Day 4:Quest for crystal beads in Kowloon and the Road to Shenzhen

First I wanted to back track and talk about our quest from our day in Kowloon.   Our friend Patsy, from Atlanta, had asked if we could track down some Swarovski beads that she uses for her sewing. The store that sells these is called Kind Wood Beads, and is in the factory district in Kowloon.  It was supposed to be close to the garden we visited.  We started up and did indeed find the factory district.
This was a rather seedy looking area to say the least, and store signs were mainly in Chinese instead of the usual English everywhere we find in Hong Kong.  We kept passing these weird little units with various goods being sold.  Rich asked several locals in English and Chinese where we could find the 3rd floor, but no success.  However several locals were nice enough to get us to the right place, where we took a rickety ride on an ancient lift to the 3rd floor.  I was expecting a scary little shop, but as we got off the lift, there was the Kind Wood Beads shop, with colorful beads everywhere and a friendly shop owner.  Then, we were overwhelmed by choices - hopefully got the correct ones.

Yesterday we started out early for our only planned trip to the mainland.  The city is Shenzhen, which is right over the border from Hong Kong.  We were on a guided tour for this, and took a bus and train for 8 of us.  There were 6 Aussies and us in the group.  As usual, the Aussies were very nice.  We have met at least one Australian on every international trip we have made - they travel a lot, particularly to Asia. Our leader Sam, was an energetic man from Hong Kong - we had a difficult time keeping up with is fast pace in the train station.  He explained about Hong Kong's gradual transfer from separate entity to eventually part of mainland China. When we got to Shenzhen, we met our local tour guide, Nancy, who was responsible for showing us around.

Shenzhen is the newest large city in China.  Just 35 years ago it was basically a fishing village with 20,000 people. The city now has 15 million people.  The city is known for manufacturing electronics, including Apple phones.  What we found interesting is that everyone in this city seems truly obsessed by money.  Making it seems to be most residents'  goal in life, perhaps because it was a poor village just 35 years ago.  Like Hong Kong, there are tall buildings everywhere.  We spent time touring the artist shops, oil paintings and embroidered pictures.  Rich bought one of these.  Speaking of Rich, his Chinese came in handy with bargaining prices.  It appears that his knowledge of Mandarin helps him in  mainland China, as opposed to Hong Kong, where Cantonese is spoken.  Locals actually understood some of his phrases!

One topic that I must discuss today is important, though not something you necessarily read in a normal blog.  This is squat toilets.  For those traveling to China for the first time, particularly you ladies, this is a concern.  Hong Kong fortunately has modern toilets, but if you go outside, or even in the train station, you will usually encounter the squat toilet.  These are my worst nightmare.  I credit former Chairman Mao with their continued existence in modern China.   According to Mao's physician, Mao hated modern toilets, and always preferred the squat. (or a hole in the ground).
I experienced 4 of these horrid things yesterday.  If you have never used one, ladies, I would say you are not missing anything.  And I have several tips if you decide to travel to China.  First, always wear comfortable clothing with easy access.  Second, don't drink too many fluids.  And last, always do your nightly stretching!

After a nice Chinese lunch, Rich and I split off from the rest of the group that went shopping.  We went to a theme park called the Splendid China Folk Culture Village.  This park was kind of like a Chinese legoland, and had small replicas of various structures in China, including the Great Wall.  It also had various shows, and nice landscaping.  We went to a neat horse show - many locals were in attendance. We spent the rest of the time walking all over the park and looking at the replicas of the Forbidden city, the Great wall, and even replicas of typical homes.

Last night we ventured into our Wan Chai district to eat at a place that I had read about called Joy Hing.  It reportedly had fabulous roast pork.  The place was tiny and full of locals who spoke only Cantonese.  Rich finally managed to put in our order.  The pork was very fatty, but this is apparently how the locals like it, as they were all cleaning their plates. I ate a little of mine, but fortunately Rich cleaned my plate and his.  Even though he thought it fatty, that was not going to stop him from eating it.  That was the end of our long but interesting day.