I haven’t been to Hua Qiang Bei in forever!  That’s the huge electronics market area.  There are plenty of good restaurants in the area too.  I used to hit that area all the time.  Probably because I used to live much more close and on a convenient subway line.  Well, Davide and I were coming back from a show outside of the city limits and we were in the mood for some fast food.  We realized that the Hua Qiang Bei stop was the best place to go, so we got off there.

Hua Qiang Bei is also the place where you can pick up stolen goods.  I can’t count how many people have come up to me and surreptitiously lifted their shoulder bag’s flap to reveal a stolen laptop for sale.  Dozens and dozens.  Well, we were sitting in the restaurant and a fellow came up to us and sat down.  He leaned over and whispered if we were interested in an iPhone 4.  He stealthily gave us a quick look in his hand.  Then, he let me check it out.  It was a little beat up, but it was legit.  Of course it was stolen, but he at least did us the courtesy of telling us it was stolen.  He offered to sell it for 2000RMB, about $300 for an unlocked iPhone 4.

While I’m at it, I should mention the fake iPhones.  Are you interested in one?  I think they run about $80 USD.  They look identical but you can tell the software is different just because the graphics are not smooth.  But, the apps basically have the same functionality.  The phone also has two SIM slots, which is cool.  A friend of mine bought one.  Here are some pics:

Wow, inflation is a very real thing here in Shenzhen, especially with food.  Prices have been steadily and rapidly creeping up for at least a year now, it seems.  Probably more.  I feel like I can no longer really brag about the great Chinese food that you can get here at such a bargain.  Those bargain prices are almost gone.  Granted, it’s still a better deal than the US (in taste, variety, and price), but those really cheap prices are vanishing fast.  Take drinks for example.  I used to drink milk tea pretty commonly.  When I first came here, I believe on cup was 4 RMB.  For most of my early tenure, it was 5 RMB.  Then about two years ago, it bumped up to about 6, then to 7, and now most places are 8; there are still a few stragglers at 7.  None at 6.  That’s a serious price increase.  Well, the good thing is that I’ve curtailed my milk tea intake (it can be fattening, that tasty stuff).

The Korean place still has their super cheap 18RMB lunch special, but not sure for how much longer.  Other restaurants with an 18 RMB special have bumped up either 5 or 10 RMB.  Middle grade Chinese restaurants bump their 28 prices to 38, 38 to 48, and so on.  Well, occasionally, you might see a bump from 28 to 36, or a 38 t0 46.

On a side note, you may be wondering, “What’s up with all the 8′s?”  Well suh, the “8″ is a lucky number in Chinese.  The pronunciation is very similar to the pronunciation for “get rich”.  Yes, capitalism is alive and well too!

I have an American friend here in Shenzhen who runs a small English school on the weekends.  I help him teach classes every Saturday morning.  The other day after class, he was complaining that a button on his mobile phone had stopped working.  So, he took his phone to a man on the street who specialized in mobile phone repair.  The man possesses a set of tools and a magnifying glass for repairing mobile phones.  After ten minutes and a mere 40 RMB (less than $6), the man had fixed my friend’s phone.  This is amazing to me.  China has so many willing and available people to perform such tasks.  In the US, you’d have to leave your phone for 2-3 weeks and spend about as much money as a new phone to have it repaired.

I had this picture sitting around for a while.  It’s a good representation of a typical day at my apartment.  Got the computer fired up running Ubuntu 10.0, with a couple of terminal windows open for managing Call Me in China.  I’m logged into a WordPress site I’m working on (you can see my WordPress Plugin book in the upper right).  I’ve got my cash on the left side of the table ’cause I just paid for the Chinese food I’d ordered out, which is, of course, sitting in the foreground.  Let’s see, I’m having two of my old standbys:  Di4 San1 Xian1 Fan4 and a Xiao3 Chao3 Rou4 Fan4.  I usually order two ’cause it’s pretty tasty to fry up the rice the next day.  Anyway, it comes with two basic soups too.  All in all, some healthy stuff (assuming the ingredients are good!).  Got my external sound card and headphones sitting on the lefthand side too; I must have been working on some music recently as well.  Oh yeah, and if you look to the left of the monitor, you can see the green screen in the background for creating music videos.  Actually, I haven’t done that in a while; gotta go by some more Mini DV tapes!

The best lunch deal in Nanshan (district of Shenzhen), or maybe in all of Shenzhen for that matter, is the Korean Restaurant in the Coastal City shopping area.  The restaurant is on the second floor near the theater and has a large window on one side with a commanding view over the plaza area at Coastal City.  The lunch deals start at 18RMB (less than $3) and include the following:

1) Four small Korean-style appetizers
2) Two soups (one pumpkin and the other a traditional Cantonese soup)
3) Your entry
4) A scoop of ice cream

For the entre, I like “shi2 guo1 ban4 fan4″, which is a rice dish with a collection of vegetables and an egg served in an iron bowl and served very hot (needs to be stirred up immediately).  The rice continues to cook while it cools down.  So, while I’m waiting, I can bust out the laptop, hop on the free wifi, and crank through a few tasks.  The restaurant itself is high-end and clean.  Hopefully, they’ll stick with that price for a while, in spite of the inflation of food prices here.

The Korean restaurant in Coastal City

This was the first year that I didn’t go somewhere outside of Shenzhen.  This was a nice break, actually.  So many folks leave Shenzhen and go traveling.  The train stations are clogged, the airport tickets are expensive, and it’s pretty much cold everywhere in China.  So, Shenzhen, being an immigrant city, empties quite a bit for Chinese New Year.  This was very noticeable; everything was much quieter, the busses were never full, and the restaurants and shops were easy to manage.

(above) Hiking shots from Nanshan

During the New Year, we were also blessed with spendid weather – sunny and in the 60′s and 70′s.  Various folks and I took advantage of the nice weather and made some hiking trips.  I hiked Nanshan twice, which is no big deal since it can be traversed in about an hour, but it’s still a pleasant hike.  I also hiked WuTong Shan once, which is a much bigger mountain on the outskirts of Shenzhen.  I went with my Buddhist class (those who remained in Shenzhen) and we made the round trip from the low parking lot in about six hours, I think.

(above) Shots from WuTong Shan

Even though Nanshan is much closer and more convenient to the city center, it was uncrowded.  WuTong Shan, on the other hand, was overrun with thousands of people.  The lower part of the trail followed a steep gully through a fairly dark temperate forest.  It was impossible not to see at least 20-50 people no matter where you were along the trail.  Our group started thinning out pretty quickly as the slower hikers lagged behind.  A couple of hours later we emerged at the upper parking lot.  I thought you could drive here, but there were few cars parked here.  It was loaded with people.  The last time I was here, we hiked along the leftside of the mountain.  This time, we took the prominent double staircase leading up the righthand ridge.  A slow and steady pace is all that’s needed.  The crowds didn’t let up.  A few folks topped out on different sections of the staircase along the way having taken more obscure trails on different sides of the mountain.  The summit was loaded with hundreds of people.

We took a direct route back down to the lower parking lot.  It pretty much followed a straight ridge all the way back down to the base of the mountain.  The dirt was fairly loose and required care to not slip.  This was quite a thigh workout.

I was sore the next day; it was a good sore.

Many bus and taxi drivers have little Mao memorabilia whose purpose is to protect the vehicle, bring good luck, or something like that.  This is the sort of post I would have created long ago, but I guess I finally got a decent shot of the front of the bus with Mao’s likeness dangling from the rearview mirror.