Walking Tour: Shenzhen, China

This Saturday I spent the day in China. Shenzhen, a city bigger than Hong Kong, is just across the border, only an hour from Central. It's easy to forget how close we live to a Mainland metropolis, and I was eager to see what it's like before my current China visa expires.

It was raining heavily when we arrived...

...so we spent much of our visit inside the big shopping center at Lo Wu, just a few steps away from the border.

The place is a maze of escalators...

...open stalls, and shops.

Every level has hundreds of retailers.

Many sell knock-off designer shoes, bags, and watches, but there is so much more than that available. Local Chinese designers sell original items, and there are boutique-like shops as well as the factory outlets.

This atrium might give you some idea of the size of this place.

Even the atrium has a shopping center inside it.

We wandered between the different levels for hours...

...past hundreds of shops, shoppers, and touts calling for our business.

After several hours and several hundred RMB spent...

We emerged to find it had become a hot, sunny day.

 

This is the Lo Wu Shopping Center from the outside. I only took pictures here, but we went off into the center of the city for a massage. We went to a respectable, clean spa where the 90 minute massage (plus full use of the sauna, steam room, and awesome showers) cost around 20 USD.

Afterwards, we wandered around the city streets. Shenzhen seems low-key compared to Hong Kong. The streets were wider and we saw many families hanging around and enjoying the sunshine. In that location at least, it was less frantic than Hong Kong. I saw familiar wet markets, trendy shops, and busy restaurants, but without the English signs that are standard in HK. The prevalent aroma was that of stinky tofu. I also spotted a woman getting acupuncture right on the sidewalk! I've never seen that in HK.

This was my first visit to Shenzhen. I know several of my readers have spent quite a bit of time there. What do you think of it? What are some other differences that you notice between SZ and HK?

Bookspotting: Week 71

This week was a little light on the bookspotting. I spotted two people with textbooks in two different MTR stations. One was a young man whose textbook was so large that he was carrying it on his shoulder like a sack of flour. I spent Saturday in Shenzhen, China, just an hour away from Central, HK. I spotted two people reading Chinese books on the train on the way there, but I didn't see any books in Shenzhen. I did see a lot of other stuff, and I'll be sharing more of my pictures from SZ in my next post.

In other news, it's just 45 days until the start of the London Olympics! If you'd like to read my account of the last Summer Games, check out my e-book The Olympics Beat: A Spectator's Memoir of Beijing on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

The Olympics flag entering the Beijing National Stadium. 8/8/2008.

Olympics Beat: 50 Days until London 2012

Beijing International Airport

There are just 50 days left until the London Olympics, and I can't wait. I'm a bit obsessed with the Olympics, enough to write an e-book about my experiences at the 2008 Beijing Games. The mounting excitement reminds me of the hype leading up to Beijing while the city was in the midst of making major infrastructure improvements. 

The Water Cube Aquatic Center

There were world-class sporting venues and new subway lines, but the most notable feature of Olympics Beijing was the absence of the city's legendary traffic.

Pearl Market sans traffic

I'm sure the streets look different today, but I'm having fun looking back on that singular moment. In the run-up to the London Games, I'll be sharing more of my Olympics pictures. You can check out my writing website, ShannonYoungWriter.com, for additional photos.

My mini travel memoir, The Olympics Beat: A Spectator's Memoir of Beijing, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble for $0.99.

THREE QUESTIONS by Meagan Adele Lopez

THE GIST:

An aspiring actress conducts an epistolary romance with an Englishman she met in Vegas while in the midst of a quarter-life crisis.

THE VERDICT:

This is a fun love story about Adele and Guy, an American girl and a British guy, who meet in Las Vegas and decide to exchange letters to get to know each other from afar. They answer three questions about themselves in each letter, and we get to see the dreams, quirks, and frustrations of realistic characters as their relationship grows. This is also the story of Adele's quarter-life crisis. She's 25 and unsure whether it's time to give up her dreams of being a Hollywood actress. Through the narrative and letters, we see the confusion and joy of being in your 20s and realizing you have no idea what you actually want to do with your life.

As the veteran of a long distance relationship with a British guy (we lived in different countries for 3 1/2 years), it's easy for me to relate to this story. I recognized the uncertainty about whether you'll still get along after a long absence, the anticipation of each email, and the fear that the distance will keep you apart indefinitely. Adele's uncertainty over her future is also something I can relate to because the aforementioned relationship has led to my life taking a very different path than I expected. Adele's concerns are believable and she presents them with a mixture of humor, drama, and solemnity that seems typical of someone our age. For these reasons, I would recommend this book to my fellow 20-somethings (I know there are a lot of you who read this blog).

The details of this story match the author's life very closely. She clearly knows what it's like to be an aspiring actress, attend an arts school, live in Paris and LA, and be in a long distance relationship with a Brit she met in Vegas. She went so far as to name the main character (also a part-Cuban girl from Baltimore) after herself. Unfortunately, I didn't feel that the ending matched the honesty of the book, either in tone or content. It felt like a Nicholas Sparks ending tacked on for effect. I would have liked the story to end the way her own life has ended, the way a real person's story goes after a quarter-life crisis. In my opinion, the lessons Adele learns throughout the story would be more powerful without the twist, though it certainly isn't a reason not to read the book.

THE LINK:

Meagan Adele Lopez's website

THE COST:

I paid $2.99 for the Kindle edition.

THE QUESTION:

If you are a 20-something, do you feel you are experiencing a quarter-life crisis? If you're a bit older, how have things turned out differently for you than you expected?

Back to Bookspotting

Thanks again to everyone who helped make the launch of my e-book, The Olympics Beat, a success. It's still holding on to its position on the Amazon bestseller lists for China and Beijing travel. I'll be getting back to my regular blogging schedule for the next few weeks, but I'll add in an occasional peek at my pictures from the Beijing Games in the run-up to London 2012. If you want to see more of those, visit my writing website: ShannonYoungWriter.com.

Now for the bookspotting... I saw a Chinese woman on the MTR reading The Five People You Meet in Heaven. A Western woman on another train was reading a paperback with a title that started with The Girl Who... The book looked old, so I don't think it was one of the Stieg Larsson books. I spotted a woman reading A Thousand Splendid Suns on yet another MTR train. On my way home this afternoon, I saw someone reading Call to the Center: Gospel's Invitation to Deeper Prayer. Across the train, another woman was reading something along the lines of Tuerre a Marrakech, though I'm pretty sure that isn't the exact spelling. Any idea what this book is about? I spotted two Hong Kong guidebooks this week, including one near a famous dai pai dong close to my home.

I spotted a man with a Kindle one afternoon, and I was tempted to recommend my new e-book to him :).

What are people reading in your town?

Writing Video: Launch Week Thank You!

You guys are the best.

If you'd like to see the photos pages illustrating each chapter of my e-book, visit ShannonYoungWriter.com.

If you want to buy The Olympics Beat: A Spectator's Memoir of Beijing, it's available here:
Amazon.com          Barnes & Noble

Amazon.co.uk        Amazon.fr

Amazon.de              Amazon.it

Olympics Beat: Adventures in Guest Posting

It's Day 4 of Launch Week for The Olympics Beat: A Spectator's Memoir of Beijing. You can check out yesterday's post to find out what has been happening so far.

Over the last 24 hours, I've made appearances on a few more blogs.

First up, Harvee Lau at Book Dilettante has terrific taste in books and often reviews titles you don't see on every other book blog. I got to write a guest blog for Harvee on what I learned about China at the Olympics.

Next, I wrote about being an expat writer for Adventures in Expatland. Linda introduced my post with some absolutely lovely comments about my book. She's also hosting a giveaway, so get over there and leave a comment if you'd like to win a copy of The Olympics Beat.

The book is just $0.99, which meant that I got to appear on Man of la Book as a featured memoir in Zohar's Tightwad Tuesdays series.

I really appreciate all your help in spreading the word about my book release. If you'd like to see more of our pictures from Beijing, you can check out the photo pages on ShannonYoungWriter.com.