Shenzhen

Why can't anything be easy?

Our travels from Nanning to Shenzhen were supposed to be easy. We had no luggage (it all went on a truck the night before) and we were supposed to check some small bags, but the idea was that everything was carry-on.

We get to the airport, and suddenly, the rules have mysteriously changed (but for Asians too, it wasn't just because we were white). No longer could you have more than one carry-on, it was just one. And that means that purses counted as your one, camera bags counted as your one, anything counted as one. So we all began scrambling to smush as much stuff into one bag as possible, but a lot of us were havng trouble.

USUALLY you are allowed one bag, one laptop bag, and one personal item. No, they were strict ONE item only.

But we got on the plane, and all was well. We arrived in Shenzhen just fine.

We split up into our usual two buses and took off on this city that looked more Florida than Nanning. But then, our driver started frantically honking at the other bus as the other bus drove past the exit.

We made it to the hotel,but apparently the other bus went through a nightmare! They missed the exit, then their driver lost their toll ticket (it's like if you've ever driven on the Jersey Turnpike, you have a ticket saying where you got on and off and that's your toll rate) and the guy was arguiing... apparently, they waited at the toll plaza for over 20 minutes to get the ordeal sorted out.

In the meantime, we were exploring the hotel, napping... The "grocery store" attached to the hotel is an overpriced small 7-eleven! how funny is that?

Eventually, everyone arrived and it was all fine.

A large group of us ended up going to this expat area.... it was awesome! Lots of amazing looking restaurants (american prices though... my dinner cost $15US!), nighttime roller skating. They had Thai, Indian, Italian, Tex-Mex, BBQ, Irish Pub... it was just awesome. We ate Tex-Mex and it was so delish!

Today we have plans to go to Hong Kong. I have some stuff I need to mail home. I hope I can find somewhere to do that!