Day Trip to Shenzhen

I've been to Shenzhen previously, in 1995, when I visited Hongkong for the first time. But this day trip to Shenzhen wasn't great cos besides the visit to a public park (free entry), we were taken to jewellery, medicinal and silkworm spun wares at 2 factories and ate at a restaurant which catered for tour groups (you can probably guess the quality of the food - bad).

One highlight from the trip was seeing this older gentleman who was flying over 100 hundred kites tied to a single string and he was slowly releasing them into the air. Phill asked his permission to snap his pics and these are what he took altho you have to be there to see how awesome the kites were fluttering in the air.

(below) Phill in a typical "kawaii" (cute) pose at the public park. He was even approached by a group of young gals who wanted to take his picture and he went up close to them and struck the kawaii pose. They were thoroughly amused!

The traffic situation in Shenzhen is very bad too in the sense that drivers seem to adopt a very selfish and offensive way of driving. They change lanes swiftly even if there is not enough space to do so. You really can't be even a little sleepy driving there but then again, maybe the traffic situation keeps drivers awake.

After we had to take a mandatory photo at "Wonders of the World" (so the tour group could sell our photos in a photo frame and plate later in the day - we only bought the photo frame for S$16!), we were on our way to lunch (which we didn't have our fill cos it wasn't appetising) when I saw this sight on the roads which caused a major traffic jam.

At one of the 2 factories we had to visit, my dad had this poet/ calligrapher compose a poem with all our names and then he wrote the poem (which my dad liked) in calligraphy script. He then went on to teach us some tai-chi moves we had to do everyday for good health.

I hope to go to Shenzhen one day long into the future (when the memory of this trip has faded) for the great shopping and massage I heard about from friends.

The highlight for the day though was meeting my Hongkong friend, Panda, and her friend, Irene, for dinner. I haven't seen Panda since I last visited her in Virginia in 2001, some 6 years ago! It was great to catch up and I look forward to seeing her again, soon!!!