Shenzhen Favorites

Favorite thing: Trying to imitating the famous West Lak (Xi Hu) is not just a large pond.

Carefully added are the traditional white walls and grey roofs of water village towns and stoned bridges over canals that dotted all over this beautiful part of China quoted by many famous Chinese historical literati and poets.

I would give a thumbs up for Splendid China in creating the West Lake atmosphere and the Hangzhou and Suzhou culture even with carefull selected bonzai trees.

Favorite thing: If you take a photo angle with carefully planned background view of the "Great Wall", you could make your friends back home think that you were in the Northern China at the Great Wall while you were actually in Southern China, near Hong Kong at Shenzen Splendid China theme park.

Of course, it is easier to digitally transfer your image on a real photo of the Great Wall, yet it is fun to do this the old fashioned way. I tried having many tourist heads, many garden plants and background skyscrappers to deal with.

What is interesting is that the "Great Wall" is used to encircle the park and used as a fencing barrier as dual purpose.

Favorite thing: If you have not been to Beijing, it is nice to see the entire Forbidden City laid out in front of you albeit miniaturized in size.

You appreciate the overall design of north south axis with marvellous golden yellow color stylized curving roofs. The size and the number of buildings is impressive as it was the imperial control center of the entire Chinese empire during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Excellent photo opportunity. Even having to Beijing and walking through the buildings and seeing the different thrones, I still find this well built representation of the Forbidden City a nice delight - bring back fond memories.

Favorite thing: Putakte! Napakatagal kong pinag isipan kung sa "warning / danger" category ko ilalagay ito pero hindi to dangerous kaya d2 nalang. ahahhaa!

Fondest memory: Sa Lo-wu, kung gusto mo ng saya (para sa mga lalaki), napakadami alok sa daan ng masahe. pimping time.. ahahahha massage, s*x, f*ck, s*ck ibig sabihin nila ng massage. ayun na yun.. sensya kung offensive dating ng mga words, pero maganda na yung klaro. ahhaha! young pretty chinese girls DAW. DAW ah, kasi indi ko naman alam eh, kinuwento lang sakin eh. wahahahhahahahahahahah

tatanungin ka ng mga bugaw kung saan hotel ka at ano room, papapuntahin nalang dun si nene.. hindi ko lang alam kung magkano ah, kasi ndi ko naman sinubukan eh. whahahahahahaha

3 more images

Favorite thing: One of my fondest memories was walking about 40 minutes from the Shenzhen Sunway Hotel to the town square area of Fuyong. It was a cooling day and I managed to have a good experience of a typical small industrial town in China. In fact, it was actually safer to walk around Fuyong town than in Shenzhen.

Favorite thing: You must, must, must bring a calculator when you're planning to shop at Shenzhen. Chinese people there don't know how to speak/understand English and you would need to calculator to ask for prices and for haggling.

Fondest memory: I saw a nice travel khaki pants at one of Shenzhen's shops. I saw an 8 on the tag price. I thought that means 8RMB so I asked the saleslady if 8RMB is the price. I can't speak chinese so i was pointing the 8 and the pants. She keeps on telling me something in Chinese and nodding at the same time so I thought the price is really 8RMB but when I gave her the calculator to punch in the price it was only then that i understood that the 8 in the tag price is the % discount of the item.

Favorite thing: Shenzhen currency is Renminbi (RMB). It is also referred to as YUAN.

Prevailing exchange rate is:
1 US Dollar = 8.29 Chinese Yuan Renminbi

Around Shenzhen Hongkong Dollars (HK$) is widely accepted. Most shop keepers like in Lo Wu preferred HK$ on payments.

There are a lot of counterfeit yuan, thus its highly recommended to change money on banks, good exchange rate too, there are a lot of banks in Shenzhen its open even on Saturday.
Just show your passport if changing money at the bank. They only copy the passport #. So if you memorize your passport #, no need to show actual passport. It works for us:-)

Credit cards are accepted in major hotels and establishments. Though on taxis and entrance fees at theme parks, credit card is not accepted.

Favorite thing: You can obtain a Visa for China in a lot of ways.

1) in your home country, this will be done via the Chinese embassy and it can take about one week before you get your passport back (my work arranged this one) and they need at least 2 photos.

2) In Hong Kong, you can ask your hotel to arrange you a Visa for China, but be aware this can be very expensive to obtain one in this way (60 to 120 US$ depending of the urgency, hey the hotels have to make money too) and they also need 2 photos.

3) At the Fu Yong Ferry terminal in Shenzhen, there is a small office outside the immigration hall where you can buy a Visa for China, this is only a single entry Visa and is only valid for one week. (100 HK$). No photo is needed.

4) When you go by train you will find at the China side just before the immigration a stairs that goes up and there is a small office where you can apply for a China Visa. Again this visa is only valid for one week and it’s a single entry. It takes about 10 minutes and you are on your way. Again no photo needed. It also costs you 100 HK$.

The last two are much cheaper then number 2. Be careful with option 3 and 4, some one pointed me out that this permit is only valid in the Shenzhen area.

There are maybe other ways to obtain a Visa for China, but these are the once that I used (except number 3).