Our first blog from mainland China is going to be a big one as China is an assault on all your senses in both a good and bad way so you might want to make yourself a brew for this one.

Once we were through immigration into mainland China we were stalked straight away by people who wanted us to come to their shop and taxi drivers who told us it was an hour on the metro versus 20 minutes in their taxi to the area we wanted to go to. Good job the tour guide had done her research and knew it was only 2 stops on the metro so was about 5 minutes if that!

We headed to Dongmen Pedestrian area which is the old part of Shenzhen. We hadn't booked any accommodation so I sat with the bags whilst Casson went in search of a hotel. Over an hour later he came back defeated. He couldn't find anywhere other than a complete dive for £17. It turns out that in Shenzhen there are very few hotels with the English word for hotel on the outside. Add into the mix that they also don't look like hotels meant we were staying in the dive that night.

Shenzhen is completely chaotic at night, the streets are packed with people eating and shopping and it's lit up like a Christmas tree. We found food street (there's one everywhere) and there were loads of stalls selling everything you can think of. Pigs trotters, squid skewers, dumplings, chili potatoes, omelettes, pork skewers and generally a lot of unidentified food. I decided to try the dumplings but once they were in my hand I had second thoughts, the dumpling outer looked odd and I suddenly thought the inside looked like a grub (the outer was translucent so we could almost see inside). I chickened out and Casson manned up and popped one in his mouth, according to him it was really chewy. I opened one up and the inside looked absolutely rank, like bits of gristle and zero meat. We decided that they weren't actually a dumpling mix, more like offal wrapped in pigs intestine. Needless to say I had none but Casson had 4! Human dustbin strikes again!

The next day we tried to find a cheaper hotel we'd seen on booking.com but it was impossible, the maps aren't right and EVERYTHING is in Chinese. We could have been stood next to it and we wouldn't have known. In the end we gave up and found a nice hotel that was a lot pricier than we wanted but at least we were out of the dive.

We went to the fairy lake botanical gardens one day which were really nice, all the lakes were man made but it didn't matter, it was nice to get out of the city for a bit. We even managed to get the bus there which was nothing short of a miracle. On the way back to the bus stop there was a woman in a shiny metallic disco ball top and shorts (picture a Turkey wrapped in foil) stood by the side of the road dancing (or having a seizure) but it was completely out of place. Next thing she'd put her leg up on the railing and was still shaking her ass. We decided she was either touting for business or doing some stretching exercises!

During the evening when the town was at its busiest, staff from the shops would stand outside the shop clapping or using a plastic hand clapper or shouting into a microphone to get people into their shop. It would drive me mad but Casson loved it and would walk past clapping along with them!

Along with the shiny disco ball woman the other odd thing here is that staff have motivational speeches in the street. They all huddle round chanting and then they put their hands in the circle (like teams do at sporting events), do a loud chant then cheer and all run back into the shop.

We're not sure if this is as a result of the huge population here but the Chinese like to push in and shove you out the way, even when it's not busy. Generally we just move out the way but now and again if someone tries to push in we take childish delight in blocking them, I'm much better at this than Casson. In fact the morning we were leaving for Guilin I was trying to get off the metro and a guy was pushing his way on, everyone knows you let people off first so I stood my ground and carried on walking, I was determined I was getting off before he got on. I may have either got carried away or took him by surprise as it turned into a shoulder barge and he had to hold onto the door to stay upright. I honestly didn't mean to do it that hard. Casson was almost crying with laughter, Andre the Giant 1: rude Chinese man 0.

We have a double entry Chinese visa so before we left for Guilin we did a quick trip to Hong Kong and back so we had 30 days on our 2nd entry giving us enough time to work our way up to Beijing. We knew we could cross over and come straight back without actually heading into Hong Kong as the border crossing is in the same building.

Once on the Hong Kong side we had a bit of money left from our time there so we spent it on a snickers and a packet of peanut m and m's for Casson and some blackcurrant fruit pastilles and spicy nuts for me. Then we realised that even though we were at the border in order to cross back into China we had to travel 1 stop on the metro towards HK and then come straight back so after spending our leftover money on crap we had to draw money out for the metro ticket!

Once back at the Chinese border we were laughing saying they might not let us back in as we'd only been gone about 30 minutes (in Vietnam you have to leave 30 days in between leaving the country and coming back in), we could end up in our very own version of the terminal (a brilliant Tom Hank's film if you haven't seen it where he can't leave the airport terminal and is stuck in no man's land). Then we realised it wouldn't be funny if that did happen as everything we owned other than bank cards and passports was in the hotel back in China! We both got the fear so it was a relief to get the stamp and go straight through.

The final thing to mention is that I'd read that in China children just go to the toilet anywhere e.g in the street, in a shopping centre etc and that a lot have their trousers split up the back for easy access for them to have a poo. I didn't really think we'd see this as some of the blogs I'd been reading were years old but in the shopping centre we saw a little girl having a wee on the floor and I saw a little boy with his ass hanging out as his trousers were split up the back. This wasn't too bad but in the train station we saw a little boy squat and have diarrhea on the floor (and we're talking about a swanky nice station, almost like an airport terminal) when there was a toilet 2 minutes away! I'm all for respecting cultural differences but this is a step too far for me. Firstly it reeked, secondly I felt like I'd swallowed a poo particle and thirdly it's absolutely rank! I was retching and Casson couldn't stop laughing!

General points (so many to mention but we'll save some for the next blog)

1) The Chinese are not a charades playing nation. We've got by a lot on this trip with Casson acting out his questions. Here they have no clue and just look blankly at him or speak to us in Chinese, it's going to be a fun 4 weeks

2) We've tried pigs trotters. They are not delicious. It's like pork crackling with no crackle. It's basically fat and gristle with a really good spicy sauce on them. I didn't eat any other than my first taste. Casson polished the lot off and then had his picture taken and when I say picture I mean his trotter next to the pig's trotter!