In the summer of 2025 I went to Shenzhen. It was my first proper visit to China, and I had a lot of interesting experiences.
Incheon Airport
They’ve set up a dedicated Cygnet space now.. Seems like they’re really pushing it these days..
The Five Star Stories
These days a new volume comes out steadily once a year. Well.. the content is all about tying up old plot threads.. (as an old fan, I can’t say the word “finally!” doesn’t come to mind..) At this pace, maybe another 10 years of hard work and it’ll wrap up? Let’s hope it doesn’t go the way of Berserk.. Anyway, thanks to the “magic carpet delivery” I got it at dawn and could read it on the way to the airport. The world sure has gotten convenient..
Rice
Fried rice
Nothing special..
Shenzhen Airport
I remember visiting once before, and it doesn’t seem much different from back then. It does feel a bit busier.. Also, Shenzhen Airport is an international airport, but the domestic side is bigger than the international one. There’s a big difference in the size of the duty-free shops too, so don’t expect too much..
Nagoya Ramen
I didn’t know Nagoya was famous for ramen.. but I saw these often downtown too. Looks like business is going well.
Downtown Shenzhen
With Alipay you can get from the airport into the city without any trouble. Fares are cheap too, so taking a taxi is generally the way to go. But it turns out the subway is even cheaper. Like a few hundred won..
The hotel’s souvenir corner
Modest.
The hotel
I stayed at a place called the Oriental Ginza Hotel, and there’s a way to stay there very cheaply in a city-view room. A resale company buys up just the city-view rooms and makes money reselling them. Tourists stay in the expensive ocean-view rooms, and the price difference is two to three times or more. You get to use a good hotel at a very low price, so it’s a win-win, but you can’t use hotel facilities like the pool or the gym. And if you want breakfast you have to book it separately.. But it doesn’t really matter.. In China breakfast is sold all around the hotel anyway (McDonald’s, for example..), so it matters even less.
Anyway, I got a room like this for about 50,000-60,000 won a night, so I’m satisfied.. I’d like to use it again on my next trip..
City scenery
As you’d expect from a city of ten million, there are a huge number of apartment blocks. Some expensive, some not..
Water quality test
I bought this on AliExpress or Temu and carry it with me when I travel. I think it was about 3,000 won.. But so far I’ve never found a problem with hotel water.. This time it read 70 ppm, and since 50 ppm is the level of clean filtered water, tap water at this level is very good. Could be because I pick decent places to stay..
It’s handy for travel, but it’s also nice to have because you can roughly tell whether your water purifier is working and whether the tap water is clean.. It’s cheap, so along with a battery tester it’s a good item to have at home.
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