Last year I got a chance to travel to China, first time in my life with some of my friends. We started our journey from Doha, Qatar to Shenzhen, China. We took our flight from Doha to Hong Kong; it was approximately 9 hours flight and thanks to the hospitality of the airline staff which made our journey pleasant. We enjoyed the coffee at Hong Kong Airport and bought the tickets for the ferry service from Hong Kong airport terminal to Shekou sea port. Once we reached at the port, we took our luggage and rushed towards the immigration counters. It did not take much time at immigration as there were very few passengers because ferry service runs every 45 minutes.
Our host welcomed us at the port and we headed towards hotel. It was a five star hotel located in the Hua Xiang Bei area. It is a business hub and has plenty of electronics plazas and shopping malls at walking distance from our hotel. Let me tell that Shenzhen itself is not very old city like other big cities Shanghai and Beijing. The city was built about 30 years ago and is a business hub. All major electronics companies have manufacturing units in this city. Being not an ancient city it is full of immigrants from other parts of china and most of the population consists of young people. They are educated and relocated there for work.
Soonest we settled down in our rooms and next step was to search the food. Within no time we spotted a Turkish restaurant in a small street alongside the Hua Xiang Bei road. We had a wonderful dinner there. Surprisingly they also serve Shisha, which two of friends could not resist to try. There are few of Chinese Muslim Restaurants and others include a Moroccan, an Indian and Pakistani too. Also you can get a vegetarian Pizza or pasta at Pizza Hut. Thanks God we found our means of survival.
Shenzhen, apart from being an industrial city and a business hub, it offers a much more attractions for the tourists as well. One of the famous attractions is "Window of the World" theme park. It has about 130 reproductions of some of the most famous tourist attractions in the world squeezed into one park. It contains the models of all wonders of the world including Eiffel Tower, Pyramids of Egypt, and the Taj Mahal; all in proximity to each other are all part of the appeal of this theme park. Another attraction is the "Happy valley theme park" equipped with rides for kids and adults. There are also some evening shows. The more to mention are the "China Folk Cultural Village" and "Splendid China". If you want to know more about the Chinese culture then visit to these places are a must. Although an outsider looks at China with a typical imagination in his mind but in fact Chinese culture is as diverse as China itself, each region is different from other in terms of culture.
The medium of public transport include the buses, underground metro trains and taxis. Although the streets are full of people due to huge Chinese population but still they stand in the queue and wait for their turn to get into a bus or train. No doubt china is making a tremendous progress in all the fields but tourism is also becoming a flourishing industry for them. I met a couple of teens who work as a part time tourist guides. When you ask them what was their major subjects during their university studies...the answer you get is ''ENGLISH'. Many universities offer undergraduate courses with majors in English. During the shopping at an electronics market, I came across a young guy with a bag on his shoulders voluntarily guiding the customers. I asked him what do you do, he told me that he is a university student and after university he works as a volunteer salesman at some of the shopping malls and guide the customers about the products. It gives him an opportunity to interact with foreigners and eventually to improve his English language skills.
For further reading please visit my post A trip to Guangzhou,China .
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