Interlude in Shenzhen

We stayed overnight in Shenzhen before going to Hong Kong.

The hotel was three stars – my sister and my mother shared one bed while I took the other. Still, the place was adequate except that we didn’t have room keys. We went late-night shopping and I came away with a watch. Nice rip-off of a Swiss IWC model.

The next day on the trip was the substantial one – both in event and in expense.

Item A: don’t bring women to a jewelry store or a store with exotic cosmetics.

Item B: don’t bring your credit cards or money with you.

Item C: leave your vanity at home, or else people will spot it and play upon your need to be recognized.

Result without Items A, B, C:

1) Humungous shopping bill.
2) Suddenly useless items which seemed good to buy at the time.
3) An aching wallet.

The funny thing was this incident with Fiona. As I said, she was a nice-looking girl, but what with my mother being in the forefront I tried to stay under the radar. Still, Fiona liked my mother a real lot. During our first stop, she said she would give all the items in the store if only my mother would stay behind in China (Tsk, tsk. As if I would allow that to happen). My mom said that if Fiona wanted a mother-in-law, she shouldn’t worry because her oh-so-cute son (me) was available to be her fiancé.

I ended up with a girlfriend for the rest of the trip. The joke was fun while it lasted.

Shenzhen’s best bet was the Windows to the World theme park, which was said to have been built for HK$600million. We ran out of Chinese money so it was a bit of a stretch getting by in the place. There were theme sections from East and Southeast Asia, Europe, the Americas, the Middle East/Egypt, Africa, and Australia. The only thing out of place was a dinosaur park. Every kid has to have dinosaurs somewhere. The replicas were great. It was a shame we didn’t have more time to tour.

I have observed that I defer often to my mother because she is such a convivial person, sometimes too convivial for her own good. I couldn’t get to the ladies in the tour group, folks! Normally my genial facial expression and pithy comments would demand some amount of attention. But alas, it was my mother’s time to do her thing.

At last we had to leave Shenzhen and Fiona (broken hearts, but most likely mine, sigh!) but the going was really bad. We left Shenzhen late, so one of the convenient entrances to the train station was closed. It was up-down, up-down, and through a maze of passageways. Finally we boarded the train and Shenzhen was history.

Notable notes:
Our tour guides always called us “grupong maganda at guapo,” likely something they learned throughout many tours. PRC people are likely to speak better English if they are government-connected, and they have made great strides in this area.
Chinese are really entrepreneurial, and it’s no great surprise the head honchos reshaped their economy to be capitalist while retaining central control.
The cutest girl that I saw on the trip wasn’t even Fiona, but a girl named Lorelei who even spoke better English. She was one of their people at the tourist shop, which I gather does big business with international buyers.