Apologies for being offline the past few days - I moved into my new apartment but had an unexpected delay in setting up the connection (China Telecom failed to deliver on their 24 hour installation promise but at least the installation good) as well as taking a short trip outside of Shenzhen (more on this in the next post).
Aside from this hiccup the new place is pretty nice. It’s the first time I’ve truly had my own apartment, not sharing with anyone else, and it feels good! Located on the 9th floor of an apartment complex in the up-and-coming “Coastal City” area of Nanshan it has 2 bedrooms, large living room, balcony, kitchen and bathroom. Plenty of space for me to get lost in! The communal garden below even has a swimming pool and tennis court for the eventuality that I ever decide to improve my fitness 
I’m still exploring the local area but there are plenty of shops and restaurants with just about anything you want available around the clock (for some reason there seem to be many Korean restaurants nearby also). I’m still finding it hard to believe just how much my life has changed in the past couple of weeks but hopefully its a change for the better and an experience to remember in the future.
On the first day of the National Day holidays in China I was invited by some of my colleagues to climb Shenzhen’s tallest mountain - Wutong Shan, standing at just under 1000 meters. After travelling nearly 2 hours to the outskirts of the city on a crowded bus our climb began under the canopy of the extremely verdant mountainside. Even though it was a relatively cool day it was still in the high 20’s and tropically humid - not the most comfortable weather for hiking but invigorating nevertheless!
Because of the heat and the steepness of the ascent we needed to stop every 20 minutes or so to catch our breath and have a drink. It was a good thing everyone brought lots of water because I reckon people were loosing it just about as fast as we could drink it. Every now and then a short breeze would blow through the trees bringing momentary relief.
The climb itself took a bit over two hours and was one of many false peaks which when reached presented another. The summit itself was inconspicuous but the view it bestowed was pretty special. Mile upon mile of lush green canopy opened up to reveal the city below on one side and a harbour on the other, the clouds only just obscuring Hong Kong.
Descending the mountain was much easier than going up, made even more so by the fact that we took the tourist route down (basically steps). Once we reached the foot of the steep section we then followed the winding road the rest of the way down taking another hour to complete. Unfortunately I had neglected to sear any sun cream and ended up a little burn on the back of my neck and arms which has left me looking a bit like a lobster!
A fun day out but I’m still feeling it in my leg’s nearly a week later 
Last week had to be one of the busiest I’ve had in a long long time. Aside from climatic extremes of heat and rain food has to rank a close second in my new life here. Chinese cuisine encompass such a wide palate from across its many regions that you’re always spoilt for choice.
Wednesday night celebrated the anniversary of the new company I have joined with all 500+ Chinese employees gathering together in a massive banqueting hall for an evening of mass catering and performance. I’ve never seen anything quite like it - after initial speeches and dinner various people got on the stage to sing their favourite songs which went on for about two hours!
Thursday ended with a delicious meal in a Mongolian restaurant with some interesting dishes including lotus roots and some curious looking vegetable buns (top right). What I haven’t quite fathomed yet is how China has such a high life expectancy (on average 73 compared to 78 in the UK) yet most of their food is quite oily and, if recent events are anything to go by, toxic! I’d be interested if anyone has any theories about this.
Friday brought with it another new experience with a trip to KTV (or Karaoke Television) which, as you can imagine, is a box room with a large screen which people can sing along to music videos (seemingly most from the 80’s) to their hearts content. Not exactly my cup of tea but fun nevertheless and I even learnt a new dice game which involved guessing the total number on a set of given dice that the other players have. For the sake of anyone’s embarrassment the photos are not included!
On Saturday I ended up having another massive dinner which included shark-fin soup and Beijing duck amongst other delicious dishes. I’ll try not to let food dominate to much more around here but it’s just so good!!
Photo © AP Photo/Vincent Yu
This week brought its fair share of climatic excitement when Typhoon Hagupit smashed into the southern coast of China, not far from Shenzhen. With wind speeds in excess of 200 km/h it was apparently the most powerful typhoon to hit Guangdong province in more than 10 years. Flights and ferry services were suspended and schools closed. While the city of Maoming bore the brunt of it’s strength things got pretty extreme where I was with lashing rain unlike I’ve ever seen before - it was so heavy at one point I couldn’t see out the office windows. I got caught in it on the way home Tuesday evening and even with an umbrella got totally soaked with the concrete environment turned into impermiable rivers! To me it may have been exciting but sadly claimed the lives of 5 people.
Yesterday for lunch I went to a restaurant called “6000 Flavours” which certainly lived up to it’s name judging by the voluminous menu. We had some special pork bone & sweetcorn soup along with fried eel and some curious vegetable balls containing a kind of mustard. The bones were cut in half and a straw provided so you could suck out the bone marrow which on the face of it is a bit disgusting but I gave it a go!
The fun bit came when we ordered fresh noodles - a waiter came over with a strip of some kind of dough and proceed to make them in front of us but swinging it vigorously around in circles. Even the locals enjoyed the performance & for once I wasn’t the the only person taking pictures of food! Once the noodles were of a suitable size they were cooked in the same soup pot.
Above is the fried eel. It isn’t something I’d normally want to eat but this was delicious. Not rubbery or slimy as I had expected. My resolution is to try something new each day
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