Culture Shock CHINA!
DAY 66 – DEC 20 – HONG KONG to SHENZHEN, CHINA
Sooooo, my traveling pace is not for everybody. Tina wanted to chill in Hong Kong, but for me already being here, I wanted to see Shenzhen….the only other city in China you can go to without a huge visa process…. Or so I was told.
I set out very early, checked out the markets not too far from our hotel in Hong Kong. Came back to the room to drop my purchases and grab the bare minimum to head to Shenzhen for 2 nights. Little did I know what lay ahead of me.
I followed all the train signs ‘To Shenzhen’. Little did I know, when I arrived on the other side, on to mainland China that the rules are entirely different. There are no instructions. I made my way, step by step, inching my way into mainland China. I think every single step I took, I was rejected and sent back to somewhere else.
When I finally made it into what I thought was the customs line up (who knew I would have to go through customs from Hong Kong, China to mainland China!?) – the officer told me to go stand behind a yellow line. Many people were being rejected, and nothing was in English so I had no idea what was happening, just praying I would get the green light go-ahead.
I waited behind the yellow line. Another lady came to take my passport from me. She took it with her and disappeared for over 30 minutes. I thought she forgot about me. Finally, she reappeared, walked straight to me and yelled in my face “Go back to Hong Kong!” pointing to the way back and giving me back my passport. I said, Excuse me?. She said Go back to Hong Kong!. I said, why?? She said, Go back to Hong Kong!!! I said, I do not understand. She was so angry with me and with life, another woman came to me and said, you need a visa. You can go upstairs to apply for a visa. OMG.
I went upstairs, at this point it was about 3:30pm… the visa office closed at 5pm. I took a number and waited to be called. Finally, I was called, they asked a bunch of questions.. I paid a fee, filled out an application, and they took my passport while I waited. I waited over an hour. They finally came back with one of the pages in my passport now a full visa allowing me into mainland China for 5 days.
I walked out of their office glancing at my watch, now 4:45pm – got this just in the nick of time.. I proudly went downstairs and back into the foreigner customs lineup. I finally get to the front, hand it over and she says, ‘you have to go to the back to fill our an application form’. What!!?? So back I go again! Fiilled it out and stood in line AGAIN.
I ended up going through I believe 4 customs-like guarded points for fingerprints and photos and on and on… I cannot imagine crime EVER happening in mainland China! Every single child was inspected head to toe and matched to their application and passports. This was not for believing!!
I felt like a miracle happened when they finally passed my final inspection. I came with one small backpack, bare bones. I almost didn’t bring my passport! I had no clue about all of this.
At this point, I was now trying to chase the sunset from the tallest building in Shenzhen. I hailed a cab to the Ping An Financial district skyview. Nobody speaks a word of English and my phone didn’t seem to be working ( I didn’t clue in at this time yet). My cab driver somehow got me to the building – which in hindsight was also a miracle – because later that night, I realized that for the next 20 miles in every direction, everything said Ping An on it so I guess it was a district. I have literally no clue how he got me to the proper building that I was asking for. Especially because when I was going to get out of the cab, he was trying to tell me I was at the wrong spot for a sunset, but neither of our phones was working to translate so we wasted a bunch of time trying to communicate this.
I ran in, got myself to the top just in time to catch the end of the sunset in Shenzhen. The culture here was already entirely different. It felt to me everyone was angry. Every cab driver was chain smoking and snorting so loudly and spitting out the windows every 2 minutes. Which was common all over Asia, but this was next level. And everyone who was speaking was full on yelling at the top of their lungs. I felt like everyone around me was screaming so loudly but I think they were all just talking.
At this point, I just wanted to get to my hotel to get my phone working so I could check in with people and get a sense of where everything was at. I somehow got my new cab driver the right address of my hotel. We pulled up to an unbelievable huge, gorgeous hotel, wow. Ok…
I got my room, was getting ready to do some work – at which point I finally realized…. That mainland China is blocked from every single access other than tiktok. No google (which means no gmail so I could not email), no safari, no texting, no whatsapp, no facebook, no Instagram, no youtube, no prime, no Netflix, no nothing. I was 100% cut off from the world. I started to feel anxiety. Literally nobody knew where I was.
I have had 5 people with my location the entire time I was traveling so they all knew where I was at all times. I suddenly felt completely alone in the world, with no way to contact anybody. I figured out my Grand Palms email worked, I thought, since we had our own domain… so I emailed our accountant / friend to please contact my family that I was out of service and would be back the next day.
I made an executive decision to high-tail it back to Hong Kong the next morning. This was for the birds!!
DAY 67 – DEC 21 – SHENZHEN to HONG KONG, CHINA
I woke up, went to the fancy restaurant for my free buffet breakfast. Then I went walking to see the few things I had really wanted to see in Shenzhen. I intended to visit Queen’s Spa and Dining, which was not far from my hotel. There are spas in Shenzhen known for all service convention center type places. Massive spas with a menu of massage, pedicure, manicure, hair, pools, and any other treatment you can imagine – including lounging in pyjamas and ordering food and drinks watching movies.
I turned my video on as I walked in and wow, what a greeting I received. Beautiful! Unfortunately, their hair staff was not there that day, so I took a brief tour of the women’s change rooms but not allowed past that point.
That was enough of Shenzhen for me. Get me back to Hong Kong. Shenzhen more modern for sure, crazy modern. But I liked Hong Kong much more!! Older city but I really liked Hong Kong, not to mention I would have access to the world again.
I took the train / subway back to the ladies market area, did some more shopping. I booked a room by the harbour front on Expedia, the room looked great. I took the subway train there. Being back in Hong Kong, my phone was not working! Shenzhen literally messed up my phone so now I had no way to get directions to anywhere.
I got myself back on the subway train to get to the harbour front. From there, I was asking a staff person for directions when another girl walked up and said, I speak English, would you like some help? Wow!! Sure!
This girl’s name was Jennifer! She spent the next half our with me just showing me the area, so kind!! She was an editor at a Hong Kong newspaper. She showed me my hotel, which in itself is an insane story oh my!!!!!
My train stopped at I square. Which was directly across from a building called Chunking Mansions – where apparently was my hotel. I went into Chungking Mansions. This was straight out of a movie, I will have a hard time explaining this one.
I stopped typing to google Chungking Mansions and WOW, what I learned just now!! I had no clue this is the most famous building in Hong Kong lol. Watch a video on this place just to catch a glimpse of where I stayed this night. Now, knowing all of this – I’m glad I stayed there because I probably would not have, had I known what I know now!
My room – how can I explain this. The hallways were dirty, loud, multi-cultural! This building has I think 4 quadrants, each quadrant has I think 17 floors and each floor has countless hotels and hostels. So you get off the elevator and you see hand-made wonky signs for 7 hotels, each door is a different hotel. OK…!!??.....
I arrived at my ‘hotel’. A dingy, tiny room – a happy, go lucky girl! She called someone to show me to my room, which we walked down some very filthy stairs – walls full or urine or vomit or who knows what.. he showed me to my room, which was inside a ‘hotel’ door, and inside that door were multiple ‘rooms’. I think I was in shock.
I left immediately to walk down to Louis Vuitton, had to visit the one in China. No, I didn’t buy anything – the one thing I was considering buying they were sold out of so that was my sign. I went down to the harbour to catch the sunset…. Absolutely stunning! I bought a ticket for a 7:30pm boat cruise to watch the 8pm light show of the harbour.
Ran home quick to charge my cell phone, grab a bite to eat, and back to the harbour for the boat ride. Was spectacular!! Since I was still alone, traveling solo always provides the best seat on any tour. I was able to sit up at the front of the open bow by the captain, wind in my face – and best view on the boat. Amazing.
I walked back home to grab my laptop and went to work at Starbucks until 10pm close to Chunking Mansion on Nathan Road.
When I retired to my room, about 11pm my little hotel became a full-on party zone. Different languages scream – talking. They may as well have been in my room. Dragging furniture, singing, laughing,… I just googled the fact that there are 1980 rooms in Chungking Mansions. Imagine. There are very few rules.
My ‘hotel’ quieted down about 1am. I turned my cell phone white noise fan on HIGH and I actually got some sleep. WHAT A DAY!!
I would say the past 2 days were the most difficult of my trip, yet I would never change a thing. Happy to have experienced all of it.
DAY 68 – DEC 22 – HONG KONG, CHINA
I got up today about 8:30am, got ready and walked back to the hotel where Tina was staying, a 45-minute walk. I asked her if she wanted to attend a church service, there was a church almost right beside our hotel. We went to catch the tail end of a Chinese church service. Wow, these peope did put us to shame, they were so hospitable and welcoming!!
We decided to check out and head to our last hotel night, close to the airport. We learned we could take a free shuttle to a massive mall, so we did that. I only stayed one hour, caught the bus back to our hotel to shower, wash my hair and pack for the morning. Tina shopped for a few hours.
I had the best hour long zoom with Jado. He is leaving to India the same day I will be arriving back in Kelowna. I will say I had many tears on this call, wishing for a Christmas hug from my very tall son.
Tina and I went to a fancy dinner in our hotel for Chinese food, certainly China should offer the best Chinese food. We really did not enjoy any of the set menu expensive last meal. Oh well, it was a beautiful spot, we enjoyed it.
Came to pack up the last bits, loving our room compared to my last night!
China, was I think the biggest culture shock of my entire trip. I sadly found that most people were rude, constantly stepping in front of me in line ups. The language is very angry sounding, so I felt they were angry all the time. The amount of snorting and spitting I witnessed was outrageous. It was a confusing 5 days in terms of culture.
China, I give you a 1/10. I think my least favorite of my trip. I am very glad I came, experienced and walked your streets. I don’t think I’ll be back.
Tomoooorrrrrooooowwwwwww I fly hooooommmmmmmmeeeeeee!!!!
PICS BELOW:
1 Hong Kong, China - an island off of mainland China
2-5 Top of Ping An Financial Sky View Building
6 the kind lady who helped me when my phone went dead to the world due to China regulations !
7 my snorting every 2 minute spitting out the window cab ride to my Shenzhen hotel
8 my beautiful Shenzhen hotel
9-12 my 11pm dinner, 2 soups from hotel restaurant room service with some convenience store snacks
13 & 15 my free hotel buffet breakfast
14 the girl who toured me around Queens spa
16 a common view in Hong Kong, and all of these stairs lead to many people’s tiny rooms where they live very crammed into small spaces
17 ladies market in Hong Kong
18 my snacks, I loved all of them
19 sweet Jennifer, a Chinese lady who helped me when my phone went dead
20 at Chunking Mansions, this is how they get product upstairs, slowly one bag at a time with a full elevator every time and it was slower than any I have ever seen
21 a girl can dream
22 - 45 Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong.. beautiful sunset, boat ride for the light music show.. Hello Panda everywhere as well
46-48 my hotel ad online, the reality of it, and the manager when I left in the morning, where he was asleep by his desk on the hard floor
49-51 walking the streets of Hong Kong go from barbed wire, to extravagant malls to rare flowers growing on the streets
52-54 Sunday church service in Hong Kong, China
55 7-11’s at every corner in most of Asia - it is a staple where many people buy their daily lunches
56 a mall close to the airport for our last afternoon in China
57 our fancy airport hotel
58 Hong Kong airport is beautiful
59 I am getting prettier by the day
60 our flight over to China was half empty, we each got 3 seats to ourselves
