made in china

The shipyard was pretty much closed down last week due to the Chuseok holiday, so most of the employees of the project chose to take a break and go somewhere. Ken and I went to Shenzhen, China with another couple (Norman and Brenda) and a single man (Martin).


The actual reason for the trip was to play golf - alot of golf. And the other actual reason for the trip was to go shopping - alot of shopping.
I wonder if you can guess which 3 people played golf and which 2 people went shopping!


We actually stayed at a place outside of Shenzhen called Mission Hills Golf Resort. Ken and Martin had heard great compliments of the place from another golfer. There are 216 holes of golf. There are even lighted courses that can be played at night. I apologize to everyone that would like to know more on the golf courses, but this is MY blog. I went shopping, not golfing!!!

After a harried trip to the Busan airport (it was foggy and there was a huge traffic jam) early Wednesday morning, we arrived at the Hong Kong airport around noon. We had a driver scheduled to pick us up at the airport. It took everyone some time to figure out how to fit 3 sets of golf clubs, luggage and 5 people into the van but we were soon on our way to Shenzhen. After a drive through Hong Kong, immigration and Shenzhen, we finally made it to our destination.
The guys were so excited that they decided to fit 9 holes of golf in before dark and the girls were so excited that they decided to fit a couple hours of shopping before they got too tired. (I guess you have guessed who golfed and who shopped!!) Brenda and I were a little disappointed about how long the taxi ride was back and forth to Shenzhen (45 minutes to 1 hour each way) but that didn't stop us from going in each day. I think that we had read that it was 20 miles away but I guess we didn't count on the unbelievable traffic.

I need to comment on Shenzhen and the traffic at this point. Shenzhen was quite different from Shanghai and Hong Kong. It definitely wasn't as cosmopolitan or pretty. Alot of the goods come from the Shenzhen area, so it is supposedly less expensive to shop here than Hong Kong and Shanghai. A couple of times we were traveling after dark in the cab and I could see some of the building that looked like warehouses with the lights on. I had visions of all these Chinese workers making so many of the products we use daily that say "Made in China". When you see things like this, it really makes you realize how different our everyday lives are and how very, very fortunate we are. Pause for thought.

Well, we think the Korean traffic rules are bad - they have nothing on the Chinese. Sometimes I would just sit in the back seat and close my eyes. It wasn't that the taxis went real fast - they couldn't due to the snarl of traffic. It was mainly the lack of any road rules, even on the freeway. If you had a three laned road, there wouldn't be just three vehicles lined up in each lane. Oh no, you could have 3 cars, one big truck, one SUV and maybe a couple of bicycles. Or you could have one bus, 2 small cars, one big truck and a motorcyle. Or you could have 4 cars, one bus and maybe someone walking in the road. I hope you get the idea. Here is a picture of someone just walking around the traffic. And everyone just honks at each other all the time.

Back to the important business of shopping. After reading up on the internet, Brenda and I first decided to go to Louha shopping center. After going there, we ended up shopping there for 2 more days. It was a huge place with 5 floors of endless stalls of everything from tailors and fabric to handbags, shoes, Chinese objects, clothing and jewelry. Of course, they had tons of knock-offs. You would sometimes be in a shop and they would hustle to put everything away in bags because they heard someone was coming. You could get knock-offs of everything, even Hello Kitty items. I guess if you can knock-off Chanel, Hello Kitty is a breeze.

They also had tea shops that sold a myriad of loose tea








and also hard blocks of tea.













We were also invited to sample some of the tea - the picture is of Brenda sampling some jasmine tea.












We managed to fit in Kentucky Fried Chicken one day
and a Ramen noodle restaurant that I think is a chain. We had some tasty Japanese fried rice and dumplings there.




The last day, wanting to try a new area, Brenda and I head to Dongmen market area. This area had alot of open air shopping but you could also go into some of the buildings and they would have several floors of shops. There were also street vendors selling food of all sorts. People would just be lining the streets eating bowls of noodles and other things on sticks that I wasn't too sure what they were. I wanted to take a picture of something someone was eating on a stick that looked like a fried scorpion but I didn't want to be rude. So instead I settled for these small birds that looked like they were fried whole and then skewered through the head. If we had more time, I would have liked to observe someone digging into that....or maybe not.
The first building we headed into was 8 floors. The bottom five floors were filled with stalls that were decorated quite trendy considering where they were located. I am sure that this was "the place" for the young girls to shop. There were manequins everywhere that were dressed in clothing and funky wigs. There were also endless "salons" that did makeup, nails and hair. Sometimes they even spilled out into the hallway.
We were constantly asked if we wanted a manicure and they would show you their brightly painted and jeweled acrylic nails. I passed.

We also found another building that had Chinese handiwork and souvenirs. You could purchase carvings, jade, paintings, incense, etc. But one of my favorite finds was the last place we went. The bottom floor had different shops that housed art supplies and paintings. I found a wonderful one that will look great in our house in Mineral Wells.


The next floor was the musical instrument floor.
There were drums, violins and a type of stringed instrument that they were actually playing in the shop. It reminded me of the instrument I have seen in Korea, but the music was much more pretty.



The top floor had an assortment of shops selling dried items. I say items because I don't really know what they were used for. I am guessing that they might be used in some medicinal capacity or something. There were mushrooms, dried lizards of some kind
and some legs of an animal (maybe a deer or something).




It was a nice end to the day because we felt we saw some of the "real" places, not just the regular tourist spots. Unlike other places, we saw no westerners.


After another discussion on fitting 3 sets of golf clubs, luggage and 5 peoples into the van,
we headed back Sunday morning to the Hong Kong airport to Seoul to Busan and then the drive home to Okpo.


Ken had to make a last trip to Burger King in the Hong Kong airport to celebrate the wonderful time we had.