Day 2 - Train Ride to Shenzhen

The afternoon of Friday 7 December 2007

After HK city tour & lunch, we got onto train to go Shenzhen. The ride took us about 45 minutes to get to the last station - Lo Wu.

The ride was a pleasant one, with views of the busy streets of Hong Kong and the flourishing commercial towers and shopping centers and officers.

Check out the old woman standing behind ABE.. Did ABE offer his seat??

Your guess and mine were right .... no way ABE was going to offer his seat.

Halfway during journey, came in an old woman with packs of old newspaper. The train was slightly packed with commuters by then. She so happened to park herself near ABE's seat. Kids were already looking at ABE to see if he was going to offer the old woman a seat. Ha..ha...tak de nyer ABE bangun!!! So he buat la ala-ala advertisement kat TV3 tu...yang Adlin buat-buat buta and didn't want to give up his seat to the needy ones. Kids said, "Tau dah...Daddy won't give up his seat." And I wasn't at all surprised......ABE bole...even in Hong Kong :-((

Good for you lah ...Ah Ma....she must be sayin' this, "Me need none of your seats...me could sit on me old newspaper!!"

But I guess the old woman was pretty used to young people not wanting to give up their seats. So, she was pretty smart. In no time, we saw her gathering her collection of newspapers and boxes and she comfortably sat on them. Yesss....that's the spirit old woman!!! She went down 2 stops before us and my cheers went to her for being self sufficient and creative.

Crossing over...from Hong Kong into China

We then came down at Lo Wu station, which was also the last station. It was quite a walk to the Immigrations on the China side. There were some slight confusion over filling up our forms and also locating our China tour guide. But once we managed to meet up our guide, things went smoothly afterwards. So we lined up again....according to the names listed in the document for our Immigrations clearance.

Once everyone has cleared Immigrations, we followed our tour guide to the bus, which was parked at the other end of the Immigrations complex....so we had to walk further. Kids were ok with the walk. Mom (age 68 and still goin' strong) was ok too.....but ABE was the cranky and grumpy one. By then, the kids didn't want to "layan" him already. I saw the look on Farah's face....and it had this written all over her..."Haiya..Daddy...u walk la....just like everyone else....no driver here....this is not one of your TNB Indian trips....where you've got drivers waiting for u hands and feet!!". Nasib baik Farah tak laser kan ABE...knowing her...push comes to shove ...she would just blurt it out.

In the bus to the hotel, our tour guide introduced herself. We've got a sweet and young girl whose name is Lychee. Yup.....just like the fruit!!! And what a coincidence too, lychee is the famous local fruit of Shenzhen. Lychee then gave us some brief intro of Shenzhen.

We were then taken to our hotel to first check in and then we came down after that to go for dinner. Dinner was at a Muslim restaurant, not far from the hotel were we were staying.

Haiya...ate so much ...face still poyo ka???

Tired and hungry, kids did justice to the food. In no time, we finished what was served to us. Alhamdullilah...rezeki jangan ditolak..as how the old folks put it.

After dinner, Lychee asked us what we wanted to do. Do we want to go back to the hotel and rest or do we want to go do some shopping. Waaa.......shopping la of course!!! It was the unanimous voice from the ladies. ABE gave that "poyo" look....but who cares. By then, the kids really didn't want to layan their cranky ole' man. He..he...I told ABE loosen up a bit...this was the kids' holiday, remember!!! By then...I too...wasn't in the mood to layan ABE.

TGIF and shopping atmosphere in Shenzhen

So...it was shopping time!!! By the time we got to the Dong Men shopping area, it was already so packed with people. That night being Friday night, a lot of people were out in the street having fun...TGIF maaa.

Farah looking at the mountain of shoes on SALE

We walked around, got a table cloth and a Burberry look alike handbag for Mom, some stuffs for the kids and a game for Nissa's gameboy. I looked at my watch and it was already 10.00pm. Mom looked exhausted already and so was Nissa. Had it been just me and the girls, we would still be shop hopping. Ok la...I guess, it was time to go back.

Our guide had earlier told us that we could just hail a cab to get us back to the hotel. However, when we showed the cab drivers our hotel card, they didn't want to take us there. In the end, we managed to get two cars to take us back to our hotel. It was like "taxi sapu" in KL. But these "taxi sapu" were Hondas and Toyotas. We had to pay slightly more than the normal cab. But it go us back to hotel. Suspence jugak...tempat orang...mana lah tau..tourists are the most likely people that could get tricked. Tawakkal saja la....Alhamdullilah...we got back to our hotel in less than 10 minutes.

Kids then went into their own rooms. In no time everyone was in slumberland. I felt a slight cold coming down on me. So...I took 2 panadols and that knocked me up till morning.