Shenzhen: An Alien’s Shopping and Gustatory Trek
Shenzhen, China
Should you find Hong Kong in your travel itinerary with a day or two to spare, get a visa to China and do a side trip to Shenzhen. You will not be disappointed!
Shekou is a half-hour ferry ride from the Hong Kong International Airport. Itself abuzz with people and new buildings and infrastructure, it is only 40-minutes away from Hua Quian Bay, the bustling business district of Shenzhen and which is a shopper’s delight.
The Hua Quian Bay (and Dong Men) shopping ambiance reminds me of Divisoria in Manila, except that Hua Quian Bay has wider streets. Also, many stores sell designer/popular brands of clothes, bags and shoes if you know the shops to go to, just keep in mind this shopping secret when you do go: drive a hard bargain. Haggle! Haggle! It’ll amaze you that the salesladies even in the smallest of shops would do their best not to let you go empty-handed. They might not be able to string English words together, but their calculators will do the talking for them.
Have fun shopping for computers, communication and electronic gizmos. Imagine, you can get memory cards for cameras, phones, PDAs at half, even a third, of mall prices in Manila!
The food will surely not disappoint you, too. If you’re not afraid of street food, try the deep-fried squid tentacles. God, are they yummy! So are the quail eggs boiled in green tea then clay-baked with salt.
This travel-monologue will not be complete without mentioning Wal Mart (say ‘worma’ with a soft ‘r’ when you ride the bus if you want the ticket lady to understand you). It was my very first stop during my first trip here last year, and I spent a full two and a half hours looking at the goods lane by lane, floor by floor. My discoveries: dressed black chicken. Shelled, ready-to-cook turtles (ugh!). Dried pig snouts (another ugh!). Foldable mosquito nets shaped like tents — good for overnight trips to the beach and places with scary bugs. Fresh kiwi, plums, peaches, durian, grapefruit, wet and dry noodles. Green tea, black tea, dried chrysanthemum flowers ready for steeping…cornetto in yoghurt flavor. Lipton iced tea in bottles, ‘ice rush’ flavor. Lay’s potato chips in cucumber and green tea flavors. And, what a nice surprise, the Philippine’s own San Miguel beer in the same shelf as the local Tsing Tao beer brand!
After Wal Mart, I had to see the gimmick place. In Shekou’s case, that is the Sea World. It is a port-like complex teeming with restaurants and bars. A real ship is docked at the center of the complex, its sections and rooms now converted into function rooms. From the bay rises a huge statue of a mermaid trying to shield Shekou from incessant rain.
Gimmick place as it is, Sea World is a place for serious eating. Try the seafood soup, and the fresh cucumber with garlic (dip it in soy mixed with chili garlic sauce), at Red Lantern (this is how foreigners call this restaurant that features traditional Chinese furniture and décor; it is right behind Pizza Hut). I strongly recommend an eat-all-you-can lunch or dinner at Gaucho Garden Grill for excellent Brazilian beef steaks, lamb, chicken wings, roast pork, bacon-chicken ‘roll’, German sausage, and (surprise, surprise!) roast pineapple and melt-in-the-mouth roast banana. I particularly appreciated that it’s hard to waste food here because the waiters go around with the skewers, slicing directly onto the diner’s plate, food-serving size according to request. In any case that the American, Indian, Brazilian, Italian, Irish, Russian, Thai and many other cuisines don’t appeal to you, well, there’s always Starbucks. And good ol’ McDonald’s.
And if Sea World is a little bit out of your way, try Blue Bird Café if you’re craving for good pizza and pasta, and some fancy desserts and coffee. I love the cozy couches in this place, just perfect for romantic dates, dim lights and all. And then, there’s Dong Bei Ren restaurant along Nan Tou that serves crisp-fried, whole kernel corn served a la pizza topped with diced peppers and pine nuts. It may be a little greasy, but aaahhh, likey-likey!
Most Chinese restaurants also have in their menus spicy tofu or spicy bean curd. You should try it. And if it’s spicy you want, go to a restaurant that offers Sichuan cuisine. I’ve tried a good one at Shui Wan Tou.
Too bad that there are many restaurants that don’t have their menus in English, some don’t even have pictures to help hungry aliens like me. Very often I end up spying and literally nosing around for interesting-looking dishes coming out of the kitchens.
Food and shopping can surely keep you busy here, but try to include in your schedule the Window of the World. See the replicas of the Eiffel Tower, Angkor Wat, the pyramids, the Washington Monument. Try not to leave until the end of the mega-multimedia show that boasts of over 200 performers and production people. Show starts at 730 p.m. on weekends if I remember correctly.
Lastly, after the shopping, the sightseeing, and the pigging out: treat yourself to a full body massage, a foot massage, or a visit to a nail art salon, and come out feeling so good you’ll promise yourself you’ll be in Shenzhen again. Very soon.
