Blogs from Shenzhen, Guangdong, China, Asia - page 2

Exploring another area of Shenzhen. Baoan is pretty far from where I live but new subway lines have made it more accessible and slashed travel times. We started at Baoan Farmers Trade Wholesale Market (that's the translation of the name, which is why it sounds a little strange). The market was really big, bigger than I imagined it would be. We started in the outer ring, which was filled with shops selling dry good such as rice, spices, cured meats and fruits and veggies. Since it was the afternoon, it was pretty quiet. Because the market is in Shenzhen, it's a bit more high tech as each vendor had a tv screen outside their store that displays what I think was their prices. After walking the outer ring, we headed into the centre of the market ... read more

Nanshan Museum had been on my radar for a while, but when I tried to get tickets in Covid times, there were never any available. Now that's over it was super easy to reserve a spot on the museum's WeChat mini programme. The museum was easy to access as it was about a ten minute walk in a straight line from the subway station. I scanned my ticket at the entrance and was free to wander the museum. I don't really know too much about this area of Shenzhen apart from it is central and pretty rich. The museum had both permanent and temporary exhibits, so I started with permanent ones. I decided to work through them chronologically so started with 'Ancient Nanshan'. I passed a gorgeous wooden folding screen with gold lacquer work as I ... read more

New year, new places to explore. Today I headed to the former Kingway Brewery site in Luohu to see how it has been preserved and regenerated. Having visited and lived in China for a few years, I have never heard of Kingway Beer before. I've read that it was a leading beer manufacturer in China, but it must not be up there with the likes of Tsingtao or Harbin, or I have just never opened my eyes enough to see it (that's probably the right conclusion). The brewery site has been transformed into a cultural platform for art and design exhibitions. It was about a five minute walk from Tai'an subway station and I hadn't read up much about the site so didn't really know what to expect. Since it was a holiday, it was quite ... read more

I came across Luohu Greenway online and it looked like a nice walk. There wasn't too much information online about it, but with the help of my map app, I was able to find the start. I made my way to Buxin subway station and then walked for about 20 minutes or so to the start of the trail. It was a nice sunny day as I made my way up the hill and along a very quiet road to the start of the trail. I was surprised at how quiet the area was, as there were a few communities of high rise apartment buildings. Maybe everyone was inside suffering from Covid as this was roughly when Shenzhen hit the peak. The entrance to the greenway surprised me as I had imagined it to be totally ... read more

I had been meaning to visit Nantou Ancient City for ages and the new subway line made it much more convenient. It was late afternoon by the time I got there and walked through the old city gates. Since it was a Saturday and the weather was nice and cool, it was packed. We headed off to the backstreets that surround the main area, as it was quieter here. There seemed to be no remnants of the ancient city here. Instead just regular daily life was on display, lots of little stores selling daily essentials, small restaurants, washing hanging out, alleyways filled with e-bikes and motorised carts, and people going about their day to day things. After circling around, we ended up on the main street, which was filled with people. I didn't really like it ... read more