Arriving at my new "home" in Shenzhen (深圳)

Well well well... my arrival in Shenzhen was amazingly perfect. I was extremely excited, except for the fact that I was way too tired to think and looking forward to getting some sleep the soonest I could. Anyway, on the way home some things went on, which might be worth sharing and which I listed right below. :)

Arrival


My arrival was okay. As chineses from Mainland China cannot cross the borders to Macau without a Visa (yeah, to me it sounded strange when I first heard it as well), they couldn´t wait for me, which was a little aggravating by the moment I had to apply for the visa in the border, but after a couple of hours standing at the long and endless "line", I managed to. Arriving in Zhuhai, the hostfamily´s friend who picked me up and I took a bus to the train station in Shenzhen... and when we got off, the family was waiting for me. (detail is, I arrived after 2am). They were all very nice and we introduced ourselves briefly to each other. Later on, summarizing the whole thing, I hibernated on their car heading home, couldn´t help it. Even overheard some laughters coming from the front seat. I could barely understand chinese at that time, but I could catch a "Yes, he is quite tired." Well, at least that was what I thought they had said and that´s how I remember it now.

 

                         First impression

My first day literally in China was eye-opening. All relatives from the chinese family were there and we went to a restaurant to have dinner together. First thing I found out was that the city was so large and crowded than in anywhere else I had been before. I was actually expecting to see many villages and more traditional things, but instead, I ran across many skyscrapers with asian-style screens and neon signs broadcasting all kinds of advertisement and a mixture of traditional and simplified chinese characters. In the afternoon I walked around the city and tried some market dishes around by myself.

      

Shenzhen is a southern chinese city and a next-door neighbor from Hong Kong (香港), "land of Jackie Chan". Like any other big city, it´s inevitably crowded, noisy and chaotic in rush hours. Despite its development and timing, there are also villages and typical/traditional streets with differents dialects in every corner due to the migration of chineses either from the countryside or from other regions in search of jobs. I believe that the main chinese here is the 普通话 (mandarin), although I´ve heard some speaking the 广东话 (cantonese) and a bunch of other dialects. 

:)