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Strange walking tour of Shenzhen

If you look at a map of Shenzhen, you’ll see the Shekuo area is a huge jutting out of land into the sea, and there is a lot of coastline. I thought I’d take a long walk and see how much of the coast I could see. The short version of my 7 1/2 mile hike; none.

I started from my apartment and headed west (paying my rent along the way). Before I hit the water, I ran into a train station. So I started heading south along a nice path. The path extended for a few miles, but never got me close to water. I passed other exciting things like the Nanshan Sewage Treatment Center, and container yards filled with hundreds of containers. On the road next to the path were hundreds of container trucks travelling to and from the ports. It was a steady stream of trucks.

Eventually I reached a point where I was starting to wonder if I should really be there. Nobody knew where I was, I was a long way from a taxi, subway, or even food. I had been walking a long time in the sun (fortunately I had brought sun tan lotion), and the path I was on was decreasingly maintained. Plus I was still a long way from the water, and there were no indications it would be easy to get to it if I continued on the road. I cut the corner and headed East, passing between two mountains, and the walking path got smaller and smaller until I was actually walking on the highway with trucks passing by me for about 1/4 mile. This was probably the most exciting part of the trip.

Eventually the sidewalk reappeared and I was in relative safety again. I continued walking, passing by nothing but industrial plants and container yards. Finally I reached a point where I could start heading in the right direction, and a few times I saw ships, but I never had the opportunity to get near water. In the whole 7 1/2 miles, I never saw the water.

By the time I made it to Sea World (where an old cruise liner was permanently moored and then they put concrete around it and extended the shore line back, so I STILL didn’t have the opportunity to get close to the water), I was tired and hot and extremely hungry. I had skipped breakfast, left at 11, and arrived at Sea World about 1:30. I stopped at a Mexican restaurant and had a cold margarita and some tacos with something that wasn’t cheese but looked like it. It was still good, though.

After the meal, I was done walking. I took the subway home and promptly napped. The next hike I do I may research a little, though it was still interesting to see how much shipping goes on around here. The whole coastline for many miles is devoted entirely to the shipping industry. It’s HUGE.

And Sea World is something else entirely. It’s where all the foreigners live and hang out. There are bars and restaurants from around the world, and chains like Subway and Pizza Hut and Starbucks, and everyone speaks English there. It’s weird seeing so many Caucasians in one place, and it takes the excitement and challenge of being in a foreign country out of it. However, it does feel nice to go there occasionally to get some comfort food and not have to try so hard.

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