China

Spent the weekend in Shenzhen, China. Les has to stay there for three weeks to meet work permit regs. I arrived about 4pm on Friday and the arrival hall was very noisy; lots of children travel across the border to school in the New Territories every day. They have a special cross border student gate and it was swarming with cute 7-10 year olds, in brightly coloured uniforms; yellow, pink, a lot of white, sky blue, all chattering, giggling and screaming. It was like being among flocks of tropical birds!
The hotel was very grand but as there was a lot of building work around it, it was quite noisy. Dinner was fabulous! The Fire and Ice buffet was an incredible selection of seafood, fish and meats, all raw, to be served grilled to one's liking or in the case of oysters, eaten raw. Lovely. The desserts were wonderful, mainly served in shot glasses.
On Saturday , a work colleague took us to a 360 viewing deck in one of Shenzhen's tallest buildings. The views of Shenzhen and across to the New Territories were amazing. Lunch was interesting...I ordered a speciality steak on the host's recommendation. It truly would have served a family!
After a rest to sleep off lunch, we ventured to an Irish pub for a beer. The couple at the next table had a familiar accent; they were from Falkirk!
Sunday's weather was atrocious, a "red" rainstorm signal was posted. The streets were like a river. We tried to visit a famous theme park and cultural village but even the ticket seller advised us not to spend the money as most of the displays were closed due to the weather. Still, we got to see a bit of the suburbs during the two taxi rides!In the evening we ate in an Italian cafe where an American man was reading a Stieg Larsen novel in Mandarin, painstakingly looking up words on his i-phone and sometimes writing them down to check with the waiter. It looked like a lot of hard work!
This morning at breakfast the girl at the next table was wearing a t shirt, shorts and floral wellies. Her breakfast comprised a fried egg, sausage, a Danish pastry, sliced orange and noodles, all on the same plate,all eaten with chopsticks, a bite (or slurp) from each item in rotation.Still, she would have thought it odd to watch me eat chicken and rice with a fork, I suppose.