A compass, t-shirt, toy dog and a two hour long japanese massage is exactly what I got in Shenzhen yesterday. I woke up sunday morning with a tender stomach from saturday's lang kwai fong excursion. Before heading north to cross the hong kong border with china, I went south to causeway bay, where my passport with a double entry china visa was waiting for me. Getting into China is always easy. All I had to do was take the train to lo wu station, pass through the usual stages of the cheerful immigrations department on both sides of the border and I was set for the day. Getting back into Hong Kong was and often is my only worry in immediate life. The fright of deportation back to Canada didn't hamper my day at all. It was sunny, the skies were clear enough and I was in a fantastic mood. Even my stomach was in a good humour and didn't bother me with the moans and groans of nausia, once I gladly walked past the infamous lo wu shopping centre with it's aggressive hoards of locals selling everything from wedding portrait services to pirated dvd's and prostitution.
I had never explored Shenzhen before, even though I'd been there several times already. I was always apprehensive about being theived, getting lost or just couldn't be bothered to walk around solo. Though it wasn't much of an adventure, coupled with my daily bike riding to new unreached places, I've begun entertaining solo backpacking as a much desired and realistic possibility for my post hk future.
Not knowing anything about the city, I started out by walking in a straight line directly away from immigration. The sun was still strong and my backpack was heating me well, so after walking for some time I stepped into a familiar hk clothing shop, 2%, with it's Japanese flavour, multi patterned clothing, mostly for women and a decent t-shirt collection for the fella's. There were three cute gals working inside, all of whom gave a little giggle at the tattooed foreigner walking through the door. One stayed behind the counter while the other two hung around behind me giggling about something. The braver of the two tapped me on the arm and started quickly asking me questions in mandarin. I had no idea what she was saying and told her so in Cantonese. I was a little surprised when I noticed that between the two of them they knew almost zero english but with broken mandarin and canto we still managed to hold a conversation. In true asian fashion we took a couple of pictures together, laughing all along and I bought a toy dog key chain for my virgo astrological sign. One of the two asked me if I thought she was beautiful. I gave a good laugh and answerd easily through a smile. She was gorgeous! Taking steps to the main question she eventually asked if I had a girlfriend. When I said that I didn't she called me a liar. She was single as well and I still can't understand why. She was funny, friendly, phisically was fantastic and was playfully affectionate. I had to leave shortly to exchange some of my hk dollars for RMB to buy my toy dog and stayed a few minutes more before leaving for good. Her name from mandarin sounded like Ma Li and we gave eachother a hug and a kiss on the cheek when I left. Why ma li....!? Why can't we speak the same language. haha.
Walking again, I passed by an outdoor adventure shop, bought a compass and made an awesome new friend. Jennifer's english was really impressive. It caught me off guard after my funny conversation in 2%. Every weekend the shop owner and some locals go for an outing, hiking up some mountain or climbing another. All around the shop were beautiful photographs that the owner had taken from different spots in China. I was really impressed by everything I saw there. Later this month I'll join Jennifer, the owner and a group of others for a weekend expedition.
I went into way too much detail with that 2% business and now I'm short on time before today's final lesson. Today children, we're learning about phrasal verbs and comparing cultures. Is hong kong a melting pot or a mosaic?
Right, well.... sometime between walking and making friends I had a legitimate two hour long japanese massage for about 20 canadian dollars. It was freaking amazing! Then more walking. Immigration was a breeze. The guy before me was taken away for questioning. He looked nepalese. So, the officer I went to looked tres tired and simply stamped my passport without even looking at me. Three more months!
On wednesday I'm going to Gwailin and Yung sho with my two lovely local ladies, pat and jas.
woooooooooooooooooo!!!
see you all there!
bebs
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