This will be a brief report, mostly because I had limited time to explore the better side of Shenzhen. I was there on two separate occasions with a 2.5 week break in the middle (LoS) for a total of three weeks (20 days) of which I worked 19 in total. However, work can’t keep me down and I just decreased sleep hours to 3-4 hours a night to compensate and fit in a little red-lighting.
Getting there: Before you leave, you’ll need a Chinese tourist visa. The first trip, I flew on Bangkok Air from bkk-shenzhen. The ticket came to around 17k baht for the round trip. The second trip I flew into hong kong on Thai Air (MP miles), which priced out to around roughly the same. Flying into hong kong ain’t a bad option at all due to the availability of a nice ferry shuttle to Shenzhen. I shuttled first class and the one way tix set me back 270 RMB, or roughly 35 bucks. With the ferry, your in Shenzhen in about 50 minutes. Customs and check-in was a breeze--highly recommended. Now be prepared for the fact that VERY few people can speak any English here.
Language Comment: I wouldn’t go so far to say you NEED to speak some understandable mandarin, but it would be hard for me to imagine being here and enjoying myself without it. If you don’t mind not being able to speak to anyone, just make sure you have printouts and/or cards for where ever you going (in Chinese characters). This is not a tourist town per se so don’t expect anything that resembles LoS, AC, or anywhere else that is built around tourism.
TIP 1) taxi drivers here are sharks. They will try charging you 3* the proper rate and to compound things, most speak no English besides no/yes and be able to articulate a dollar amount. A ride from the airport to downtown (to your hotel) should run around 100, 150 if your generous. There are also a few different color taxis, the reds go downtown and all have a meter, although they will try to avoid using them. If your patient, stick to your guns and insist on the meter rate. Be prepared to hop in and out of 6 or so cabs though. Otherwise just settle on a reasonable rate such as 100-150 RMB.
TIP 2) ATMs are nearly everywhere, so getting yuan or RMBs is a breeze. Most of the prices quoted here are Chinese Yuan, which are trading somewhere around 8: 1 to the USD.
TIP 3) Get a couple maps. Get a smaller one for walking around with it tucked in your pocket (make sure it has English AND Chinese for place names) and a larger one for the room, recon, and planning.
Food. Being a lover of food in china, I had a feast and loved every second. Shenzhen is an economic melting pot of china, therefore has a very large influx of folks from various regions. The result is that it is one of the few places in the world one can enjoy authentic (i.e. real) Sichuan, Hunan, Beijing, Tianjin, Cantonese, etc, etc food all in the same town. There is NO where in the world than can match the tastes of china and if you like spice, you ain’t seen nothing in LoS. For dining, I usually stumbled into various places depending on my mood. For breakfast, I’m a xi fan (rice soup) or mantou kind of guy with warm bean curd milk. Lunch, I’m desiring some northern fare typically jiaozi and baozi. Dinners I would gravitate to my favorite food-- Sichuan, and dive into some chong qing gi, shuai zhu ro pian, etc, or perhaps some hunan food.
TIP5- if you’re here for a few days, try to make it mid week. Shenzhen is swamped on the weekends by hong kongers shopping and boffing. Word of warning, stay away from Dong Men on the weekends. What a crazy scene it is¡ Packed wall to wall and it spreads out on the street shoulder to shoulder for roughly a half mile radius.
Action
The primary place to be for fun in Shenzhen is the Luo Hu District, which is smack dab in the middle of most places worth their salt. I never left the area except for my time at work
The first place to start is your hotel massage establishment. Since my free time was minimal, cultivating this resource was imperative and I went to work sowing the seeds and harvesting the crop in no time. Sure, it’s a little more $$$, but I found the quality and attitude to be very good. My MO was pretty simple, opt for the cheap foot massage (60 RMB/hr) and try out several girls doing recon. For those that have gotten a massage with me in LoS, I step it up even a little more in terms of flirting, joking, getting them laughing etc as I can communicate in their native tongue (not saying that ever stopped me in LoS ;) Plus it’s great for me as I LOVE my daily foot massage. When partaking in a body massage, they come up to the room and after around an hour of a very good Chinese massage, they ask if you would like a “special massage” Prices quotes in hotel ranges from 300-500 RMB (for the extra), but I nearly always paid 400RMB for the massage all inclusive (200RMB + extra).
Massage head to head with LoS comparison
I love my daily jaunts to the massage joints in Thailand and spend considerable time there. I usually get a one or two hour footie with the occasional thai and oil massage (when I see a hottie) tossed in for good measure. Massage quality is typically good to excellent in bkk and fair to excellent in pattaya. With that said, I found the massages and facilities of Chinese massage places nearly always superior to anything I’ve seen/experienced in LoS.
In Shenzhen, the facilities were all great-- even the little side-alley cheapos. All had a comfortable chair, typically a full reclining leather chair, and more often than not, a semi or private room for the price of around 48-58RMB (240-280 baht) for a one hour footie. The real gems though are the mega complexes, which are absolutely huge. For those who have been to Batam, think pacific disco * 2-3. Home theater seating is the norm, so nearly every seat is a comfy full recliner typically outfitted with a private LCD screen in case your up for some satellite TV.
A couple mega places I tried were Huang Shi Jia Qi, Huang Ma, Carnival, and Hawaii. All offered excellent massages and if you can talk/flirt a little, you can arrange dates (no specials in-house). I arranged 3 dates form three different places with minimal effort. The dates were really dates and so these girls weren’t providing P4P, however I scored on 2/3 occasions.
Typical MO for these places is as follows:
Once u walked into the lobby, they will give u ur locker key and walk you to the locker room. Once in the locker room, there are attendants to guide you and take care of your locker. Little eerie for me to have guys loitering around me while I’m getting undressed and handing them my underwear, but I got used to it. Once you get undressed, you shower and head to the massage pools, whirlpools, etc before heading upstairs. Once upstairs you can opt for a general massage area where every chair is like the seat found when flying 1st class, with 19" LCD TV. After you sit, a server will come over and take your order (unlimited free fruit) and they also have full a full beverage and food menu. There is also a menu for massages that are quite reasonably priced. Facial, foot, foot scrapping, leg, arm, ear digging, etc are all available. A couple of places also have billiard and table tennis if you’re getting bored with massages. I loved the setup at Huang Shi Jia Qi, cuz when your ready, stroll over to the body massage area, pick the girl u want from a computer screen displaying pics of them all, and the attendant will take care of the rest. All the places I went to are legit though, but I found nearly all the girls available for dates and there are MANY hotties to be had/seen. YMMAWV. Types of massages included Chinese, Thai, Hong Kong, Chinese Medicinal, etc. Prices range from 170 RMB base for 90 minutes and a 30 minutes multiplier for an additional 60 RMB or so. Great deal. At the end of the massage, tip the gal from 20 to 100 RMB depend on your mood by marking the little chit.
Places to get laid near Xiang Xi Cun (near dong men/ huang shi)
I strolled around many back allies and there are numerous barbershops where I didn’t see any hair cutting going on ... In addition, many discos and KTVs (BetterOle KTV looked very nice) are sprinkled here and there. As time was limited, I did not have time to explore these venues this trip—it will have to wait for the next one
Prices at barbershop for the room + service typically runs around 400-450 RMB. Part 2 DM gets his little unit ROCKED, final thoughts