A Tech Entrepreneur's Guide To Visiting Shenzhen

Freetronics is Australia's answer to a lot of electronic tinkerers' needs, selling items like Arduino compatible boards, cables, and specialized tools. Founder Jonathan Oxer is a (serious) electronics hobbyist himself; he talked with Slashdot last year about making ArduSats, which were then launched to the International Space Station. Now, Oxer has written an excellent guide for hobbyists who might get the chance to travel to Shenzhen, where so many of the world's electronic bits and bobs are made. As travel writing goes, it's fascinating for the sheer novelty of the place. If you actually have the chance to go, some of the advice here might save you money and time. For those of you who have been to Shenzhen, what else should visitors know?

Comments

Re:Don't eat the street food

[Dumass]

The advice to get a limo ride is also terrible. If you share the car with someone and they get searched, you get searched. If the car in front of you gets searched it can take a very long time to cross.

It's much easier to take a cab from HKG to the border and walk across if it's evening time. It's about $300HK/ $50 USD and you can take 1-4 people. The Shenzhen Bay crossing closes ~11:30PM, though, so if you're late you'll have to find another way.

During the day, a ferry is a better bet because customs can be extremely clogged up at the walk through checkpoint. I've waited 2-3 hours to walk back across into Hong Kong. There are far fewer people at the ferry terminal checkpoints.

Mmm Sai

[Casper0082]

Any place where they sell stuff, if you look like a tourist, one or more person will follow you for hours trying to get you to buy something. "Mmm Sai" is roughly "No thank you". Get used to saying that over and over. When I went to Shenzhen we had someone follow us from the bottom of the mall to the top floor. He heard us say we were hungry and quickly showed us where the american diner was. Being nice, we said we prefered local food. He then took us to another resturant. We spent 45 minutes eating and talking and when we walked out of the resturant, that guy was sitting outside waiting for us. I ended up buying stuff from his store just because of that dedication.

Re: No need for sunglasses

[SydShamino]

We stayed at the GoodView Hotel in Tangxia. With a good corporate rate it was just $117 a night including buffet breakfast, and is a resort including indoor pools and spa, outdoor activities, weak drinks, and secured property you can walk around on safely. It's far enough away from industry that the air was usually decent at ground level, though there was still no sky. The first sun I saw in a week was in the hotel shuttle this morning just after we crossed the bridge into Hong Kong.