...doesn't meant that it is what you think it is. I was at a buffet the other night, and saw sweet and sour chicken, which is awesome. it turned out to be sweet and sour pig snout, which is not awesome, and you can actually tell that it's pig snout. hard to keep that down. last night, my friends took me out to "the busiest place in Shenzhen." I saw well over a million people there. it was straight insanity. It's apparently not where you go to find fakes, but it is where you get the Chinese version of whatever product. There were around 8 Apple stores....meanwhile, Apple is very exicted that they are going to open their first store in Shenzhen very soon. personally, i quite liked the Burbelly Store. we went to what was essentially food city. there's 4 levels of streets that only sell food. i thought that this is what people refer to as street food, and i managed to survive it, it was a bit hot. i had some sort of "australian bbq pork", "korean bbq squid", and some other type of meat on a stick, along with a vegetable that nobody seemed to know what it was, we decided that the slightly fishy taste makes it seaweed of some sort. my stomach is rebelling a bit from what i put it through last night....everything was delicious, but who knows what i actually ate. i think i'm going to be spending some quality time with green tea today and hoping for the best. the guy i have been hanging out with is Thomas, he's a black guy, and gets mistaken for african, indian, and sometimes latin american, but never actually american, which is highly entertaining. a lot of the times, he gets called my interpreter, because i'm white and obviously the boss. thank goodness he has a sense of humour about the whole thing. what's interesting is that because we are of a different race and hanging out, we get stared at all the time. he said that if we had a chinese guy hanging out with us, people would actually stop to take pictures and ask us what was going on. it's apparently completely strange and out of place to see foreigners of different races as friends, a completely foreign concept. you almost always see foreign guys with girls half their age (or less), but the thought of a black guy and a white guy hanging out is hard to conceive. the only time i really feel clean is in my hotel room, immediately after a shower. the combination of sweating and pollution make a thin layer of slime on you, that seems a little disturbing at first, best to just accept it and move on. the number of languages here is unbelievable. people speak mandarin, cantonese, and then whatever crazy village language that they have. a village can be as small as an apartment building that people never leave and develop their own language. women are seen as completely useless in villages, so they all come to shenzhen to get educated and to get a good job so that they can prove to their village that they are useful. due to that fact, the women in shenzhen outnumber the men around 7 to 1. i'll write more later, but i'm going to attach some pics, and should probably write in where they're from, i'll also be sending more pictures with descriptions in the next couple of emails: 1. this is my hotel in luohu district. the apartment buildings are also owned by hyatt, and can be had for around $5000/month. quite often that's where mistresses for businessmen from hong kong stay. they get the apartment, and $500/month, and are expected to wait around, clean and do nothing until their men come to see them. the will not cheat, they do not work, they just hang out going crazy with boredom. there are other complexes that are cheaper, but this is where the big businessmen keep their girlfriends. it's entirely acceptable as long as they take care of them. chinese men tend to be ultra controlling, setting bedtimes, telling them what they can and can't do, etc. 2. these are the 2 highest buildings in shenzhen. the blue one is the tallest and has a club in the top that nobody but the relatives of top military and government officials can afford. also, if you're a foreigner and go, you're probably going to get in a fight, it's best to avoid it. the smaller of the two, the green building, is 66 floors, and is the second largest of the two. i use them as a landmark to find my hotel and get my bearings. there's also a building that looks like a knock off of the empire state building, and the top changes colours throughout the night, there's blue, red and green. i keep forgetting to take pictures of it. 3. at major intersections, the lights don't turn green, they turn to green numbers counting down, so that you know how much time you have to plow through the intersection, being a pedestrian is never really safe, but you can get an idea of where you think the traffic is going to come from and hope for the best. 4. apartment buildings and the mix city mall, which is famous and EXTREMELY expensive...if you're looking for that $100k watch, this is where you can come to buy it. you want louis vitton or prada, they are here as well.
5. in front of the electronics warehouse. people as far as the eye can
see, just crossing the intersection. this series of electronic stores is insane. you can buy everything imaginable, whether that's cables, or if you're missing the power key of your iPhone. perhaps the screen cracked on you? buy a new one, they'll fix it here, and you're on your way. are you missing the "2" key on your old flip phone? well, that's here as well! 6. in the middle of the shopping district, there are over 1 million people here, chances are, my pictures was taken at least that many times. it's hard to get a picture that shows just how many there are in the sea of black heads. 7. pointing the camera another direction. my pictures didn't really turn out very well, i'll attempt it again, but perhaps i should just use a real camera instead of my phone. 8. Thomas, me, and Shelly. she teaches japanese at our school. she's wearing a very stylish Burbelly blanket or scarf or something. (not quite burberry), the pattern isn't quite right, or something, you can see it, but it doesn't stick out. she's dating a chinese guy who lives abroad
and who owns somewhere around 8 apartment buildings in shenzhen. He is somewhere around 50 years old, she's 23. she is very much in love with him
though,and is hoping for a ring! i'm going in search of green tea, bread, and going to hope for the best for my poor digestive system. have a great day, all!
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