Shenzhen – Siminka's View

After researching everything we needed to survive in China, I downloaded and activated WeChat, Alipay, and offline Google Translate while still in Vietnam.

Our flight from Hanoi to China was at a comfortable afternoon time, so we had plenty of time to get ready. We arrived at the airport early, and I decided to use the wait to fill out our arrival cards online. You have to do this on the actual day of arrival, not before. You can do it after landing in China, but I wanted to breeze through immigration without wasting time on forms.

I found the link for the arrival cards on the Slovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. Doing it on a phone was a nightmare. First, you need photos of your passports in landscape orientation. The system scans the photo to auto-fill your personal details. Then, I had to enter our address in China. Of course, I had to leave the page to copy the address, and when I came back, all the data from the previous step was gone. Then I hit a wall with the “Region” field—it wouldn’t let me type anything or select an option. I tried starting over. No luck. I tried an incognito window, and suddenly the region field worked. I was thrilled. I filled out Johnny’s info first and tried to add the rest of the family as “accompanying passengers” to save time. It looked promising. I was almost done with Arthur and about to start on Simeon when—poof—everyone I’d already entered disappeared. I was livid. I wanted to punch whoever programmed that site. But I couldn’t give up. I decided to try a “parent + 2 kids” approach. I started with Johnny and added the two oldest. Success. The final step was his signature, but he wasn’t right there. By the time he got back from buying sandwiches, everything was gone again. So, I started over with myself and the two youngest. It worked! I downloaded the QR codes and emailed them to myself. Then I did Johnny and the two oldest. Success again. I have to say, the whole process cost me a lot of nerves and a full spectrum of swear words. Even on the plane, I was saving the QR codes to a Google Drive folder and making them available offline just in case. I was working on it until the very second we took off.

We landed in a gray, overcast Shenzhen, coming from a gray, overcast Hanoi. We headed to immigration, and I had my QR codes ready on my phone. Turns out, they weren’t even needed—we were already in the system, and the officer just asked a few questions to verify our info. We grabbed our bags and went to find a SIM card shop. While Johnny handled that, I watched the kids and luggage. It took forever. I’m not sure what the hold-up was, but his WeChat payment wouldn’t go through. He tried several times, then I tried—nothing. We didn’t even think of Alipay at the time. Luckily, they took cards, so we finally got our much-needed Chinese internet.

We took the metro from the airport. Johnny managed to pay for the tickets with WeChat. The ride took about an hour because we were staying in a distant district called Futian. A woman who had lived and worked in Finland struck up a conversation with us in excellent English, giving us advice on which stop to get off at and what to see in the city.

One thing that pleasantly surprised us was that almost everything had bilingual signs—Chinese and English (or at least pinyin). It made navigating so much easier.

Of course, we got off at a stop that was further from our place than it should have been, so we spent about 10 minutes dragging our suitcases through the evening streets of Shenzhen. The first unpleasant surprise was that motorcycles and scooters drive on the sidewalks. We constantly had to dodge them. Plus, Shenzhen is almost entirely electric now—even the garbage trucks. The streets were quiet, clean, and smog-free. The downside? You can’t hear those electric scooters coming, so you’re often startled by a horn right behind you.

We reached our building and found a security guard who spoke zero English and had no idea what to do with us. We gave him our passports, he copied down the info, and let us into the elevators. The problem was, we didn’t know which floor to go to. A younger assistant guard came to help. There were eight elevators—four on each side. He led us into one, but it didn’t have a button for our floor. He got confused and went to check the other elevators. Meanwhile, another man got in, pressed his floor, and we ended up on the 33rd floor before riding back down to the first. There we met our guard again, who led us to a different elevator that actually went to the 23rd floor. It turns out each elevator only services certain floors—like one of those logic puzzles from math class.

We got out and found the door from our email. The guard rang the bell, which confused us—why ring the bell of an empty apartment? Unsurprisingly, no one answered. There was a phone number on the door, so Johnny called it. The person on the other end only spoke Chinese. Johnny handed the phone to the even more confused guard. Suddenly, a young woman in pajamas appeared who spoke English and translated the conversation for us. We waited about 10 minutes until a woman arrived, opened the door, and revealed… a reception desk. She took our passports, filled out more forms, gave us our key cards, and sent us to the 16th floor.

Shenzhen is expensive, so we had to settle for a one-room studio for our five-night stay. It had two large beds, a small couch, a tiny kitchenette, and a bathroom. The kitchen wasn’t equipped at all—just two cups and a small pan.

Honestly, I hated this setup. I couldn’t sleep at all with everyone crammed into one room. After this experience, I immediately crossed Japan and Taiwan off our potential travel list, knowing their apartments are similarly “compact.”

On our first night, Johnny and Leo went out to find something to eat. Luckily, our street was lined with food options. There was even a McDonald’s right next door if we got tired of Chinese food.

I waited with the rest of the kids. Even though I didn’t have a VPN yet, WhatsApp was working for me, which was a nice surprise. I called my parents to let them know we’d arrived safely. But as soon as I hung up, it stopped working. I couldn’t even text Johnny. I tried to add him on WeChat, but the app suddenly demanded I verify my account. It gave me three options: via a bank card, through a friend with WeChat, or via a Weixin account (the Chinese version of WeChat). I tried the card option several times, but it wouldn’t accept my non-Chinese card. The Weixin option was out since I didn’t have an account. That left finding a helpful Chinese citizen to verify me… but the rules are strict: the person must have had an account for at least 6 months, be active, can only verify one person per month, and if the person they verify turns out to be a scammer, they lose their own account. Unsurprisingly, no locals were lining up to help a random tourist. Lesson learned: WeChat is useless for tourists unless you have a close Chinese friend willing to vouch for you. Tourists should use Alipay. But to use services like taxis or food delivery within the app, you need a Chinese phone number. Also, Google Maps is inaccurate in China; you need Amap, which also really only works with a Chinese number. You can change the number in the apps, but it’s easier to just download and install them after you get your Chinese SIM card at the airport (assuming you have a VPN, otherwise Google Play won’t work). We bought a 40GB monthly SIM for about $25. There’s also the eSIM option, but our older phones don’t support it.

My WeChat died completely. It became totally useless. At least Johnny could still use it for messaging.

I’m giving the current tech superpower some major “red points” for these apps. They really annoyed me. It’s a shame they don’t give tourists a satisfaction survey. WeChat is everything here. They use it for everything, including communicating with hosts. They send door codes and instructions through it. Also, drone food delivery is a big thing in Shenzhen, and I wanted the kids to experience it. We traveled to a different district just for this, as drone stations are only in a few spots. We got there, I tried to scan the QR code to order, and spent ages trying to figure out why I couldn’t submit the order—only to realize it could only be done through WeChat. We had the same problem at a stall where robots were making coffee. It’s ridiculous they haven’t made a tourist-friendly version of WeChat. Without it, you can’t even rent a power bank (which are everywhere), rent an umbrella at the metro, or pay some street food vendors who only take WeChat. It really limits your ability to use services that make daily life easier.

So, we used Alipay for payments. But even then, technology can fail. Both Johnny and Leo had their apps freeze after several uses, demanding they verify their identities. It’s incredibly stressful when you’re trying to pay for the metro, a taxi, or food. It happened to Johnny in a restaurant. He had to take photos of both sides of his credit card, his passport, and then a selfie holding his passport where his elbows were visible. Leo was even asked for a bank statement. Once you submit everything, you get a message saying it will take two hours to process. Luckily, I could still pay. After that experience, Leo just withdrew some cash from an ATM—which we only found inside a bank branch, as there are almost none on the streets since no one uses cash anymore.

As for connecting with the world outside China, a VPN is a must. Johnny had NordVPN on his computer, but it failed completely. We’d installed LetsVPN on our phones while still in Vietnam, and Johnny tried to get it on his computer too, but it was a struggle—one step required the VPN to be on, another required it to be off, and they kept conflicting. He eventually got it working, but the lesson is: set up your VPN before you enter China! And keep in mind that even the best VPN is unstable. About halfway through our trip, it started cutting out. Johnny had the premium version, which let him switch regions, but even that wasn’t 100%. Also, my Slovak SIM card didn’t work at all. I had a weak signal in Shenzhen and nothing outside the city. If you need your home number for bank verifications or anything else, be prepared for it to fail. It was probably due to my ancient phone—if you’re like me and hold onto your smartphone as long as it still turns on, this might happen to you too.

Shenzhen is a young city. They started building it in the 1980s. Before that, it was just a small fishing village. China decided to test out capitalism in a small area first. Since Hong Kong was wealthy and full of international companies, they created this “Special Economic Zone” right next door to attract firms with lower taxes and cheap labor. They gained capital and know-how while using Hong Kong’s port to connect to the global market. Today, Shenzhen is a tech hub and one of the most modern cities in China.

The city felt like something out of a movie or a video game. It looked almost unreal—colorful, tidy, and practically perfect. It was actually a bit unsettling for me; I missed having a little bit of chaos to make it feel real. I felt like I was dreaming and nothing around me was actually there.

Unlike in Vietnam, everything in Shenzhen ran like clockwork. No delays, no unnecessary waiting, no loitering or chatting. Everywhere we went, things just moved. People flow through the streets like a river. You can’t just stop on the sidewalk to look around; you’re immediately an obstacle, and people will bump into you while grandmas on scooters honk and shake their heads. In restaurants, people bolt down their food and clear the table for the next group. We felt like we were in slow motion compared to them—like prehistoric creatures that had accidentally wandered into a modern civilization. The rush stressed me out. I’d love to know how the elderly people feel—those who were born into a slow, poor fishing village and saw this rise up before their eyes.

{gallery:shenzen-siminka-ulica}

{video:MznKg3S6t0s}

Shenzhen has about 20 million residents. We saw the biggest crowds in the shopping malls, which are like massive human anthills. One thing we didn’t see much of in public spaces, though, was children. We saw some on Friday nights at the malls, playing arcade games and clearly blowing off steam after a hectic week of school.

{video:8By33gTrCrs}

Our three younger kids loved the Science and Technology Museum. They could experiment with physics or learn how everyday things work through games. We stayed there all day until they literally turned off the lights and chased us out. For a family of six, the total cost for a full day of high-quality entertainment was exactly zero dollars. Admission was free. We went during the week, so I’m not sure if it’s the same on weekends. But unlike in Vietnam, you don’t see kids happily playing on the streets late at night.

{gallery:shenzen-siminka-muzeum}

We visited the massive HQ Mart (Huaqiangbei) electronics market. It was a multi-story maze of every electronic gadget and gizmo imaginable. We were amazed by what exists, and the prices were a fraction of what they are in Europe. We were tempted by so many things but stayed disciplined and only bought two small items for the kids. For every item, they’d ask “how many pieces?” as people usually buy in bulk there, and you definitely have to haggle. Lesson learned: If you want electronics, buy them in Shenzhen. Other parts of China might not have the same variety. Locals order everything through the Taobao app, but that’s another one that’s useless for foreigners.

{gallery:shenzen-siminka-hq-market}

{video:4Nge_GmP-KQ}

As a special treat, we tried out a robotaxi. It’s currently only available in certain areas; we tried it near Talent Park in the Nanshan district. The kids were in shock and absolutely loved it.

{video:7UXLTrQqPeM}

While still in Vietnam, we’d planned to take a high-speed train from Shenzhen to Guilin (the “Tatra Mountains of China”) to see some nature. It’s halfway to Chongqing, where we planned to spend most of our stay. It coincided with the Qingming festival, so I kept bugging Johnny to book our accommodation early, knowing it would fill up. He did. We tried to buy train tickets, but you can only buy them 14 days in advance. We waited. The second the window opened, Johnny was at his computer. No luck. Everything was sold out instantly. He even tried setting up a bot on Trip.com to buy them the next day as soon as they went on sale. Still nothing. We gave up. We later found out that the Shenzhen-Guilin route is the busiest in the country. Lesson learned: Only book accommodation with a full refund policy (which we didn’t have), or secure your train tickets first if possible. We had to let the accommodation go and book flights directly to Chongqing instead.

You should look for accommodation on Booking.com, Trip.com, or Agoda. Airbnb is only for locals. Tourists must stay in hotels with a reception desk that knows how to register foreigners with the police. We found all our Chinese stays on Trip.com. For our longer stay in Chongqing, we booked a hotel suite—essentially an apartment but with a reception desk. You have to filter for this in the sidebar. And when entering the number of rooms at the start, just put “1 room” even if it’s a multi-room suite, otherwise it won’t show up correctly.

Summary

I recommend Shenzhen to anyone who wants to travel forward in time. I literally felt like I was in Back to the Future. The EU’s goal of becoming a leader in electromobility with 30 million electric cars by 2030? Shenzhen has already left that in the dust.

{gallery:shenzen-siminka-lego}