Fifteen minutes from Hong Kong by train, and a different world on the other side of customs.
We promised this one back in April. In the Hong Kong article we said Shenzhen was a story we'd be telling soon. Here it is.
We should admit something up front. We've been to Hong Kong more times than we can count, and in all those trips we never once crossed the border. Shenzhen sat there the whole time, a short train ride away, and we kept not going. This January we finally went, and it turned out to be one of the pleasant surprises of the whole trip.
Shenzhen was the middle chapter of that journey. Three days in Hong Kong, then the three of us (Vannessa, Avery, and I) crossed the border into mainland China, then back to Hong Kong for three more. On paper it barely counts as travel. The high-speed train from Hong Kong West Kowloon to Futian takes about fifteen minutes.
The border takes considerably longer. Between exiting Hong Kong immigration and clearing entry into China, we spent close to an hour in checkpoints and lineups. The trains run tight to each other, and the timing is closer than it looks on paper. Give yourself the buffer, because if you don't, there's a real chance you watch your train leave without you.
The payoff for the bureaucracy is that Futian station drops you straight into the centre of downtown. You walk out and you're there. From the station you can cover a lot on foot, and DiDi, China's ride-hailing app, is cheap and everywhere for anything further.
We skipped the hotels this time and booked an apartment: two bedrooms, one bathroom, a full kitchen, right in the heart of the city. Accommodation in Shenzhen is reasonably priced for what you get, and being central made everything easier. Eating, getting around, wandering out at night without planning a whole expedition. If you're used to hotel pricing in Hong Kong, the value here will feel like a clerical error.
The food is where Shenzhen makes its real argument.
Start with the coconut hot pot. Shenzhen is known for it: a broth built on coconut water, and from what we understand it's particular to this region. We had it twice. It's good, and worth trying for the novelty alone, though the city has better food waiting.
Then there's the pigeon. Da Ge Fan, inside Coco Park in Futian, has built its reputation on roast pigeon and earns it. The decor is beautiful, and even the waiting area is done properly: free tea and snacks while you queue. It was fantastic.
Our favourite detour took us outside the core for roast goose over flat rice noodles. Worth the DiDi. The dim sum across the city is excellent too, and the prices are gentle everywhere. Coming from Canada, where everything costs more every time we look at it, the value in China is hard to process.
The bubble tea deserves its own line. Heytea, Chagee, Molly Tea, M Stand and a few shops we stumbled into all delivered. Shenzhen takes its tea seriously.
The cocktail scene surprised us too. Obsidian was the standout. When we visited, they were running a pop-up collaboration with Manhattan, the Singapore bar, showcasing five cocktails. The drinks were sharp, and the room itself is beautiful, the kind of interior you keep looking at between sips.
We also went up to Mo Bar at the Mandarin Oriental. Way up. The view over the city at night is gorgeous, and the drinks hold their own against it.
The Mandarin Oriental sits in UpperHills, and the mall around it is worth a wander on its own. It's polished and clean, and even though it's a luxury mall, it never felt like everything was priced to keep you out. We were comfortable there.
UpperHills is also home to a Snow Peak store, and I can never walk past a Snow Peak store. This one is immaculate, stocked with the full range of outdoor gear and accessories, and the customer service backed it up. I ended up buying a portable camping version of cornhole; they didn't have it in stock, so they sourced it overnight and had it in the store the next day. There's a coffee shop and sitting area attached to the store too, and it's a great place to grab a coffee and hang out for a while. MixC World, another of the city's showpiece malls, is also worth your time.
Shenzhen is futuristic in a way that photographs can't quite carry, clean and vertical and lit up at night. On our last day we went looking for the drone food delivery station in Lianhuashan Park, next to UpperHills, and ended up in the wrong section of it, dragging our suitcases behind us. The park is bigger than it looks on a map, and it deserves more than we gave it. There's hiking, food vendors scattered through the grounds, and enough of it that you could spend a full day there just enjoying nature. We also missed the city light show, which only runs Fridays and Saturdays. We arrived on a Sunday. Both are on the list for next time.
We did make it out to Huaqiangbei, the district famous for electronics, where you can buy roughly any component, gadget, or piece of tech ever manufactured. That trip is an adventure in itself and probably its own article.
We met friends from Hong Kong, and joining up with them changed the shape of the trip. Every recommendation they gave us landed, and the best of them was a twenty-four-hour spa. Sauna, hot tub, cold plunge, massage, food, and whole areas built for doing nothing at all. You could check in after dinner and surface sometime the next day. It was a wonderful experience, and the kind of thing we'd never have found on our own.
A word on culture shock, because it's real. This is China, and China does things its own way. None of it is wrong. It's just different, and once that settles, you stop measuring the city against home and start seeing Shenzhen for what it actually is, which is a gorgeous and wildly ambitious place.
Here's our honest take. If you're from the western world and China feels like a big swing, Shenzhen is the way in. Hong Kong, British-run until 1997 and still the most navigable city in Asia for a first-timer, is your landing pad. Shenzhen is the bridge. You cross the border and you get the full mainland experience, but you're never more than fifteen minutes and one long customs hall from familiar ground.
You can do it as a day trip. You can do an overnight. You can give it a few days, which is what we'd recommend, because the food alone justifies it. You get your feet wet in China without the total immersion that leaves some travellers overwhelmed and checking flight prices home.
It took us this many trips to Hong Kong to finally meet the neighbour. We won't wait that long to go back.
There's a light show with our name on it.