Shenzhen Shopping

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Dongmen street is considered the "old" shopping street (the other concentrated shop area is close to the railway station). Indeed a lot of shops, however, it did not differ too much from e.g. Guangzhou, which also has pleasant shopping activities. We also visited the Mix shopping mall by taxi, but this was not as spectacular as we thought.

What to buy: Clothes

What to pay: Bargain and in any case you don't pay a lot :)

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Well, it's very easy to see this MALL. Outside the LouHu checkpoint there are few buildings. Hm, I'd say these buildings are fantastic. You can find all the international brands here, and the qualities are NOT bad. If you want to indulge yourself in a movie, buy a latest show here and bring back to your hotel. It's kind of chaotic, and that's why it is fasnating.

What to buy: Of course the branded stuffs... You pay 10 times more in town, what is the point of buying such expensive one.
Here I must clear one thing, you don't support piracy here, you buy one piece just for fun, at least this is my case.

What to pay: RMB, RMB, and RMB.

LuoHu Commercial City or Lowu (Lohu) Shopping Center is an enclosed shopping district within a huge building of just five floors. Hold on! There are corridors after corridors with countless stalls selling all whatever you have in mind. That will wait for you in every nook and corner of the LuoHu Complex.

And people do speak English in their way. Take care of pick pocketing, begglars and those who wanna steal your belongings.

Ofcourse the common activity here is ... bargaining! I cannot grant you the hint how to play the bargaining game. Just do it and get the best discount ever. I got some beautiful Prada shoes for only 160 Chinese yuan or RMB, that is about 16 Euros ... incredible, even for Christmas time! Or maybe a X-mas gift by spiritual powers ...

Retail shops are open 10.30 am to 08.30 pm, although massage parlours, hairdressers, beauty and nail treatments etc. usually open earlier and close later.

What to buy: Well, all of the products are that numerous so you will forget the exact gift you wanted by watching so many stuff. What belongs in a department store to buy you can find here. From touristy gifts to fashionable clothes, from trendy clothing to exquisite Chinese tradional costumes, from the latest movie DVDs to watches you've never seen from so close.

And do not forget the knockoff handbags, shoes, ceramics, curiosities, get a massage by one of the famous blind masseurs who are not fake!

Because... oh yeah, all, all is fake!!! Some are impressively detailed fakes!!!

LuoHu Commercial City next to ZhuHai is just the best for fake shoppings.

What to pay: 1 Euro/Dollar up to ... whatever.
Remember, the renminbi is the currency here, named yuan.
RMB - Renminbi means "people's currency".

1 EUR = 10,3314 CNY
1 Chinese yuan = 0.139187 U.S. dollars

This is such an unique art of painting.

Usually you walk along when watching this kind of paintings.

It looks like street-art out of the seventies.

Though this guy is painting in a very delicate way and put his paintings on whatever you want ...

What to buy: The painting artist got well-known for painting handbags, caps, sport shoes, t-shirts ... and jeans.

Because of the beautiful paintings on jeans we stopped and got some painted jeans.

It looks like "broderie perse", famous as the English Embroidery, and used a lot in the Baroque time during the 17th century.

This artist is creating a super well-done design job ...

What to pay: Don't forget to bargain ... some paintings start at 100RMB, though I've seen paintings on jeans of 700RMB

This several storey building is just after you crossed the border.

There are several floors selling everything is one easy building. There are escalators. You can find almost every silk, handicraft, watch, toy that you are looking for. There is a grocery, restaurants and blind masseurs too.

For imitation products, there are two types. Those that looks almost real and those that are cheaper but obvious fake a mile away. So ask for the A type, not B type.

Bargaining is an art. 10% is nothing. 30% or 50% is average. For expert shoppers, getting 70% discount of the opening price is a breeze.

This is the place where you kind buy immitation bag with best quality. The bag they sell is an imitation that is so alike the real one that you just happy not to spend as much money as you have to to be trendy and chic. They sell it cheap. The have best quality and likeness with the real one. They also offer lots of variation. Beside bags, it also sell imitation watches.

What to buy: Immitation bag and watches

What to pay: About 40% of the offer price from the seller

Go to the malls and look around, they are very nice and compared to Tampa Bay area malls quite the bargain. Write down some prices and head for the street markets. Now you can get the same quality for 1/3 the price, you have to be a little bit experienced to get the price down but you can with persistance.

What to buy: Everything, really!! Next time I go to China I will wear the clothes I have on and have one change. My 2 suitcases will be empty to bring more stuff home.

What to pay: Seriously not much! I found all kinds of bargains, it is fun to shop again, hahahaha!!!

I'd have to say that Central Walk is on its way of replacing my favorite Shenzhen mall, the MixC. Its got Subway sandwiches (the only other branch is in far Shekou), its got Kosmo, Starbucks, columbian coffeehouse Andes Cafe, Spaghetti House. Its got an arcade which MixC doesn't have (time to brush up on my dance revo skills), lots of my favorite clothing and footwear stores - Esprit, Giordano, Nike, adidas, Calvin Klein, etc. A huge department store, and huge grocery store, Carrefour. The architecture is cool as well. The place boasts of it's "green" architecture, using transparent rooftops so that natural light comes pouring into the semi-circular, multi-level mall. There's even a cinema. I could spend a day here.

What to buy: anything you fancy

What to pay: this mall is middle to high end