February 8, 2021 to February 9, 2021
Days F9-10: Next Up, Guangzhou (By Bike and Bus)
Shenzhen has been excellent. The balance between fitness and partying was achieved nicely, and the city had enough groups with expats and locals to keep things interesting. While the city isn't very cycle friendly, there are a few tweaks you can make so it's doable.
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In terms of bicycle parking and security, that has been the biggest hassle. There are two options, leave on the street at night or fold up and put in the bike bag each night in the hotel romo. I opted for the street and choose locations outside of the hotels by locking the bike to poles underneath CCTV cameras. It was the best I could come up with. Unfortunately someone did get their hands on my bike on two occasions. They came around and let the air out of the tires. As proof that it wasn't a puncture, I went to a bike shop to fill the tires with air and they didn't go soft again.
Instead of biking all the way to Guangzhou (140 km) to leave the city, it would make more sense to stop off at a bus station on the outskirts about 50km away. Then I would take the bus. That's pretty much how it played out, and I wanted to see if biking improved in Shenzhen if you got away from the downtown areas. To some extent that happened, but there were never any real cycle paths for more than a few kilometers. Most of the time was riding in the bus lane, but the road was so wide it wasn't an issue and nobody was enforcing any traffic rules.
The city morphed into more ghost skyscrapers and tech developments. The vibes were friendly enough with people saying hello from cars and the stops at villages to grab snacks and food were equally pleasant. The weather was perfect the entire time in Shenzhen and on this bike ride out, about 25 degrees and sunny.
The bus station came up soon enough and the place was deserted. It was easy to fold up the bike and buy a ticket. To do so, you first had to show your Shenzhen health code or scan a travel history code (your choice). Then through security and buy tickets. A bus was leaving in a few minutes anyway so the timing worked out to perfection and there was nobody on the bus.
It was a quick bus ride to Guangzhou, only 90 minutes or so. Once there I waited to see what the other passengers would do, and they all passed some sort of a checkpoint with police looking at health codes.
Before going through that, I pulled out my Shenzhen code health code to see what would happen. Much to my horror I saw a new updated message on it: you need to quarantine at home. This must have happened on the app when I crossed the city boundaries out of Shenzhen. It wouldn't surprise me because everywhere within Shenzhen I saw the calls to 'stay at home, don't leave the city'.
OK, so time to think on my feet. I pulled out a previous code from Wenzhou and was prepared to show that but the officers didn't even stop me or ask for anything. It was just a temperature check.
Once in Guangzhou city itself it felt a little more laid back and relatively easier to get around on the bike than Shenzhen.
The next mission would be to check into my hotel. I had booked a cheaper one while on the bus and wasn't sure what to expect. Well, they were pretty strict. Thanks to a local friend in Guangzhou, I shut down the Shenzhen code right away, found out how to apply for a local health code and got that thing rolling before checking in.
They wanted to see that local code, along with my travel history code, temperature check, recent negative covid test, and details of when I entered China (last year March). They were quite satisfied to see all of that, and the hotel room was actually the best one I stayed the entire trip.
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The hotel was of course practically empty as we would expect by now.
Later in the evening would be more group fitness training followed up by partying. The fitness was awesome, one of the best training experiences I've had on this trip. It is a fitness studio inside a big box gym so you get the best of both facilities. Unfortunately I am only here for two days.
As you would expect, a mask was required to enter the famous Party Pier venue in Guangzhou. Pretty much a no brainer they would ask that, but I forgot my mask while training so that meant a long search to find a place to buy more. All that wasted time turned out not to affect the party anyway, because Party Pier was pretty much dead.
Actually they had warned me about that in Shenzhen earlier. Due to obvious reasons, most of the bars and clubs in Party Pier would be closed. It turns out that some were still operating, but nobody was dancing. Bouncers were just sitting around on their phones texting.
The end goal was Zapata's and with only 3 customers in the entire place.
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But actually if there's a party to be found I'll find it. The other customers at the table invited me to join there's and we got along great. After making friends, they knew where an after-party was and we all had a blast!
They were live karaoke events and one of the girls sang an excellent rendition of Hey Jude. She won a free drink but didn't want it so the drink was offered to me. By now the group had five of us and we hit a club next door. The boyfriend offered to buy this package where you put a bottle of vodka plus sports drink into an ice bucket, and this was tons of fun. They insisted on treating me, then they wanted to go for hotpot after all that, so the party kept on going into the wee hours. Somehow I found a taxi back to my hotel. Arguably, it was much better than biking at night drunk.
That was a perfect way to end this trip. It was immensely satisfying. Everything on my list got checked off.
Today's ride: 70 km (43 miles)
Total: 707 km (439 miles)
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