Favorite Places in Nanshan

Yeah, yeah, I know. I haven’t blogged in a while. The reason is last week was my first week of teaching. And before that, I was getting ready. I didn’t know I was teaching elementary school, so I didn’t think to bring things like ABC charts and 100s charts and things like that, so I had to make them. It takes a while to decorate for 1st grade! And teaching was busy, even though I only had half my class due to vacations and illness (and it was small to start with!)

Anyway, I’ve been wanting to write about my favorite local places. The places I frequent or plan to frequent. The places where I feel most at peace. I also want to do a whole post on the food here, but that will have to wait. Because today, I discovered a new favorite place.

Aside from flying into Hong Kong, shopping in Dongmen (in central/eastern Shenzhen), and meeting at the other campus in Futian disctrict of Shenzhen, all my time has been spent in my district of Nanshan. Each district has many neighborhoods.

I live in the neighborhood of Nanshan Central District, aka “Shopping Mall Land.” That’s what I call it, anyway. There aren’t really a lot of Westerners in my district, but the shopping is trendy and spendy, and there are lots of Western eateries.

To give you a frame of reference, one block away is the Maoye department store (which is several stories high, and has a supermarket and restaurants in the bottom, like every good department store here), and next to it is Book City (one of my favorite places, of course!) with McDonald’s and Starbucks in the bottom. A couple blocks away the other way is Coastal City, which is a mall in itself (and a supermarket in the bottom, of course) plus a lots of shops all around it (complete with another Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Dairy Queen, and Burger King). At the other end of that is Carrefour, which is kind of like Fred Meyer. The list goes on.

So I need places that I can go to get away from it all. Of course, I love the bookstore. Who knows how many stories (you keep going up these slanted moving sidewalk things) of books and school supplies and paper and all sorts of stuff. Most of the books are in Chinese, of course, but for anyone who understands the pull of Powell’s in Portland, it’s still a world of books.

My second favorite store is probably the Jusco, which is in the bottom of the Coastal City mall. It’s my favorite grocery store. Yeah, I know. A grocery store. But this one has an awesome deli where you can point to a bucket full of rice and vegetables (and maybe meat), and the guy stir fries it up for you fresh, packages it up, and you go right on grocery shopping. And it only costs around a buck in American money. We (the Nanshan Clan- me and my coworkers) go there, grab something to drink off the cold drinks row and maybe some fruit, get our stir fry, and head outside to sit by the ponds (recycled water canal).

But all that shopping gets to you. So I have a few places to get away from it all.

First of all is the park across the street from me (and the school- I live right next to my job. Weird!). It’s a lovely neighborhood park, complete with grassy lawn, courtyard and pavilion, stone path, dry streambed, and pond with waterlilies and footbridge. There is also a path that goes through this covered walkway with very jungle-ish vines. Sometimes there’s dancing going on in the pavilion- ballroom dancing to Chinese music! Once they actually put on a Shakira song. (Speaking of songs- I heard a Lady Gaga song in the grocery store today! So funny). Most of the time, though, the park is very peaceful. My favorite time to go is dusk, when the air is steamy from the heat and humidity. The last couple days there have been hundreds of dragonflies out, especially by the pond. Magical!

My next favorite place is where my new friend Jessica lives. She lives in Shekou (a neighborhood south of us, on the peninsula, where lots of expats hang out. She lives there with her aunt and uncle and cousin. Her family is from a northern province. Most Shenzheners are from provinces outside of Guangdong province, which is why the city speaks Mandarin even though the rest of the province speaks Cantonese. She’s now taking Cantonese lessons. She learned British English and lived in England for three years. It comes out sometimes- when she took Ashlee and me to her house, she pointed to a veterinary clinic and declared, “That place is rubbish!” and proceeded to tell us about when her dog got sick. Anyway, my coworker Ashlee and I got to see her place. It’s amazing. It’s the most beautiful condo I’ve ever seen with the most beautiful view (even nicer than when I stayed with my friend Elly’s family in Germany). Even the elevator has a view. The view itself is of the bay, with Hong Kong in the background. Below the complex is a palm tree-lined boardwalk along the bay, complete with lighthouse. Amazing. Her balcony had the air of a vacation home in Hawaii. We drank tea and chatted under an umbrella. That was probably the most relaxing day I’ve had here.

And now for the grand finale: Nanshan Mountain. I hiked there this morning. Yeah, it was crazy hot. I went through four big water bottles and an orange juice. But it was awesome. It’s a short bus ride away (you get off at the Walmart, go figure) and head up the mountain. Literally. The “trail” is a cement staircase that goes straight up the mountain. No nice low-grade switchbacks here. Fortunately, the mountain is only about the size of Spencer’s Butte in Eugene (a half-hour to forty-five minute hike). But with the heat and humidity here, it took me at least an hour and a half to get up. At the top, there are a couple of vendors (and a couple of bathrooms!) I decided to do like the locals and buy whatever food they were buying from the outdoor vendor. It seemed to be some sort of fried tempureh skewers. The guy asked me if I wanted sauce on it. I nodded okay. It was stinking hot. But delicious. The sweat poured out of me and cooled me off in the top-of-the-mountain breeze (thank heaven for that!). A rooster came up to my table to check out my food. There was a hen, too. I kid you not. Anyway, the views were, of course, breathtaking. They would have been much more so if it hadn’t been hazy today, but at least it doesn’t seem to be too often. It was nice to be way above the city instead of stuck in it. The trees along the trail seemed to be tropical scrub forest type. They were wonderful shade. In my last post, I informed you of the umbrella-carrying custom here. That holds true on the mountain too, although not as strongly. I saw a few ladies with hats instead of umbrellas. Those who weren’t carrying umbrellas carried fans. Most people here don’t use the fancy folding fans; instead they use cheap flat paper and plastic ones. So I broke out my butterfly-shaped one with the school info on it. Oh, yeah. I carry it everywhere. Once I returned to the trailhead (called “Mountaineering Portal” here; and I should mention the observation tower called a “Navigation Platform”), I proceeded to buy an ice cream bar. It looked from the picture like it was filled with some kind of berry or currant. Nope. Red bean. Very popular here. Sweet and cold. Good enough for me!

So there you have it: my favorite retreats in Nanshan. The places I go to get away from it all. Or to get fed.