China Travel, News and Lifestyle
Archive for February, 2008
Hong Kong
Feb 21st
On Sunday the 17th of February Me and Carl arrived in Shenzhen in the morning. The weather was exceptionally warm and even though it was Winter and snow up in Beijing it felt like spring has arrived in here in Guangdong. From the bus station in Shenzhen its a short walk to the checkpoint which is above the train station. There we had expected that there would be a long queue on the lanes for checking passports but to our relief there was almost no queue.
The passport control went quickly and smoothly and soon we were in a new country HongKong. Even though Hong Kong is officially part of China you still need to bring your passport because the region is considered a special administrative region and it is more or less independent from China.
As I mentionned earlier the checkpoint lies besides the Shenzhen central station and on the other side of the border lies the Lo Wu train station which is the terminus for the KCR local trains in Hongkong.
Before we hopped on the train to Kowloon or Tsim Sha Tsui one needs a special octupus card which you use to pay for bus, train, metro and tramway fares. It is a card that is loaded with a certain amount of cash and a fare is deducted each time one travels. More >
Getting a flat in Zhuhai
Feb 5th
After staying in a hotel in the Xiang Zhou district it was time to get an apartment. I felt quite stressed out because I know that getting a flat is a time consuming process and you could be denied. I was also afraid that they would not let me have a flat if I just stayed for 4 months. Me and Carl decided to go to the agency which lend out flats to see if there was any. To my relief the agent showed me an empty flat in the same building were Carl was living! And the process of getting the apartment went quickly I just signed some papers and the flat was mine. The rent was pretty reasonable 1700 kuai per month but then I would live on the 13th floor with a two room apartment with kitchen and a bathroom.
I was amazed how serviceminded the people in Zhuhai are and that everything goes so smoothly and quickly.
Night life in China
Feb 3rd
When I arrived in Zhuhai I wanted to check out how the night life is. Well in Zhuhai there is one bar street which only contains clubs and bars. Outside the clubs there were some guards standing but no one checked my ID if I was over eighteen (which they do in Sweden). There was no problem getting in the Red bar which was the name of the first club.
The strange thing was that even though the club had music and a DJ mixing songs there was no dance floor to dance on. And if there were any dance floor it would probably be very small.
Overall the clubs have very nice interior and good atmosphere. But what amazed me was that people just sat there smoking cigarettes and just listening to the music. Almost no one dances here in China it seems. Very different from my home country Sweden where the dancefloor is packed with people…..
And ordering a drink without knowing Chinese is a cliffhanger.
If you do go to a club in China make sure to bring a card which says your address in chinese characters because otherwise you would probably spend the night at the police station trying to explain where you live.
