November 12, 2023
Day 5
Today is the day I meet my dear old friend Isaac! We both attended UCLA and became really good friends. You can see our graduation pictures by clicking here! We both wanted to attend law school, and since he applied late in the cycle and didn’t have the best LSAT score, he didn’t get to attend the schools he wanted to. That’s why he moved to Hong Kong and is getting his degree from Hong Kong University, which is one of the most prestigious law schools in the entirety of Asia. Hong Kong is connected to Shenzhen through a bridge, and HK is very expensive. That’s why Isaac moved to Shenzhen and commutes to HK every day.
I’ve decided to pay him a visit on a weekend so we could meet in Shenzhen. I really did not want to go to HK, which is full of people who hates mainlanders. But I digress. We were supposed to meet at 7 PM, so that leaves me a full morning and lunch time to be with my nephew.
My nephew takes baseball classes every Sunday, and it was my job to drive him to the class that day. We were the first to arrive, and he had a very productive class that morning.
Since I will be driving to Shenzhen with the EQS that my brother in law borrowed for me, I decided to charge it to full before I take off. China has a large electric car charging network that makes life so much easier for EV owners, and the parking lot where the baseball class is at has fast chargers.
My car was at 75% when I started charging. It took 40 minutes to charge to full with a fast charger and it costed me about 25 RMB, which is about 4 dollars. The reason why it takes 40 minutes to charge 25% is because technologies such as phones and EVs charge to 80% at full speed, but slows down after the 80% mark to protect the battery.
After his baseball class, he played with his friends for a while, and we drove home where his Grandma had BBQ ready for us. Yes, I had BBQ three days in a roll. The BBQ his grandma had was more or less Korean, where it was pan fried, not burnt on a stick. His grandma is a very good cook.
After lunch, my nephew slept for a while, and I sent him to his art class that afternoon. His art class is right across the street from where he lives, so I didn’t have to drive him. After I walked him to his classroom, I grabbed my stuff, put them in the trunk of the car, and headed towards Shenzhen. Shenzhen is about 2 hours away from Foshan, which is a rather long drive.
I will discuss the driving experience of the EQS in a separate blog post, as it changed the world for me. The point is, I almost fell asleep driving that car. I was so quiet and steady, I feel like I could just fall asleep. The autopilot did not help, I almost slept.
I arrived by my hotel. It normally costs about 260 RMB a night, but because I always buy tickets from Ctrip, a Chinese website, it reduced the price to 90 RMB after discounts. After sleeping there for a night, I could understand why it was 90 RMB.
Hotel Name: 雅斯特酒店 (深圳南山大新地铁站店) (yǎ sī tè jǐu diàn) [Yasite Hotel]
Address: 深圳南山区前海路大新前海商业中心156号 (Shenzhen City Nanshan District Qianhai Road Daxinqianhai Business Center #156)
It was one of the worst hotel experiences I’ve had in a while. To be completely honest with you, it is actually okay, but it was still one of the worst hotel experiences I’ve had in a while. My friend Isaac told me to get a hotel at the “Nanshan District” of Shenzhen. That’s what I did. Except, Nanshan is a really big place, and the hotel that I stayed at happened to be at the worst part of Nanshan. There are other things too.
First off, my first impression was already bad when I’ve arrived at the parking lot. In their ad, they said there’s free parking. I would assume that they had an individual parking lot just for the hotel. No, it was a shared parking lot with all the other vendors. The parking space was also tiny; when I was parking, the car actually stopped functioning because it thinks I have crashed into someone else’s car. I had to start the car again just to finish parking.
When I got into the hotel, it had a very tiny lobby. Apparently breakfast will be held in the lobby, right next to the main door where cars are parked at. It will also cost 38 RMB per person, which I am definitely not going to spring for. After getting my room key, I put my stuff in the room, which was okay, but the bathroom was not. The sink and the toilet are connected as one piece, which really shows the hotel’s age. The shower area also does not have anything that stops the water from coming overboard to the other parts of the bathroom. The window also opens right into the residential buildings behind the hotel, which is very noisy. Overall, one of the worst hotel experiences I’ve had in a long while.
Ohh, and, free parking? Not really! The hotel only gives out one free exit, which means if I am to drive my car out that night to meet my friend, there goes my free parking. I will have to pay to exit the next morning. Which means I had to pay for the 30 minutes of parking I’ve had at the hotel so I don’t have to pay for the more expensive one the next morning. Wow.
But my main purpose of driving all the way to live in such a crappy hotel was to meet my dear friend Isaac, which I was very excited to see. He took the subway to one of the nearby stations, and I drove there to pick him up. We haven’t seen each other since the beginning of 2022, which was still a long time ago. After picking him up, we headed straight to the restaurant, which is in one of the biggest shopping malls in Shenzhen, in the newer area of Nanshan District.
Restaurant Name: PINTXOS TAPAS BAR 西班牙餐馆 (万象天地店)
Address: 深圳市粤海街道深南大道9668号华润城万象天地里巷NL160号 (Inside Huarun Wanxiangtiandi Mall)
There are many different options for food in the shopping mall, ranging from Western to Chinese. Shenzhen as a city does not have much history. It was a new city built with the direct purpose of becoming a financial hub like Hong Kong, which means everything and everyone there is new. That’s why I didn’t eat Chinese food there, because I feel like it wouldn’t be authentic.
Instead, we went to this Spanish restaurant.
I’ve never had Spanish food, despite years of living in the U.S. I’ve had Mexican food, sure, but never Spanish. Since I’ve never had authentic Spanish food, I can’t tell you if it’s good or not, but it was at least good enough for me and Isaac.
Isaac ordered the 2 person combo, which we luckily both finished. The combo comes with a salad, spicy shrimps, mushrooms, foie gras on baguette, and risotto. It was decent, but not the most dashing by all means.
Me and Isaac talked for a very long time at the restaurant, and I suggested that we move the conversation to the streets of Shenzhen. I don’t plan on staying in Shenzhen for a long period, nor do I intend to go to its attractions, because I know for a fact that everything I can see is recently manufactured, and has no history. I just want to do a quick sight-seeing around the city and see the buildings that are well known. I put the car on auto-pilot, and we just drove around the city, and stopped at another mall, where we parked car and went for the ocean view.
It was not good. I mean, I expected much more from Shenzhen, which is the next financial hub of China. Its night scenes are barely lit, and to be honest with you, Dalian, where I’m from, a second rate city, has much better night lights than this. Disappointed to say the least.
We headed back to the mall to grab a selfie, and once we did, I drove Isaac back to his apartment because he has school the next morning, and I went back to my hotel, my crappy crappy hotel. Parking was bad too, but at least there were less bystanders looking at me desperately trying to move a car that thinks it crashed into someone else’s.