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Published: August 12th 2023
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Luohu is one of the oldest districts in Shenzhen and close to the border with Hong Kong. Originally, there was only one or two checkpoints to enter Hong Kong from Shenzhen and one is located here in Luohu. The neighbourhoods here are quite old and the apartment buildings definitely looked past their prime. We wandered down a shopping street and most businesses were open and while not exactly busy were ticking over. Since the border has only fully re-opened recently, I wonder how quiet this area was before and how many businesses folded in that time. Our walk took us past a few places that hadn't survived the pandemic. One place looked like a spa and there was a bus terminal that was closed. I would have liked to have had a walk around the inside of the bus terminal as I bet it would be pretty eerie, but as usual there were security guards about.
We headed to a slightly fancier area of Luohu with some very blingy skyscrapers. There were so regular mirrored ones and a few gold ones. I wonder who thought it was a good idea to build the gold skyscrapers. Maybe they looked great back
in the day and were the height of elegance and sophistication, but now they just look tacky and dated. I also liked the contrast of these giant gleaming, if somewhat tacky, buildings in the background with the smaller older worn looking apartment buildings in the foreground. From here, we wandered closer to the Dongmen area, and came across a lot of abandoned apartment buildings that were in the process of being knocked down. We also came across an old neighbourhood filled with small apartment buildings. These buildings were old and worn looking, but also filled with life as people had their washing hanging on their balconies and plenty of plants and flowers. As we wandered further into this neighbourhood, it became evident it was very working class, with lots of delivery scooters parked up and I saw a few women wearing the uniforms of cleaners and toilet attendants. I liked that people in this neighbourhood lived their lives partly outdoors as I saw women sitting gossiping and blokes chilling on their stools with their phones. We left this neighbourhood and walked along the main road for a bit before finding another small neighbourhood. This one had more open fronted shops
and people sat outside selling vegetables. I got a real feeling of community from this area. We came to the end of this neighbourhood and headed out via an underpass. We came to a park that was filled with families enjoying the weekend.
From the park, we headed to Dongmen Pedestrian Street. We made our way to the food street. It was rammed. Last time I had been was during Covid and it was pretty quiet, so this was a shock. There were so many people and smells from all the foods. After making our way through the crowds, we headed back outside and away from Dongmen to get some food at a little Xinjiang bakery. The mushroom pasties were divine and so cheap. The woman had just got a fresh batch out of the oven and they were piping hot. After eating those we headed back to the pedestrian area to get some photos as it was darker now. The Wenheyou building was all it up and we watched a high speed rail train going past. I was too slow to get a good photo. We headed up to the arcade area and I enjoyed standing outside looking
down at the street below watching all the people come and go, and also those sitting taking a rest.
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