Heading to Mainland

Sunday was a fairly low key day. I worked with my group on a presentation for most of the day. In the evening we decided to head to the night market on Temple Street. We took the MTR to Jordan Station and once there we ate dinner at a very cool turkish restaurant. I ate falafel and hummus and it was awesome. Then we finally stumbled upon the night market and did a lot of shopping. I had yet to do laundry and was running out of clothes. We were headed to Mainland on Monday and so my goal was to buy some clothes at the market. Unfortunately, most Chinese people are not built like me, so nothing really came in my size! Instead I focused on some other shopping and then we watched a huge fire erupt in the middle of the walkway when a gigantic lighter exploded on the ground. That was kinda scary but it was put out quickly. Then the groups split off and a few of us decided to stick around and drink some Tsing Taos. We sat at a little kinda shitty restaurant just so we could use the hole-in-the-floor bathroom. After that, we explored the Temple street area and we found a cute clothing store that was still open around midnight! I bought quite a few things there! It was fun. We finally made it back to the I-House kinda late and then I had to pack for our adventure into Mainland to visit the Yantian Port some manufacturing plants in Shenzhen and Guangzho.

On Monday morning early, we had to get up and catch the bus with the rest of our group to Shenzhen. We had to stop at the border of HK and the Mainland. We went through immigration and customs and then emerged in CHINA! It was so cool. From there, we hoped on another bus and met our hilarious tour guide Tom. I am pretty sure he started every sentence with and accentuated "In Chinaaa..." in an Asian/British/feminine accent. He was very knowledgeable though and we learned a lot of cool things from him. For instance the school children have to wear uniforms with red scarves to show their loyalty and respect for the government. Also, up until 1997 (I believe) the residents of Mainland China could not go to Hong Kong. Now it has changed and they can visit for about 6 days at a time. It is very interesting and something that i didnt know about before Tom informed us. Our first stop on our agenda was a group lunch. We arrived at the restaurant and quickly realized that they did not speak any English. Luckily for us, all the food had already been ordered and we spread out among various reserved tables. We were served hot tea and there was a giant lazy susan in the middle of our table. Also, I forgot to mention that when we walked in, we noticed that the back of the restaurant was lined with fish tanks filled with live fish, crab, clams more. Our lunch was served and it was crazy. It was literally like a movie. We had the most exotic looking dishes on our table. For the most part, we really had no idea what we were eating. Most of the dishes were meat... luckily for Chris and me. We survived on broccoli, cabbage, and rice. I tried the fish dishes as well. We soon discovered that all of the meals that were provided were going to be like this and so Chris and I survived on rice for most of the week. After lunch, we headed to the Yantian Port. We had a very warm welcome and learned a lot about the process of loading cargo onto the ships and exporting goods vs unloading and importing like the LA Long Beach port. I have to admit though, I think that once you have seen one port, you have seen most ports. It was interesting but kinda redundant. After our port tour,we then headed to our hotel in Shenzhen. It was five-star and really really nice. It was so randomly placed though in the middle of what seemed like an impoverished area. IT was literally right in front of a "slum" as a lot of the kids called it. It was almost as if the hotel was a barrier between the public on the streets and the slums behind the hotel. We were very hungry after our "delicious" lunch, and so we pretty much changed and headed to the hotel bar. We all ordered cheese pizzas and popcorn and shared beers bc they were 3 for the price of two. We watched a world cup game and had a nice time relaxing and talking. It was surprisingly very cheap and we hung out for a while and even Prof Hasler came and joined for a while. Then Chris, Kyle, Candice and I all watched the Butterfly Effect in our hotel room and fought the urge to fall asleep...kinda! We eventually went to bed and got ready for an early morning the next day.