It’s not the first time we came to conquer China, and it seems it’s not going to be our last visit. After more than 6 months on the run in South-East Asia and Europe we started to miss the Land of Contrasts – People’s Republic of China. We have managed to live all this time working nearly solely on eTramping and bloginstallations, with an exception of Agness teaching in Cambodia. Since we have not had a lot of savings with us when we left China, it’s now time to heal our broken accounts and fill up on amazing Chinese food.
Welcome committee in Shenzhen
Every time we cross the border from Hong Kong to China in Shenzhen we are greeted by Dave. This funny Chinese guy speaks a good English and miraculously appears to be walking by when we queue for train tickets. As always he offers his help with translations and finding cheap hotel rooms. It didn’t take us long to work out that he is working for a commission, but unlike most other people of this kind his help got us cheaper stays than we would be able to find ourselves. He also never asked us for any money and we never felt threaten to follow him to the hotel. Don’t be surprised if he walks past you and offers his help while talking on the phone (about some business in Shanghai).
Chinese food, ohh, Chinese food!
South-East Asian cuisines are amazing (and we have even summed them up lately in an article). However, there’s something about Chinese food that keeps us coming back for more. There’s no other place n the world where Baozi and Jaozi taste this good, and there’s no other place where hot pot brings so many people together. We are sometimes bored with rice, but thankfully we are now living in a bigger city and have more options.
Settling down in Dongguan
We have moved to Dongguan after Cez found job in a kindergarten. I will start looking for job nearby soon, which is part of the plan, because it’s much easier for her to find good teaching position. Cez’s school has provided us with a free accommodation, which blew us away. This flat is exactly what we need, want and love. Small, clean and in a convenient location – it’s a nice change from what we got used to over the last few months. Here are some photos of our new apartment. What do you think? :-)
We are surrounded by beautiful palm trees and it feels like living in South- East Asia!
Welcome to 0402 apartment!
Our kitchen – small, but cozy
Living room equipped with TV and the Internet
Our building outside (there are 15 floors in total, we live on the 4th)
Bathroom
Getting to know the city
Due to lack of the Internet for the first few days, we were able to spend some time exploring the city. Our apartment is located in a perfect location. There is McDonald’s restaurant just in front of us, a huge park where we can have picnics every weekend, a massive supermarket, shops, a gallery, restaurants and more. Sometimes we feel like living in New York – it’s so busy and posh here!
Chinese New Year in Dongguan
We have arrived in our new home on the 8th of February, which this year fell one day before the Lunar New Year’s Eve. We got used to much smaller places in China, like Xiushan or Huayuan, where during the Chinese New Year everything (literally everything) is closed. So, we have stocked up on food and other essentials to survive few days without shop. It turned out that most of the shops were open as normal and we were really surprised. The only thing we couldn’t get during this time was getting online. I think it was the longest time in the past few years I couldn’t check my email. This is why we were unable t reply to anyone who got in touch with us and we didn’t update eTramping or our Facebook page.
Spending Chinese New Year here was very boring to be honest. We didn’t know anyone, we didn’t know the area neither places where we could go. The city was dead apart from few fireworks at midnight. We watched some movies at home though.
About Dongguan
Dōngguǎn city located in central Guangdong province (50 km away from Guangzhou, 90 km away from Shenzhen and 87 km away from Hong Kong). It has an estimated 8 million of inhabitants and humid subtropical climate. We will be posting more photos and info about this place later on. Stay tuned!
Does anyone want to swap with us :)?
