As mentioned yesterday today was another package tour, this time to Shenzhen, China. As much as anything it allowed me to say I officially visited the mainland under Chinese administration. The day started with breakfast in the lounge then downstairs for the pickup at 7:50. There followed about 50 minutes of bus ride picking people up and switching buses to the one to take us where we were going and all that which eventually had me one train stop away from the hotel in the opposite direction I had generally been taking. A long time to go someplace it could have taken me 5 minutes to get to.
On the tour were 3 other people, a family from Australia, more specifically Perth. They were mother and father and daughter all come to Hong Kong together. They have apparently done this trip a few times and even similar tours into Shenzhen a few times as well. They were very nice and easy to get along with as with most Aussies. The trip officially started riding the East Rail Line to Lo Wu. Amusing, it started from Hung Hom, the last stop out on the line just beyond Mong Kok East where the hotel is. The ride was first class and ran all the way to Lo Wu. It took about 45 minutes to get to the immigration center. There we had to clear Hong Kong immigration then China immigration. The tour basically vouches for the tourists so you don't have to get a real visa to get into China like would be the normal situation. Instead everyone is listed on one sheet and have to go in order on that sheet. I was number four. They were lucky because apparently they won't process the visas without 4 so if I hadn't signed on it would have been canceled. We didn't get stamps of any sort from China on our passports.
First stop out of the immigration center was the Meridian Building where we went up to the 69th floor to see the pea soup clouds outside. Our guide in China was named Maggie and she was nice and spoke English better than I expected though her pacing was oddly sing-songy, probably a product of her speaking Mandarin. The stop wasn't long and with the lacking view it wasn't very exciting either. After the Meridian center we went to the China Mineral Center and Museum. The early part of this stop was a guided tour of a small museum about jade and other materials and they even have a couple of the actual Terra Cotta Army on display. It was reasonably a fun bit and the girl who ran that part of the tour was very cute and also spoke English well (no pictures allowed inside so I couldn't get her picture). After that part it was like being in TSL. I again was not interested in buying jewelery so I waited it out and then we had a short tea tasting before moving on to lunch.
I am not sure what the lunch place was called but I can say that the meal was less than stellar. There were hairs on the table and I found one in the salad too. They had beef with broccoli, radish strips with chili, hacked chicken, bok choy and rice. Because we were only 4 they gave us a hard time about drinks and we really didn't get any. Definitely not my favorite meal of this trip but the food was edible and no one appeared to get sick.
After lunch we split up with the family going to the Window of the World theme park and myself going to the Chinese Cultural Village theme park. My park is apparently complex and the guide stayed with me and brought me through it and talked about the various stuff inside. It is basically an open air museum dedicated to the various minority cultures in China such as the Mongols and the Tibetans. There are apparently 55 minorities in China. They enjoy status that allows them to avoid many of the rules the majority families have to deal with such as child limits and the like. It was an interesting park and the extra help from the guide made it kind of neat. After that I had a few minutes to run to the Splendid China part of the park and see miniature versions of the Great Wall and Forbidden City and the like. The Window of the Wold was apparently a park that has a lot of world monuments in miniature, not just Chinese stuff. I was very happy with my choice instead of that.
After the theme park we had to pick up the Aussies and then headed back to Lo Wu to do the shopping center market thing. I was not really nuts about this. The place is filled with people that jump at you at the instant you are in sight. You have to not make eye contact and not acknowledge them or they will not leave you alone. I would only have been in to buy tourist souvenirs but there wasn't a one to be found in the entire center. We had an hour in there. I didn't buy anything. They bought a couple things. After the shopping it was back through both immigrations and onto the train back. Fortunately they just let me get out at Mong Kok East and I could head right back to the room.
I was fairly hungry by this point so headed out to get dinner but since I was fairly tired I decided to just go to Freshness Burger in the mall. I apparently witnessed an American having a breakdown about being in Hong Kong as she flipped out over what type of burger she ordered versus what she was given. I think there was a disconnect in terminology. In any event the burger was reasonable enough for me and I followed up with an end of trip ice cream at Hagen Daz repeating the caramel, biscuit and cream cone that I had before because I liked it. From there it was time to head up and start packing for the return home on Monday.
The pictures from today are located here.
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