Not Too Many People Can Say They Went to China for Their (First) 29th Birthday! (Part 1)

Place: Shenzhen, China

Language: Mandarin Chinese

Hello: Nĭ hău (knee how)
Thank you: Xièxie (shie shie)

We just moved to Hong Kong and don't know many people yet. In addition, our apartment is only 800 square feet and Marc and I are sharing a small wardrobe for all of our clothes. In fact, when I was packing to move, I only brought about half of my clothes and about one-fourth of my shoes and handbags. Ladies, you know what a sacrifice it is to be without all your shoes and handbags. So, when Marc asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I couldn't say the normal things like going out to dinner with friends or a new outfit I've been lusting after for months. Instead, I said "Let's go to China!" Being the adventurous spirit I've grown to know and love, he readily agreed and started the process for getting our visas.

[Note: U.S. citizens do not need a visa to travel to Hong Kong and can stay for 90 days, but to travel to China, you must get a visa. The normal process takes about 5 days but can be expedited to 24 hours for an additional fee. If you come visit HK and want to go to China, which I highly recommend, either stay for 4-5 days until the visa is processed (expect to pay about $75-100 for a single entry) or do the expedited process (not sure how much, but it could be up to double the price of the visa).]

We prepared for the weekender for about 3 days by doing the following:
1 - Buying the Lonely Planet guidebook for China and reading select parts,
2 - Buying the Shopping Guide for Shenzhen (http://www.amazon.com/Shop-Shenzhen-Insiders-Ellen-McNally/dp/9628683934/ref=sr_1_10/102-4471363-6384922?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186549058&sr=8-10) and reading it cover to cover . . . twice, and
3 - Asking someone at Marc's work about where to go. We were advised not to go to Guangzhou because there isn't anything to do and not to wear any jewelry in Shenzhen.

Throwing caution to the wind, we decide to go to Guangzhou on Saturday, then take the train to Shenzhen that night so that we could spend the night in Shenzhen and wake up early to go shopping on Sunday.

Guangzhou is a huge city in China, about 2 hours outside of Hong Kong by train, yea we hadn't heard about it either. Ask anyone what the population is and you will get answers from 2 million to 20 million. I'm going to go with 7 million based on my quick Internet search. It is an industrial city, lots of manufacturing plants and office buildings and a whole lot of Chinese people. Make no bones about it, this is China. The signs are in Chinese, the people speak in Chinese and the maps are in Chinese. This place is not exactly on the list of 1,000 places to see before you die (http://www.amazon.com/000-Places-See-Before-You/dp/0761104844/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-4471363-6384922?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186549423&sr=8-1), but Marc and I had never been to China and we wanted to see what it was like, how people live and what they do. We analogize it to someone who has never been to the US, but decides to go to Minneapolis on their first visit to the States.

First stop on the tour, Temple of the Six Banyan Trees. We step off the train and get on the metro without any problems. When we emerge from the underground station, we hit a wall of reality and an outside temperature that rivals being 12 inches from the sun. We are on 藍色街道 Street, which from my map looks just like 紅色街道 Street and 紫色街道 Street. Thankfully, we have a compass/thermometer gadget. We head north from the metro station and note it is 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.77 degrees Celsius).

Along the way, we pass some cute streets and shops:

Then, with the aid of 6 homeless Chinese men, we stumble onto the box office window for ticket sales to the Temple, it is the size of a mail slot. We pay our 15 Chinese Yuan ($1.87 (US)) each and head into the courtyard where we find a 9-story pagoda:

Holy cow, I was not expecting this! Then, we notice that there are several Chinese people lighting incense sticks and waving them in front of the Buddha shrines. Then, they start kneeling and praying, standing up, then kneeling and praying, over and over. We quietly made our way through the courtyard, noticing the bonsai trees and monks until we got to a building in the back from which we heard chanting. When we peeked in the doorway, we saw a monk playing a gourd and chanting while 2 Chinese women were doing the kneeling, praying, standing thing in front of 3 enormous golden Buddha statues.

We were not in Kansas anymore. It was, by far, the most exotic thing I've ever seen in my life. We spent another few hours at the temple, visiting all the buildings and going up to the top of the pagoda. We learned nothing because, as I said before, all the signs were in Chinese but we enjoyed our visit and took lots of pictures. Hopefully that wasn't sacrilegious or anything, I figured someone would come running at us, pointing at the camera saying "no, no!" if it was, so I think we're good.

Next, I wanted to go to a memorial, so we got our trusty compass back out and made our way to a park. Along the way, we stopped at a farmer's market where Marc bought a pear-apple (a hybrid fruit between a pear and an apple, it's good, you should try it). Fearing Japanese Encephalitis and all permutations of Hepatitis, I opted to starve until we could find a McDonald's. Marc, on the other hand, wanted to look around the outdoor market. It smelled awful, like dead fish rotting in 100 degree weather. You know why? Because further into the market were tanks of live fish. But not just fish, oh no, there were also shrimp, crab, squid, frogs, turtles, scorpions and those reptiles with no legs I'm deathly afraid of. So, I high-tailed it out of there before I could see any other animals not suitable for human consumption in most countries.

[Note: In the Lonely Planet guidebook, it talks about a market similar to the one I just described. This is the exact description from the book: "Just north of Shamian Island, what is bizarrely translated as Peaceful Market (Qingping Market) has vast displays of medicinal herbs, dried mushrooms and other plants, live birds, and tubs of squirming turtles, fish and frogs. Much harder to stomach, though, are its cages of live animals, including kittens and puppies, and more exotic creatures such as bats, owls and monkeys - all put out for human consumption, and some in the most pitiful distress. It is one of the most notorious markets in China, and though it has cleaned up is act in the past several years it remains a disturbing place and is not recommended." Thank you Marc, for bringing me to the second most disturbing market in China.]

Along the way, we realized that while we were the tourists learning about a different culture, it seemed that we were the ones on display. All day long, Chinese people were staring at us, and not in the "hey baby" kind of way but in the "wow, there are two of those mythical round-eyes we keep hearing about." Entire families with children would stare at us as they walked past and even turned around to keep staring. We just smiled and waved in acknowledgment. I'm sure we made for interesting dinner conversation that night.

When the outer layer of our epidermis finished melting, I decided to skip the Dr. Sun Yatsen Memorial and Orchid Garden and head to the train station. The closest one was described in Lonely Planet as chaotic and seething mass of humanity and they under-estimated in their description. There were THOUSANDS of people outside waiting for trains, women on loudspeakers shouting in Chinese, signs in Chinese changing every few seconds. It was PANDEMONIUM. The sea of people parted just long enough for me to see a Kentucky Fried Chicken and we decided to grab lunch. If there is such a thing as fire code maximum capacities, this place exceeded it 10 times over. Ordering was a little difficult, Chinese again but luckily there were pictures:

We used hand signals and the universally understood phrase "Pepsi" to get lunch. After that, we headed to the train station with some English signs and made it to Shenzhen by dinner-time.

Stayed tuned for Part 2 of the story: Shenzhen, or Heaven on Earth.