Random Shenzhen Trip

Shenzhen

My only Tuesday was cancelled so I used the day to head off toward the western new territories to see the wetlands. I arrived all the way there to find out that the wetlands are closed on Tuesdays (guess I should have checked that out). So instead, I went to use the only Hong Kong-China border crossing that I had not done yet, the Western Crossing bridge to Shenzhen. This is a 2 km long bridge that goes across the Shenzhen Bay. The ride on the bus over the bridge was very cool, I got a nice view of both Shenzhen and Hong Kong, as well as these weird rafts that were floating in the water.

Bridge

Weird Rafts

Once on the other side I got to experience another new thing for me. Hong Kong drives on the left, and China drives on the right so at the other side there is a crossover and suddenly we were driving on the other side of the road! Hong Kong rents a small portion of land from China, so there is a part when you arrive where you are in China but the area is policed by Hong Kong, and you haven’t passed through immigration yet, which is a little weird.

I headed through immigration, and then walked around the surrounding area for the next few hours. One of the things I saw was the the main stadium for the University Games. After seeing this stadium and the ones in Beijing I am really disappointed in how America makes stadiums. We do it so boring.

When I wanted to go back to the border I had a problem. I didn’t know the exact name of the border in Chinese and I don’t speak enough to explain where I wanted to go to a taxi driver. I tried to say Hong Kong, at which point the driver suggested the other two border crossing that were far away and not where I had come in. I tried to translate “bridge” on my iPod but for some reason it gave me bridge as in a bridge between two ideas, rather than a physical bridge. I gave up on the taxi, but thankfully I eventually found a bus that would take me to the border. I went back through immigration and went back to campus.

I think that it is really cool that I can just take a day trip to China for around US$5. That’s something I for sure will not be able to do in Minnesota.