A Shenzhen Adventure

When we got our Chinese visas for our trip to Shanghai, we decided to pay a little more and get 6 month, multiple entry visas because it wasn't too much more than single entry visas and that way we could go into China again without any hassle. So we wanted to make use out of our visas and go at least one more time before they expire. I went to China in the beginning of December for a day trip to Shenzhen with my friend Emily. She has been so many times and knows it really well. We got manicures and pedicures and massages and each thing cost only about $3 Canadian. Amazing! It was such a relaxing day to go with someone who knows exactly where to go, and to not have any kids to worry about! I didn't think Shenzhen seemed quite as sketchy as people make it seem, so when I saw a Groupon for HKD $399 (which came out to $52 Canadian on my Visa- seriously a steal!) for a hotel room AND passes to the Shenzhen zoo, we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to make use of our visas and have a little adventure over Christmas break. 

However, 24 hours before we left, we were thinking that this trip wouldn't even happen at all. The number that the Groupon gave to reserve the hotel room in advance was a number in China, and our phones are not set to make calls to China, so we couldn't get through at all. The hotel website was completely in Chinese, and we realized that it is actually a chain and there are three of those kind of hotels in Shenzhen, so we couldn't just show up and hope that they would have room for us because we didn't know which one to go to. We were pretty close to just cutting our losses, until I noticed a little chat icon on the hotel website. I tried it, and was eventually able to get through to someone who spoke very limited English and after a long and confusing conversation I had at least a bit of confidence that we had been able to reserve a room and had the correct address of where to go. 

 Once we got across the border, with a bit of difficulty we were able to communicate to a taxi driver which hotel to take us too. It was a fairly long drive, so once we actually knew that we arrived at the right place and that there actually had been a room booked, it felt like nothing short of a miracle. And then it turned out that the room was actually pretty nice! It helps when your expectations are nice and low...

 We had an interesting view of Shenzhen from the twelfth floor. Lots of colorful buildings and rooftops to look down on. 

 In the zoo you could buy little bags of carrots to feed the goats. 

 The hungry goats made Leila nervous, so she discovered that she could just throw the carrots over the fence to the pigs and it was a lot more fun. 

 Just like the zoo in Chimelong, there were SO many of each type of animal. 

 A chance to ride a 'lil Sebastian'. 

 The girls liked it, but the people totally tried to rip us off. sigh...

 Waiting for the dolphin show to start. Can you spot the Janzens?

 The show was surprisingly good, with divers and acrobatics. It didn't matter that it was all in Mandarin either, still very entertaining. 

 Self-family-portrait. :)

 These were really weird wheelchair things converted into rides for babies with strange-looking mechanical characters that pulled them around. I've never seen anything quite like it!

 This zoo was sort of good. Sort of weird. Sort of sketchy. Sort of cool. We didn't really know what to think. No comparison to Chimelong where we went in April. That one was completely legit. And if that one made me uneasy in some parts, I definitely wondered if a dangerous animal was going to break out of it's cage at this one! This part was called Carnivore Kingdom, and it had walkways above the animals. You could buy little baskets of apples and throw them to the bears and they would catch them with their mouths. 

 We didn't buy the bear food, but after we walked a little further, we were talked into buying raw meat to feed to wolves on a fishing pole thing. So here is our 6-year old feeding raw meat to hungry wolves. 

 She teased them for a bit, until one jumped up and ate it, and then that was that. Another 10Y if you want to do it again. 

 Other opportunities to be had at the Shenzhen Safari Park. 

 See the little baby kangaroo poking out of the pouch? I've never seen that before- it was really neat. Also, I think it's funny that the kangaroo has red-eye. We left our valuable (and heavy) camera behind in Hong Kong, which was great to have one less thing to worry about. 

 Annika was showing Mike the Chinese characters for "red" and "cow" and then we realized that the umbrella had ads for Red Bull. Duh! Good job though, Annie! We hope she'll soon become fluent- it would have been nice to have a translator! haha

 After we were done with the zoo, which we honestly all did enjoy (plus the weather was significantly warmer than it has been, which was such a treat!), we headed back to the hotel and went for a walk around the neighborhood in search of supper. The hotel was definitely off the beaten track. We live in a very "local" area of Hong Kong, yet China feels completely different. There were lots of new sights for us... 
Like billiards in the street. Everywhere!

 And baby bottoms. You really don't see that in Hong Kong. This was the first time the girls have noticed, and they didn't know what to make of it. Annika was still cracking up about it at bedtime. Can you really blame her??

 Every store front seems to have an old coin-operated ride in front of it. 

 And so random. Remember the teletubbies? 

 Even more temples than Hong Kong, I think. We came across a couple and we didn't walk very far at all. 

 A lady put coins into the rides for the girls and a little crowd gathered. We certainly gave the neighborhood something to look at. 

 We really lucked out with supper. We walked by several restaurants, not sure what would be good, until we were beckoned into this one. The amazing thing was that every single thing on the menu had a color picture to go with it, and the server was so patient and kind while we figured out what would be good to eat. Would a restaurant in Canada be as patient if a family came in who didn't speak a word of English? I hope so... 
The food ended up all being so delicious and the portions could have been cut in half and we still would have had extra. That's Annika's hand eagerly dipping her steamed bun into the sweet condensed milk that comes with. We were all very well fed! And the total came to about $10 Canadian!

 And a few sights from this morning's walk around the neighborhood before we headed back to Hong Kong. 

 (Mike with the girls in the playground. Only it wasn't really a playground, more of an exercise area).

 Hmmm... some meat hanging out the window, along with the laundry...

And after a nerve-racking drive back to the border, we made it safely back to Hong Kong.  All in all, a very interesting trip, and we think more memorable than had we stayed put in Hong Kong.