So today I got up early, made sure I had my passport and headed on the train for Lo Wo, the checkpoint to Mainland China's city of Shinzen. The train was really quick and easy of course, and since I had gotten an Chinese visa in advance, getting across the border only took about 30 minutes.

When I arrived I was swarmed by locals trying to get me to their shops to buy fake watches, and shadow factory goods (shadow factories make clothing or other items from the original templates and are usually owned by the same companies resulting in perfect counterfeits). Once inside the 7 story monstrosity it really was quite overwhelming.

THOUSANDS of shops selling everything from jeans to shirts, suits, jewelry, shoes, watches, literally EVERYTHING you could ever want, stolen or fake. I bought some D&G stuff, and some gifts (took me 4 hours). By the end of the 4 hours I was really starting to get cranky, everything ewas overwhelming SOOO many things to look at and most importaintly, I had yet to eat anything at all that day. I needed to find a bank (I had Hong Kong Dollars but I needed Won here in China), something that seemed to be on every corner of HK and no where to be found in China. After 30 minutes of walking around I could feel the frustration level rising. My kingdom for a fucking bank!!! Finally I went back to the train station and used an money exchange booth (getting ripped off but i soo didn't care at that point). I walked back out and straight to the nearest noodle house. Had some lunch and headed home. I definatelly messed up by not knowing what I wanted, I plan on going back for sure, so if you're reading my blog email your sizes to producer17@gmail.com with some favorite brands and I'll pick you up some stuff!!! Be sure to do it soon though!! :)

When I got back to Hong Kong, I promptly headed back to Happy Foot for another $20 hour long massage. Then I spent about an hour hunting around The Central District for an open gay bar for a drink. Upon finding that two suggesting in the guidebook no longer existed and the other two were closed I called it a day and headed back to my hotel to drop off my shopping and wash up for dinner.

I had a few beers and ate some Thai curry at a nearby establishment and at midnight decided to call it a night.. tomorrow cooking classes at 9:45am at the world famous Peninsula Hotel Hong Kong!!

Posted 12th March 2008 by Josh Gray-Emmer