I hate and love. You ask, perhaps how that can be? I know not, but I feel the agony.

Hey folks,

I’m back in Shen Zhen (SZ), and at the neighbourhood’s internet cafe, which by the way, is packed. I had to wait like 5 minutes to get a computer cos all 100+ coms are occupied. There is free wifi at the local coffee joint except my laptop wasn’t charged since I was away in Hongkong (HK) the past 2 days.

I’m not exactly sure if it’s a good thing that smoking’s allowed in the premises cause this place reeks of stale smoke and both neighbours on my left and right are smoking. But it sure is a convenient excuse for me to tell my mum if she does ask if I were smoking. Hah.

Oh, I digress. So as I was saying, my trip to HK has been an eye-opener. It makes me really determined to go backpack and travel around if I can spare the time and money for it. It’s an experience to travel on your own or with a friend or two; treading on unknown territory and having to navigate despite the language barriers or fears of being robbed; the joy of discovering great bargains (cause as a backpacker you’re living on a tight budget) and even drinking beer in a foreign land.

We took a bus to Luo Hu port 羅湖口岸 (or whatever it is called), the borders of SZ, from Nanshan area 南山区, where we are residing in. And so began the journey across the river. It’s almost akin to Johor Bahru and Singapore, separated by the Straits of Malacca, if I do not recall wrongly, except in this case SZ was just a tiny river across from HK.

Immigrations was quite the breeze. Boarding the KCR was quite the breeze too other than having to battle the thronging crowd that fought to rush into the train compartments for seats. It’s about a 30-40 minute ride (can’t recall exactly) to the East Tsim Sha Tsui train station near to where our lodging for a night is.

We put up a night at one of the many guesthouses/backpackers lodges in Chung King Mansions in Tsim Sha Tsui 尖沙咀. It’s impressive cos I read on one of the newspaper clippings on the noticeboard by the lift landing of how Chung King Mansions have had at least 120 nationalites pass through it and it’s truly a hub of globalization. And this is written so on wikipedia as well!

To put it bluntly, it’s almost like living in amplified version of Mustafa! The lady boss of my guesthouse (who also own many other guesthouses in the same building) imports her employees from Ghana, a country in the continent of Africa because she thinks that the PRCs are a lazy, conniving bunch! The picky mother was so freaked out by it cos of the incredible number of Negros and Indians around plus the smell at ground floor was really overwhelming! Hur hur.

For HKD320, we got a twin room so small and pathetic that it’s even smaller than my single room in hall! The good thing was it came with private bathroom (yes, there was a water heater) and a solid air-conditioning so strong we were freezing at night! So after checking in, we went off to our first shopping destination… Mongkok!  

By the way, it’s summer so temperatures are blazing, highest at 35 degrees Celsius! I’m very tanned now!

We mainly walked through the stalls at the Ladies Market in Mongkok. It’s very much a tourist shopping attraction, so be wise if you do visit there in future, remember to slash the prices to at least half of what the vendors quote you!!!

Mummy was tired so we headed back to drop her off to rest before the sister and I headed out again! I know this is more of a travel log than a detailed comparison of HK versus SZ, but sister just texted to say that mummy is worried for me walking back to the apartment alone at night.

I’ll continue tomorrow morning. Good night for now peeps.