Clipped Wings

Well first of all, budget airlines sucks, but as the name suggested, i'm on a budget. So i've gotta eat my own words. But i do have my rights to whine a little about it. Cramp seats, horrible chinese passengers who refuse to shut up, and a middle age lady who was yelling and quarrelling on the phone just prior to the plane taking off. I swear i'm never flying budget once i've started on my career path. 

So first stop was shang ming's house since we're like travelling buddies, he's like my travelling buddy, we've accumulated 2 trips so far counting this, the previous one was bangkok.

Okay so we were at T3 to have a decent meal since hot meals on Tiger Airways cost a bomb. And we saw javier poon working at dfs at T3. Then on to the budget terminal to check in and do some dfs shopping once we've cleared immigration, the usual alcohol and dunhill. And did i mentioned for Tiger airways you've gotta pay 10sgd to check in your luggage, and you can't choose your seats now, since seats with additional leg room cost like an additional 40 bucks. Blame the recession, airlines are cutting costs and trying to source for extra income. And yes Singapore airlines is the doing the same too. 

We arrived at Baoan international airport at shenzhen around 11.45pm local time which so happens, singapore is in the same timezone as shenzhen. Just before disembarking the aircraft, i notice locals putting on jackets and sweaters. While i am aware it would be cold, i thought it might just be air conditioning temperature since i've checked and it was suppose to be around 17 degrees. So it was just my shirt and khaki pants on. Well what the hell, it doesn't feel anywhere near 17, more like 14 or 15. The first thing I immediately noticed was how foul the air smelt, i assumed it was the pollution. It really stank!

We took the cab to holiday inn hotel at guiyuan bei lu which is some street in the luohu district, the district alone is probably the size of half of singapore. Took the cab about 30mins via highway to reach our hotel and by then it was way passed midnight. There was one thing i find it surprising. From my travelling experience, I was expecting somewhat of a bargaining to take place once we board the cab. But in shenzhen, turning on the fare meter is the norm, so well.. I'm okay with that, and taxi fares are really cheap, I mean really cheap.

We checked in, went for a macdonalds around 1am, walked around baoan nan lu and returned to our hotel since we're quite sleepy already. 

The next day after washing up, i remember opening the windows, and again that same smelly air hit me hard. Trust me, the air there really polluted and stinks. Time to head out and explore the city.

A little background history, if theres one city i would call a melting pot, it would be shenzhen. 

Shenzhen is just one city in the Guangdong province, there are other cities inside the province itself, like changping, dongguan just to name a few, and numerous other towns and villages. Deng Xiaoping the ex premier of china, recognised shenzhen as a potential commercial hub for its proximity to then british held hongkong and portugese held Macao. The chinese government drew up plans and created the so called "SEZ" or Special Economic Zone to industralised and attract foreign investments to the area. 

Obviously It was a success, the rags to riches stories that came from shenzhen outnumbered those from other parts of China. Shenzhen was a giant magnet for both the mainland chinese, hongkong residents and taiwanese. People from all over China would fight tooth and nail just to get the special permit issued by the government to work and reside in the SEZ. I've seen throngs of hongkongers shopping there, and chinese (mostly from farming families) from all over PRC flood there trying to earn their first 1 million yuan. MNCs setting up shop to tap into the cheap labour market, low production costs and numerous tax incentives dangled by the chinese government. The pollution is a good example of how developed the area is. 

Of course with the entire chinese population flooding there from all over, shenzhen has one of the highest crime rates in china. Daylight mugging, drugs, prostitution, gangs etc etc. You name it they've got it. The government though tried really hard to clean up the city but other than the main commercial district of luohu, which felt relatively safe. The other districts of shenzhen felt as safe as chicago in the 1920s. Corruption is rampant as usual, I've seen a local police just taking stuff from a street vendor and walking away without paying. But behind all that crap, i still enjoyed shenzhen for its lack of law enforcement and the fact that I can litter and not get fined. Don't blame me though, I'm from clean and green Singapore!