Shekou Port Ferry

A few weekends ago a friend and I went back to Hong Kong to hang out.  But this time, we took the ferry to get there instead of the subway alternative.  The ferry is more expensive but less troublesome and quicker; both in terms of traveling to Hong Kong and going through immigration.

We had to take the subway to the ferry dock at Shekou (Snake’s Mouth) port which is at the tip of the Nantou Peninsula in Shenzhen.  We then took the ferry to downtown Hong Kong.  You can also take the ferry to the Hong Kong Airport as well as a couple other destinations.

The ferry left around 9 am and we got to the port about 8:30 am and were probably one of the last ones to board as we just made it after buying our tickets and going through immigration.  I mean, as soon as we boarded, the ferry literally started to back up to leave.  We were able to sit pretty much anywhere we wanted (it wasn’t packed) and after a few minutes, we decided to see if we can go outside to take some photos.  We were able to exit the cabin area and stand on the stern and look behind us and take some photos.  I’ve been on ferries before but I had never been on a ferry that moves the way this one did.  This thing booked.  You could really feel the engines moving and feeling the wakes being created.  But I was surprised that no one supervises you back/out there.  I mean, really, you could fall over or push someone overboard and that’s it.  One less person in the world.  It felt like no one would know in that one second someone was there and the next second, you have one less headcount.  Was pretty weird.  It takes about 1 hour to reach Hong Kong.  It was pretty cool standing outside watching the water and landscape.  It was a cloudy morning but it became a nice day by afternoon.  The ferry was neat and would do it again.  We took the subway back home the next day by the way (saves $).  The pics below are of the ferry crossing…

More Street Food

Below are some pics of a street stall food vendor in Baishizhou that I go to a lot.  I had previously shown you street food from this area, but that was from another vendor.  I come here for the Chinese pancakes.  The ones I love are in the center row, near her; the orange-colored ones.  They’re originally triangle shaped (like a pizza slice) and then she slices them up into bite-size pieces and places them into a plastic baggie.  She’s placing my order into the bag now.  She then weighs the bag.  For one ‘pizza’ slice, it costs about 3-4 kwai (less than 70 cents).  I’m not totally sure they’re called Chinese pancakes but I think they are.  I used to call them ‘pizza slices’ as that’s what they looked like to me.  But they don’t have cheese, so they don’t taste anything like pizza.  I’m not sure really what they taste like but they’re always delicious.  They’re without doubt my favorite street food.  They’re sold in a lot of places in the city.  Sometimes they have eggs in them.  Other times garlic chives, minced scallions, diced bell peppers, sesame seeds, and God knows what else.  They’re a delicious flatbread but unlike a true pancake, I believe they’re made with dough instead of batter.  But they’re great.  If I’m really hungry, eating two ‘slices’ is no problem!

It’s funny, when I took these pics, there was a man working behind her that yelled at me for taking pics of the food I presume.  I just laughed at him, paid for it, and walked away.  The reason I was laughing was that the Chinese take pics of us laowais (foreigners) all the time, but when the shoe is on the other foot, well…give me a break!  It was getting dark, so the pics are not as bright.

Lianhua Mountain Park

During Thanksgiving weekend, I went to Lianhua Mountain Park in downtown Shenzhen to get out for some fresh air and exercise.  It’s Shenzhen’s main and most central park.  The park has a lot of open spaces, winding paths, picnic spots, and flora.  I had to take a bus and the subway to get there but it was worth it.  As you can probably see from some of the pics below, even though it was late November, the weather was still warm and flowers/plants are still in full bloom.  Lots of Chinese flying kites.  At the top of the mountain via a slightly challenging walk is a bronze statue of Deng Xiaoping; this area is the focal point of the park and you can get a bird’s eye view of the city.  Deng is striding forward and looking over the city.  The statue was erected in 2000.  Deng was a Chinese politician, statesman, and diplomat.  Deng was a reformer who led China to a market economy.  He’s considered the ‘father’ of Shenzhen and was the force behind the development of Shenzhen as a Special Economic Zone.  Near the park are shopping, a library, museums, and concert halls.

Shenzhen Museum

After the Sport Day at my school, I took the subway and went to the Shenzhen Museum in downtown Shenzhen. It’s located as part of a wing at City Hall/Civic Center and has three floors. There’s an old museum as well as a new one. I visited the new one which opened in 2008 and is very modern. The museum mainly focuses on the history of Shenzhen from sea battles, to handicrafts to modern developments. There are many displays in English as well as, obviously, Chinese. The museum was way better than I thought it would be and was extremely well done. There were many exhibits that were exceptionally detailed with life-size wax figures. It was very cool and I would go back again as there was so much to see and read. The museum was free too. As you can see from the pics below, the exhibits are fantastic. I especially valued the one of the lady making tofu. The museum also had a veranda on the third floor between exhibits where you can sit down and get some fresh air. I took a pic of part of downtown while standing on it. The last two pics are very interesting as you can see how quickly Shenzhen has developed in only thirty years; from a farming and fishing community to now a booming city.

 

 

Sport Day

This past Friday I didn’t have teaching responsibilities/classes due to the students having Sport Day, which I think I called Field Day back in the States when I was in school.  Of course I was not informed of this until that morning so I arrived thinking I was going to teach.  Basically it’s an all-day event where students/classes perform various sports activities.  It was pretty nippy that morning, probably the first morning where I needed a jacket since I’ve been in China.  I stayed probably for an hour and a half watching their opening ceremony and the beginning of some of the sports activities before leaving.  Everything is in Chinese, so I’m not sure what was being said as they did have a PA system going.  The below pics are from the opening ceremonies and does not show all the students/classes that participated.  After watching this, I left for my apartment and went to a museum to spend the rest of the day which I’ll post shortly…

Minsk World

A couple weekends back, I went to Minsk World in Shenzhen. It’s the furthest I have traveled in Shenzhen. I had to take the subway to one of the last eastern-most stops, and then had to take a bus another 45 minutes east to get there. Approximately a two hour trip each way. It’s really an over-hyped military theme park located next to Dapeng Bay. It includes the Soviet aircraft carrier Minsk, which is now a tourist attraction. It opened in 2000.

The Minsk (built in 1972) was part of the Soviet Pacific Fleet. It had to be retired (after the Cold War) as a result of a major accident which could only be repaired at a facility in the newly-independent Ukraine. Russia decided to sell it to a South Korean businessman who then sold it to China for the purpose of creating a military-themed tourist destination.

The staff is dressed in mock military uniforms and for extra $ you can take a little motorboat to the outside starboard side. There are a number of dilapidated military aircraft and armaments on the flight deck and you can also visit the hangar deck as well as its living quarters, armaments, etc. There was also a short film you can watch about the Minsk.

I wanted to come here because, I thought, how many times will I be able to go onboard a Soviet aircraft carrier? The problem was (A) it was expensive for what you got and (B) besides the beautiful landscape; the whole place (meaning the theme park) is dilapidated, which was really unusual as far as I’m concerned when it comes to China’s tourist attractions. And maybe it’s because it’s privately-owned and not state-owned, though I’m not sure of that. But it feels like they just put the ship there and that’s it. You can see that a lot of the inside of the ship has been stripped of anything still valuable and you kind of just have a shell. Most of the equipment, dials, etc. have been stripped and/or broken and almost the entire ship is rusted with peeling paint. You do not feel as if there are any plan(s) for upkeep. It was not hard to imagine it springing a leak and sinking, right there at its berth. It’s been there since 2000 and she shows her age unfortunately. Where you by tickets is a dilapidated building and I couldn’t tell if they were doing renovations, construction work or something else. But the area right outside the ship is nice where you can walk along the banks of the Bay. Also, Minsk World is supposed to be made up of two parts: the Minsk Aircraft Carrier (at Sea) and Minsk Square (on land) but the Square was nowhere to be found. Either it doesn’t exist any longer or is undergoing construction and/or renovation. As you’ll notice everywhere in China, construction is a 24/7 thing and there was construction going on here as well. The other thing that was irritating was that throughout the ship, there are these little souvenir stands/stalls all selling the same Chinese stuff. The workers would ask you to buy stuff but there wouldn’t be anything different than the stall I passed just 30 seconds ago.

But despite all of that, I was still glad I went. The bay and mountains were beautiful and you got great views while standing on the ship. As you can see from the last pic below, they also were selling toy planes and I was surprised to see that you could buy a U.S. Air Force toy plane. And that’s when I thought, how times have changed? Here we have a Soviet ship, permanently berthed in China, and I can buy a USAF toy plane while on it. We have come a long way…