Hidden Shrines

While wandering on my own in Bangkok I discovered a few things. The first was that our hotel was near nothing other than a dirty clothing market. The second was that I really had to walk to find anything of interest.

After a couple hours of walking, I stumbled upon a small shrine. It was down a quiet side street and had no noticeable signs. I also didn't see anyone to talk with about what I found.

From its appearance, I could tell that it was a shrine for people who have died--some of the photos were of people in military uniforms. I also noticed that there was Chinese on parts of the shrine, though I couldn't read any of it because it was written with traditional characters. What interested me most was that it was a mosaic constructed from broken dishes--the craftsmanship of the images was amazing. I still wish I knew more about it.

The Final Trip

Before leaving China, Jia and I took a final trip to Guangzhou--primarily to pick up our plane tickets. We had planned to stay the night and attend Web Wednesday to help promote Terracotta Typewriter, but that got canceled.

After we got our tickets, which took far longer than expected, we headed over to Guangxiao Temple. Jia decided it was important for her to visit a Buddhist temple before our flight to New York, and I was interested in seeing it again. My first trip outside Shenzhen was to Guangzhou on New Year's Day--and Guangxiao Temple was on our list of sites to visit.

I remember being impressed with the almost 1700-year-old temple on the first visit. I wasn't so impressed the last time. For one thing, I've seen plenty of temples (you might say I'm templed-out), and this one didn't have any features that really stood out. Also, Guangxiao was going through renovations this time around, and much of it was closed off--I couldn't even find the really nice turtle pond.We headed to lunch at Danny's rather late where we met up with some Twitter friends, @JohnInGZ and @JWKirkland and his brother. As Jia and I sat longer with JohnInGZ, Danny showed up to talk with us--and time just flew by. Before we knew it, the restaurant had closed for the afternoon and was almost ready to re-open for dinner.

We parted ways with our friends and walked around Tianhe district for a while before heading to the bus station to catch our ride back to Shenzhen.

Things I Couldn't Do in Shenzhen

Yesterday, while my wife spent the day in NYC, I went for a bike ride in beautiful 70-degree weather with my brother and his girlfriend.

For the record, the last time I rode a bike was about four years ago when I visited Israel and took a short bike tour along the Jordan River (I think the trek lasted a whole 15 minutes). Prior to that, I hadn't been on a bike since freshman year of college.

My brother decided we should take a ride through Liberty State Park. I forgot how nice this park really is--great views of the Jersey City and New York skylines, plus the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Unfortunately, I didn't learn my lesson from China and forgot to bring a camera.

Back in Shenzhen there weren't any bike trails quite like this, and I would never have attempted to ride a bike on a city street (or even sidewalk). Here in Jersey City, everyone obeys the traffic laws and the drivers were polite to the cyclists.

Meandering in Manhattan

I got my exercise walking around Manhattan over the weekend--Jia had to meet with a former student and his business partner about teaching Chinese at their office. This left me with about ten hours to kill in the city.

After showing Jia how to get to her student's office, I took a walk up Park Ave. and admired the architecture of the city I thought I knew. I realized that after so many years of following people around the city, or walking with particular destinations in mind, I had ignored so much of New York. Maybe it was the three and a half years in Shenzhen, but I felt like I was seeing this familiar city for the first time again.
I passed a few interesting sights, such as Lever House at Park Ave. and 53rd St. They usually have some art exhibit, and this time they had some large Hello Kitty sculptures. It was a little unsettling to see these.
Nearby, down Madison Ave., I found an Easter bunny made out of small chocolate Easter bunnies. That sight made me a little hungry.
On the second day in New York, I wandered through Central Park, Columbus Circle, and nearby streets. I took my time and sat outside in the sun (something I didn't have the day before). It made for a pleasant day to read The Last Picture Show while breathing in the fresh air.

The only disappointing part of the trip for the weekend was that the museums were overly expensive. Without a decent job it's difficult to justify paying $20 for a ticket.

Odd Discoveries

I'm still searching around for odd things around my neighborhood before moving back to New Jersey. I know I probably won't find a lot of this stuff when I leave China.

The first one is a bag of Four Seas terriyaki eel rice sticks. The flavor wasn't too bad, but the texture resembled a soft cheese curl...without the cheese flavor. Note to producer: please make this snack crunchier.

The second one was of the pirated DVD variety. One of the vendors had a copy of The Erotic Adventures of Pinnochio. It's not uncommon to find pornography in a country that bans it. The illegal DVD vendor was just down the street from the prostitute shop and sex toy shop. The most amusing part of the DVD was the cover--it had a picture of Pinnochio next to suggestive picture of Brittany Spears from an issue of Rolling Stone. I'm sorry to say, there won't be a review of this film as I didn't purchase it (my friend did, I'll ask him to write a review).

Blinding Reality

I was reminded by a post at Mutant Palm about the eyesight problem that plagues students today.

Saturday, Jia and I were walking around Coastal City before heading back to Thai Kitchen for dinner (their prawn lemon grass soup is really good), when she decided to try out some of the eye goggles. These things are sold to correct the poor vision around China. Of course, I don't believe any of it and neither does my wife--she just thought the massage mechanism of the goggles would help her relax.

As Jia experienced the feeling of eye pressure, I was handed a booklet about the product in English. The claims of the product are outrageous. It will supposedly correct the "false near-sightedness" of students--I guess that means all the students are faking it. My favorite line from the brochure was, "for people who work with eyes used most of the time." Well, that's great--I use my eyes everyday. So, unless you're job requires you to sleep, this product is for you.

And there's a nice video on Shanghaiist about the eye exercises that students are required to do everyday in school (teachers are fined if students don't do it properly).

Assembling Food at IKEA

I've never been to IKEA or even bought any of their products. Until I went to Guangzhou with Jia.

Jia was in Guangzhou two days before me, and kept calling and saying how great IKEA was. I figured I'd check it out since I had some time to kill.

I'm not about to buy any furniture, seeing as my apartment (and every one I've rented in China) is already furnished. But, they had food. IKEA sold real coffee at a significantly lower price than Jusco (almost the same price as the big tub of Maxwell House I've been buying in Shekou). Not only that, they had blocks of cheese and smoked salmon at reasonable prices. I'm hoping the store in Shenzhen has the same stuff.

Jia also got a membership card (it was free), which entitles us to free coffee at the cafeteria. Note to IKEA: I plan on drinking a lot of free coffee in your stores. I don't plan on buying much else.

Fast Food Luxury

This must be the classiest KFC anywhere. In Penang, we came across this interesting site on our way to an outdoor food market. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to make it back to view the inside. It seems that KFC acquired one of the old colonial mansions of Georgetown and fixed it up--much like many other places nearby (a university and hotel each have the mansions as part of the larger buildings). It was very nice to see that some people are making an effort to preserve these beautiful structures around Penang--many others are dilapidated and probably beyond repair.

Finally, Culture in Shenzhen

Saturday, we took a long bus ride out to Longgang district to visit the Hakkas Custom Museum. It took more than two hours to get there from Nanshan.

Hakka people are Han Chinese, but have different customs than the rest of China. The migrated from the north and settled south--there are many photos of Hakka villages from Fujian province.

The Crane Lake Villa was turned into a museum by the city in 1996. Prior that, it belonged to a single family--the Luo family, which began building the home during the Qing Dynasty. It is not the circular structure-style Hakka village that is shown in most pictures, but rather a trapezoid-shaped structure.


There isn't much in the way of exhibits at the museum. It appears that most of it is being renovated. Many of the 300 original rooms are inaccessible at this time. Most of the exhibits pertain to this specific Hakka village, with original tools and stories of the family. Other exhibits include stories of famous Hakka people, including Sun Yat-Sen. Unfortunately, they do not explain much about the customs and traditions of the Hakka people.

There is also some rather confusing propaganda set as an exhibit. It seems some Hakka villages were mistaken as secret nuclear sites. Apparently, this is a true story. However, the way it's written makes it much more difficult to comprehend or believe. I particularly like the last line about Reagan.
















The neighborhood surrounding the museum isn't the most pleasant in Shenzhen. It's filled with numerous small shops selling cheap products and knock-offs. We came across a two yuan store that sold fake Crest toothpaste (the Chinese was the same, but the product was called Cvozt.

If you plan to go, I suggest stopping in at the nearby Jusco down the street for some food--there isn't much near the Hakka museum.

Holiday Musings

Quite a bit has gone on around here during the short holiday weekend. First, a warning to all who pass through the Nantou checkpoint between Bao'an district and Nanshan: bring your passport. Our friend A. was not allowed to pass through to the Special Economic Zone using a photocopy. Foreigners and Chinese used to be able to pass through easily even without ID, but it looks like those days are over.

Friday, we celebrated another friend's birthday in Shekou. We went to the Seagull restaurant near Sea World. The food looked good (I ate earlier), but was a little pricey. The beer was cheap though--40 kuai for a pitcher of Tsingtao is a bargain in that area. After a few of those, we met up with some people at The Terrace who had already been drinking there. It was crowded and no tables were available for us. We were harassed to buy drinks after five minutes of entering and dancing.

Given time, we might have purchased drinks (even though they're expensive at The Terrace), but we decided to leave with our money instead. I'm reminded of my last time there--at the end of my first year in China. I was with Jia and the bar was empty. The service was slow even though we sat at the bar. This is just another reason to avoid ever going back to The Terrace.

Yesterday, we headed out to Longgang district to visit the Hakka house/museum. I'll post a photo essay with information later.

Get Thee to an Art Gallery

A while back, Jia and I went to Overseas Chinese Town (OCT) to see a new exhibit at The Loft. They had a special event with urban artwork called "Redo." I think they were redeveloping the area as many of the buildings were being renovated at the time. I'm not sure what the area looked like previously as this was my first trip through The Loft.

I was wholly unimpressed by most of the exhibition. I don't think crushed paper cups as candle molds is really fine art, and neither are blinds made from paper cups with Chinese writing on them. Most of the work had to do with urban development and over-development--I suppose they were trying to grab the publics attention to the excessive construction going on in China.
The graffiti art exhibit did grab our attention. There were some temporary walls set up for the artists outside and a gallery for graffiti-influenced work inside. This was a much more international selection of art than the other urban exhibitions.

This was my favorite painting by a French artist who goes by S2ONE. There was no title.

Weekend Wanderings

It turned into a good weekend despite the excessive haze. Some friends from Bao'an came to visit Friday night for dinner at the Xi'an restaurant and drinks at the nearby bars. I've rarely eaten at the Xi'an restaurant, so this was quite the experience--the food was great considering how cheap it was, even with quite a few beers among us.

Saturday, we went to a really nice park about 20 minutes away, not far from Shenzhen University. The place is covered with lychee trees and plenty of other plants that I don't know the names of. It was quiet and clean, which was impressive with the throngs of people out on a warm December day. There were lots of people exercising, flying kites, and playing an assortment of instruments all around. We'll definitely go back sometime soon.

Today was the grand opening of the huge shopping mall just down the street. It's rather high class and well out of our price range for the clothing stores. But, it has a Papa John's, Bread Talk, and a variety of restaurants and coffee shops. On the third floor there's even a skating rink (with hockey nets), but it's 60 kuai for two hours without skate rentals. We were quite happy with the mall. Then we went into Jusco grocery store and decided the mall sucked.

Jusco is amazing. This is a rather large Japanese grocery store with everything we could ever want. There is no more need to visit Wal-Mart or the American stores in Shekou. I can get everything I want and more. They have freshly-ground coffee, a variety of cheese, and tons of pasta and other wonderful foods. I was a little disturbed by the chopped up alligator in the meat section though--I've eaten alligator before, I just don't like seeing a whole one chopped up. We're convinced that we need to make more money now because we'll want to buy a lot of interesting foods and beverages in the next several months. I'm also convinced that J. will go broke unless he can control his cheese and coffee habits.

A little luck

I took a day in Macau yesterday. I needed to get out of Shenzhen for a little while to relax and make me feel like I'm really having a holiday. Of course, it required me waking up early to take the bus to the ferry port in Shekou, but it was worth it. The last time I went to Macau, Jia and I went through Zhuhai. This time I spent a few extra kuai to take the ferry directly to the outer harbor port.

I guess it was a great choice--it certainly saved time on the border crossing and the port was only about a 10-minute walk from Senado Square. I was also surprised with the customs officers on both sides--they were really polite and even spoke a little (the officer on the mainland side even wished me a good trip). I thought it might be a good omen if I decided to gamble a little. Of course, the other omen was sitting on the ferry reading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead--the whole opening scene about probability couldn't be a good sign.

I decided to have a look at the new Grand Lisboa, billed as the largest casino in the world. It is an impressive structure that looks like an ode to excess. I like the architecture of the old one across the street much more. The building isn't complete--the top floors are still under construction. The casino is split into a lot of smaller rooms that are rather quiet, probably because the crowd is split into different areas of the hotel.

After wandering around the gaming areas (one sign was "gameing") of the Grand Lisboa, I headed across the way to the Wynn. I was much more impressed. It had more of a hotel feel than a casino. The staff was also more friendly--the Grand Lisboa didn't even acknowledge my existence (except when walking through security to the casino rooms).

Other than those casinos, I wandered around the city. I had no particular destination set, but I found some cool buildings (mostly Portuguese designs) and parks. I also had an interesting time conversing with some shopkeepers (I think I managed to find everyone in Macau who didn't speak English or Mandarin, only Cantonese). For my early dinner, I found a new restaurant near Senado Square--I asked if one of the dishes had pork. The answer was, "It's not spicy." So, I asked in Chinese and the answer was, "meiyou." Sure enough, it had pork. I also went to buy some smoked, dried beef. I asked how much it cost and the shopkeeper pointed to a red blob on a sign. When I pointed out that I couldn't read it, he pointed to another sign that had a red blob. I walked away and went to another store that had clear prices.

The best part of the trip was definitely finding the grocery store with the great coffee. They raised their prices since last year (last year it was 20 kuai a pound, this year 40), but it's cheaper than most coffee in Shenzhen. I still bought a pound of mocha to enjoy. At least the woman working there spoke Mandarin Chinese, even though I didn't understand when she asked if I wanted the coffee ground (vocabulary I don't know).

A Day in the Neighborhood

I took some photos some weeks ago around my neighborhood. As I've said before, there are a lot of grocery stores and restaurants around, as well as a few dozen 7-11s. As with the rest of Shenzhen, this neighborhood is still under construction. There's a huge footbridge being built above the major intersection (it's going up quickly and looking nice). There are a lot of new apartment complexes in the area with loads of empty storefronts. I'm hoping that those will fill up as soon as the major construction projects are complete (which shouldn't be too long).

Just down the street--less than a ten-minute walk out the back gate--they are building a new shopping mall next to a new Carrefour, which will be next to a new cultural center. I don't care much for shopping malls--I didn't enjoy them back home in Jersey, and I certainly don't like them here with the enormous crowds they attract. But, I do really want Carrefour to move in quickly--Commie-Mart is a long walk/short bus ride away, and I never did care for them much either. Plus, Carrefour tends to have a better selection (and better prices) of foreign products. I just have to hope they carry cheese.

The photos below are what will be the cultural center. Assuming they hold events there, I might be inclined to visit every now and again.

Hutong Wandering

The following is an installment from the summer journey.

A while back, my parents mailed a short article to me (they often send news clippings about travel in Asia and events back home). This particular article was about side streets in Beijing--I found it just before moving and traveling to Beijing to meet my parents and brother. I figured it'd provide at least a few hours of something different from the previous year's trip through the capital.

I studied my map and found that the street in the article (Nan Luoguxiang) was not too far from the Drum and Bell Towers--it turned out to be about a 15-minute walk east along the main street. It sounded like there was enough to check out for the afternoon--it was either try this or find a taxi to somewhere else. We were pleasantly surprised.

Nan Luoguxiang is a quiet hutong neighborhood in the process of remodeling that is home to quite a few small bars, restaurants, and arts shops that are difficult to find elsewhere in the city. We discovered a small foot massage parlor (38RMB for one hour) and let my mom and brother take up the two available spots. My father and I walked along the street to find a snack and settled on the Pass By. There are two along the street and we chose the one further from the main road. They actually served spring rolls (anyone who lives in China knows that these are a rarity). There's also a great "hutong pizza," which is cheese covering spicy chunks of barbecued lamb.

The artistic shops have quite a few unique items. There are a couple of really nice T-shirt shops, but the prices are set and they are in the range of what you'd expect to pay in the U.S. My favorite shop was Grifted. They had some amusing shirts and other items. I ended up with a waving Chairman Mao doll and Jia got a shirt with a cartoon of Buddha looking like a tourist. They also had a shirt with a cartoon Chinese guy, shirtless with a beer and yelling "Ni hao!" Next to the shop was a small photo gallery chronicling the progress of reconstructing the neighborhood--the photos were beautiful.

On a few nights we stopped in the bars. These places are mostly small and quiet. We found the newly-opened Catcher in the Rye and we were the only customers. For those seeking a cheap night out, there's always the 10 RMB Bar--and there are others that have similar prices. Most bars have a decent selection of imported beers for travelers who are tired of Tsingtao (it was really nice to have a Newcastle).

At the moment, this narrow hutong street is fairly unknown to tourists, although it is getting more press and will probably be quite crowded by the time the Olympics arrive. So far, there is no Starbucks located there, but you can buy coffee at the restaurants and bars. After two trips through Beijing, I have to say that this is my favorite part of the city.

Walk in the Park

Yesterday, we decided to walk through ZhongShan Park near the Nantou special economic zone border checkpoint. This park is supposedly dedicated to Dr. Sun Yat-Sen. As we walked through the fake rock formations at the entrance to the park, we could see the monument with his head on it--there were plenty of people taking photos there.

The park was unimpressive and crowded. I didn't even take any photos inside. The most interesting part of the walk through was seeing all the people flying kites on a nice day in Shenzhen.

There is almost nothing natural about ZhongShan--all the trees are trimmed and purposely planted. We passed by at least four places at which people were poorly singing karaoke (two of them were across the path from each other). There's also a small amusement park containing mostly rides that you can find at a state fair in the U.S. But they do have bumper cars (which I think is the Bao'an driving school).

Disappointed on the way out, we found the old city. There were a few buildings leftover from the times before reforms of Deng Xiaoping. There were two neighboring structures that were (as I was told) a pawn shop and a cigarette shop. The only one that was open was the temple--not a Buddhist temple, but rather a temple to one of the characters of Romance of the Three Kingdoms by the name of Guan Gong.

The funniest sight in the old city was a claw machine filled with cigarettes.

Yesterday I went wandering with a friend around downtown. We decided we wanted to find what was in the area (restaurants, stores, etc.). We came across a couple small Japanese restaurants with little sake bar areas--we'll check those out next weekend and I'll be sure to write about them here. We found a run-down arcade with some fairly old games--it was dark, dusty, and we got some uncomfortable stares as we walked in. There was also what appears to be a small temple (a building more than 25-years-old in Shenzhen??)--we'll go back there as well to see if it's open and/or interesting. So, we've found some new adventures around here. Next weekend we'll explore a bit more to see what's worthwhile. We're planning on slumming about at some point because we're getting tired of the same bar, even if we are treated exceptionally well when we go.