hotel:
I had some time before meeting the others for the meal, so I took a look around the nearby shopping centre before going to the other hotel where Lynn had booked the restaurant.… Read more...
On the train half way to Shenzhen, Bona told me that I was heading into a typhoon!
http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/nySvGt29HCIkPbwsBe-EFg
This was quite unnerving for someone who has never experienced one before. I was told they happen regularly though. And it was only a “yellow warning” and no one on the train seemed particularly bothered, so I tried not to think too much more about it.… Read more...