Today we visited Dafen, the arts and crafts neighborhood of Shenzhen. Most of
the artists in the community do reproduction work, meaning you can buy a hand painted
replica of a Mona Lisa or Napoleon for dirt cheap. Portraits are also very
common. Only a few of the studios created or sold contained creative pieces.
When I bought the painting that is above my couch on eBay I am pretty
sure it came from a neighborhood just like this. All the art is dirt cheap and
it becomes very tempting to buy stuff that you don't even have space for. I
ended up purchasing two small oil paintings on canvas of Hong Kong for 30 kuai,
4 bucks an took a picture with the daughter of the owner who spoke English.
After shopping, Desi and I decided that we wanted to visit
our friend Chris at his apartment complex on the coast in Shenzhen. I heard
alot about Chris' residence which is supposed to be one of the most luxurious in
all of Shenzhen. Because he was still at work, he is a English tutor like a lot
of foreigners in China are, we decided to go to Dongmen first and catch up with
him later. It was my third time to go to Dongmen, my second time to go shopping
there. It's amazing how many little stores basically carry the same items. In
Dongmen we went looking for swimming attire. I decided that if I was
gonna buy a bathing suits I was gonna get the real Chinese bathing suit, a
tight little spandex number that fits only 90% of your ass. The first suit I
liked was black, red and yellow, the colors of the German flag which I thought
Desi would appreciate, especially since I was pushing for her to buy the USA
bikini. Bur being a self hating German, she suggested the suit says LAchueng on
it and has a pocket in which I could fit my ID card in so in case of my sudden
death my corpse could be identified easily. I was convinced and opted for the
second. We arrived at Chris' apartment and the guards just opened the door as
Desi mouthed a small "ni hao", yet another sign of how loosely
enforced the security is in this country. The apartment offers many amenities
such as three swimming pools, ping pong and pool tables, tennis courts, a park,
a library, a supermarket, ball pits for kids and various other things.
Basically it looks like an American resort like the Ritz Carlton.
We took the elevator to the 20th floor where I got to see
Shenzhen from above, however that was by far not the best view, because once I
turned around I got to see Hong Kong from afar. It looked like stacks of
dominoes surrounded by radiant green mountains. I also saw what I was told was
the friendship bridge which connects Hong Kong with Shekou, an area that is
very popular among Westerners. I got to see where we walked a couple of days
ago. Chris shares the apartment he lives in with two roommates And his
girlfriend. The cost is about the same as my apartment in New York. Lisa came
over to take a shower before going to the usual Thursday night hangout, Ladies night
at Coco Park. She lives farther away and has spent the day running around
getting our bus tickets for the following day. We all went downstairs together
and parted ways at a koi pond. We purchased our swimming pool tickets and after
changing into our newly acquired Chinese bathing costumes went to one of the
pools. The locker room showers have bells as shower heads which I thought was
rather cool. Swimming was a lot of fun and I do like the tight Chinese swimming
suits after all. After going swimming we went back to the Muslim restaurant for
a dinner meal and walked around the marketplace. There was an odd looking
variation of a Boston Terrier that I was following around before it and it's
owner entered a shoe store. I walked in and took a picture of it laying in the
floor. It wasn't until I had put my camera away and turned around that it
flipped out and started chasing me around the store :) Chinese Snorgs are cuter
and more aggressive then their NYC brethren.
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