So Monday morning we flew South from Shanghai to Shenzhen. I was a little nervous for an inter-China flight. The airport was arranged slightly differently at first glance, but we made it everywhere safely. It was actually more pleasant than a US domestic flight. I had my own personal in-flight entertainment with a lot of choices. We had snacks, and it was great! There was even more leg room. The only thing is Chinese are pushy, so it was not your typical ‘let the row ahead of you go first’ atmosphere but rather lots of pushing.
We landed in Shenzhen and then drove to Dongguan, about an hour’s drive. We checked into the hotel and boy, this is now my favorite hotel. Check it out! First, when you put your key in the slot the lights automatically come on as in all the hotels, but the curtains automatically opened with a motor on a track. It was so cool!
And everything in the room is controlled from this pad:
Plus, check out the view!
And the pool at night:
We grabbed a quick lunch at the Hotel’s restaurant and check it out, menu on little touch screen notebook computer!
After lunch we went on a fairly involved tour of a factory which was really good. It involved 2 facilities that we had to drive between, and we had to follow their driver and if I have not yet told you about drivers in China, well. This guy was driving on the shoulder to pass people, cutting in and out of lanes in such small areas it actually made me gasp a few times. And this is actually fairly typical. Oy.
We relaxed to a nice Chinese dinner, all the food was from a certain Provence and was slightly different but still very Chinese. I didn’t take any photos because it is all starting to look the same, but I did capture the nice local beer we tried.
It was starting to get late that night, but I just had to try out the nice soaking tub. I found a program on the TV (note the tv in front of the tub) and watched a British program about modes of transport in Britain in the 30’s. It was delightful. I made myself tea and soaked in the bubbles.
Tuesday was a busy day. I got up to swim laps in the pool (which was awesome!), had breakfast, and then we were off. We visited 3 companies on Tuesday which is quite a lot when you must drive between them all. We ended up in Shenzhen in crazy traffic that took quite some time as well. Ridiculous. For lunch we ate at this place with a Korean style Hot Stone bowl meal where they heat up a big stone bowl really hot and then serve you rice with some veggies and meat and an egg on top. You can stir it up and keep it very hot, and the rice next to the bowl if left a little gets brown and crispy alla good hashbrowns. It was awesome.
I can not even remember dinner that night…. so it must have been good but not great? Hmm. Anyway, the highlight of the night was it was decided we would be treated to footmassages by the vendor who is kind of hosting up here. So we all go in after dinner, around 8 I think, and we get a private room with 4 big chairs facing a nice tv. There are 4 of us, 2 guys from the vendor and then Joshua and I. So I am expecting, yay, foot massage! So these tiny Chinese girls start filling our foot baths, and tells me to put my feet in (imagine lots of pointing and taping and grabbing my feet to do what I am supposed to) but then I am to sit on a bench on the other side of the chair. Ok. Oh! I am getting a quick shoulder massage, this is nice. Oh, wait, I am getting a full out back massage, and neck, and arms, this is nice… So then she tells me to sit back in the big recliner. Then she comes around and gives me a full face and head massage, and arms, and hands, and fingers. Wow. Ok, so then it is onto the feet.
So she takes my feet out of the bath, dries them off, applies a little lotion, and gets out the cups. Yes, I had my feet cupped. It was so weird and awesome. So there are the small glass ball/cups. And they spray what I imagine is alchohol into the cups and then light it on fire with a lighter. They quickly put the cup on the bottom of your foot and that extinguishes the flame, but there is now negative pressure in the cup so it pulls on the bottom of your foot. They then move this cup around on the bottom of your foot ‘massaging’ it. It was really neat. It felt really good. Here are photos!
And here is one I caught with the flame:
So after that they continued massaging every inch of my toes, feet, legs and thighs. It was incredible. 90 minutes and less than $10 each. I know, right. Full body massage, foot soak, cupping for under $10 and no tipping.
So another interesting part of the night was that the guys were teasing me to try what they were calling rice wine. I had been telling them at meals that I will try everything once, so they said I should try this. Ok, this is what it ended up being:
Reminded me of Everclear or something of the like. I guess it is 60%, it is hard to tell anything from that bottle. It was definitely interesting, not so smooth or refined, but I think it could do some good damage fast. It was fun to try!
Wednesday we had one factory to visit in the morning and then they took us out for lunch. It was more chinese food, very good in fact. Here is the nice spread.
The most memorable though of this lunch was I tried the chicken feet:
I know it cliche, but it tasted like chicken. Too much work for me, and it was mostly just skin, so I think I do not need to have it a lot, but I am now not as scared of it.
So yesterday afternoon the guys wanted to go to the ‘Copy Mall’ to look at everything available. From Chinese iphones to Rolexs and Louis Vittons. It was a crazy house, and unfortunately being a white woman I am the target for the merchants.
‘Hello Missey, come look in my shop’
‘Copy watch, copy handbag?’
‘I give you good price, because we are friends’
‘This is good quality!’
‘How much you want to pay, but don’t give me joking price’
It is entertaining and tiring at the same time. I feel bad, but you have to just ignore them all.
Once the guys had tired of the Copy Mall shenanigans, we headed back to the hotel and then off to dinner. I had mentioned I maybe needed a break from Chinese so we went to a Japanese restaurant. It had been over a week since I have eaten sushi and I thought I might die. We got a private room and had to take our shoes off. The food was amazing and we had so much fun joking around and laughing that I am glad Chinese are loud because everyone else in the restaurant was also loud. After some nice green tea ice cream we decided we needed foot massages again. So off we went and this time were treated to 2 hour massages. I had the option of one of them cleaning my ears out but I am so afraid of that so I passed. Joshua regrets he didn’t pass so I think I made the right decision.
This morning I am up early and packing to head to Hong Kong. Sadly, the view looks like this today:
I guess a small typhoon hit Hong Kong yesterday. We will take the train into Hong Kong and then we have 2 meetings today. Tomorrow is catch up and I think some more shopping and sight seeing for me. Then Saturday I am headed home!
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