Shenzhen part 4 of 4

We stopped at a magic shop that Tim knew about (and where they knew Tim) because he wanted to pick up a new trick because naturally Tim is an accomplished amateur magician and of course he’s planning on putting on a magic show for the orphans.

As planned, we met up with the rest of our crew at 5:30 for a Peking duck dinner. People who know nothing about Chinese culture all seem to know about Peking duck; its reputation is legendary. I was pretty stoked to finally be having some authentic Peking duck. Tim of course knew exactly where in Shenzhen to get the best duck at the best price.

I must say, it was pretty extraordinary. Plum sauce, duck with the crispy skin. Mmmmmm. So good. And all for the price of what I am used to paying for a McDonald’s combo meal.

It had been a full day (and all this after spending the morning at the school for the Academic Fair).

Annika and I made our way home exhausted, full, and with no more China entries left on our passports until we ponied up more money.

Like I said to one of my colleagues on Monday morning “If you haven’t done Shenzhen with Tim “Mr. Hong Kong” Wong, you haven’t really done Shenzhen.

-Jack

Shenzhen part 3 of 4

The warehouse was a five-story building serviced by a series of escalators in the center.

The other four people left us to do some non-warehouse shopping and to get manicures and massages. One of the major draws for many Hong Kongers is the lure of cheap manicures and six-dollar-an-hour massages in Shenzhen. We made arrangement to meet up with them at 5:30 for dinner. So that left Tim, his wife, Annika and me. (My rule is: just get behind Tim and try to stay in his wake.)

The warehouse building was subdivided into hundreds of mini-stores each half the size of my classroom. Each store was packed floor to ceiling with one type of item. One store was all fabric. Another was all die-cast toy cars and trucks. Another was all beach toys. We went up to the fourth floor to the game store Tim had in mind where the lady recognized Tim. Of course.

It was a little like waking up in a parallel universe. Look, there’s Blockus. Same primary colored box, same picture of the game pieces, same lettering. But it wasn’t called Blokus; was called Squares. And there is Rush Hour looking exactly how I know it, except it’s called Smart Driver. I really wanted to understand what I was seeing, but Tim was busy negotiating shipping with the store owner. By the time he was free, I’d decided that it was better not to ask questions you really don’t want to know the answers to.

Tim bought dozens of games for the orphanage with some of the money we had all chipped in. I bought four games for my classroom which cost less than twenty bucks total.

As we were walking out, I mentioned in passing to Tim that we had promised the girls in-line skates for Christmas but had been unable to find them in Hong Kong. Tim said “Hold on a sec, I got a guy.” He led us down to the third floor and sure enough, fifteen minutes later I was walking out with two pairs of skates, two helmets, and two full sets of safety pads. Total cost: just over US$50.