Let me say at this point that I'm not even going to try to understand Chinese money. For a start, despite the fact that Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world (Spanish is second and English is third in case you wondered) and there are probably more Chinese people around than anyone could imagine, their currency remains a great mystery to everyone in the west. Most people I ask believe it to be the Yen, which of course is the currency of Japan. In fact, the Chinese monetary system is known as the Renminbi - there, I knew you wouldn't have heard of it - and is more commonly referred to as the RMB. There are ten Fen to a Jiao and ten Jiao to a Yuan. Any of this sound familiar? No, I thought not.

Having tried very hard indeed to work out the monetary system, the various combinations of coins and notes still remains a mystery to me. It would appear that there are banknotes to represent amounts of money so small that they are worth virtually nothing, but that there are coins for some of the larger denominations. This is completely the opposite way to how we do things in the west, where coins represent the small amounts and notes the large. As far as I can make out there are one, two and five Fen coins (which if you compare the highest unit of currency, the Yuan, to a dollar, would represent a tenth of a cent). There are also one and five Jiao coins (compare to one and five cents), and a 1 Yuan coin which you could compare to a dollar. However, there are also one, two and five Jiao notes - the one and five duplicate coins of the same value, and only the two Jiao note is unique. The obvious assumption is that such small amounts as the Fen are required because people don't earn so much here, but then you realise that there are also one, two, five, ten, twenty,fifty and one hundred Yuan notes - Britain doesn't even have a one hundred pound note. I've lost you, haven't I? Don't worry - I lost myself the moment I arrived in China and picked up a coin. My head is about ready to explode trying to work out what I'm spending - but at least the banknotes are so beautifully drawn and colourful that I could look at them all day. Even if I don't know what they're worth...

My day in Shenzhen was spent at the main local attractions, a model village and theme park across the road from my hotel. Splendid China is a proper model village, with all the wonders of Asia represented in miniature, but it does get rather shown up by Windows of the World next door which does the same thing for all the wonders of the world and in 1/3rd scale. At Windows of the World, you can actually stare up at the Eiffel Tower rather than trying not to step on it. There is also a third theme park in Shenzhen called Chinese Folk Villages for those who haven't travelled all the way to China to look at models of places back home and want to find out a bit more about the culture - so I figured that there was plenty to fill my day. Handing over a bunch of notes at the entrance to Windows of the World, I purchased a combined ticket to all three parks and was handed a whole bunch of notes and coins back with absolutely no idea what sort of transaction had just taken place - I was pretty sure, however, that it had cost me next to nothing.

Twenty-seven tribal provinces from the mountains and forests of China have been faithfully recreated within Chinese Folk Villages, their whole lives having seemingly been transferred item by item and brick by brick to Shenzhen. Whether the culture of any particular province dictates that houses should be built on lakes, the ground or in trees, and whether they are held together by bamboo, string or tiger droppings, one entire section of village has been lovingly recreated here so that the public can wander through these people's homes, observing the mountain way of life without the expense of actually getting off their backsides and going there. It is somehow both depressing and endlessly fascinating at the same time. At the entrance to each of the twenty-seven village sections, a plaque reads something along the lines of:

WU VILLAGE

The Wu People live in the north eastern plains of Asia, hunt Tigers and Antelope and build their houses high in the trees. Look out for people dropping coconuts on your head.

Population of Wu province: 1,200

So you look around the village, hang about to watch the locals put on a traditional show of dancing and whooping loudly and then go off to see it all again in the next village. Now, I can certainly understand why a certain group of people would see the attraction of wanting to soak up the culture of a nomadic village without having to gulp down a fortnight's supply of anti-malarial drugs and head into the deepest forests of Asia, but what do you think makes those villagers want to up-camp and relocate their entire families to Shenzhen to be watched by a load of gawking tourists? The mind boggles.

Windows of the World and Splendid China, it would be fair to say, are two of the most spectacular model villages I've seen in my life. And I've seen three. Anyone under the impression that a model village consists of hundreds of bored people shuffling around pint sized models of Victorian and pre-war towns which nobody has ever heard of, watching tiny gauge model trains and electric buses moving around on pre-programmed tracks would be quite taken aback by what these places have to offer. The people's republic really does seem to be very good at spending its money on elaborate tourist parks in order to create the impression that China is wonderful, instead of spending it where it is probably most needed. Windows of the World is, quite simply, a model village beyond anything you could imagine. Recreated within the park in perfect 1/3rd scale are hundreds of sights and attractions from around the globe: The Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, Sydney Harbour with it's bridge and Opera House, Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon, all the great temples of the east, the famous Temple of Abu Simbel in Egypt, the houses of Parliament and London Bridge, the list goes on. Everything is beautifully recreated within hundreds of acres of parkland and arranged very carefully so that you can never fail to walk around a corner and fall over at what you see. Everything towered over me - one of the highlights of the day for me was the point at which I was strolling along,minding my own business and wondering where all the spray was coming from, when I rounded a corner and found myself dwarfed by the park's scale model of Niagara Falls. All of the local visitors who knew better than me what was around the corner, of course, had already put their umbrellas up. All that was missing was a scale model of some nutter trying to throw himself over the top of the falls in a barrel, the prevention of which is something for which the real Niagara actually allocates a security team...

I rode the lift to the top of the Eiffel Tower, changing to a second on the platform half way up as you do with the real thing, and was presented with the most spectacular view of Hong Kong and Shenzhen from the observation deck. I stood outside the temple of Angkor Wat without actually having to bother going to Cambodia (which is something on my list of things to do before I die, by the way). I gazed romantically at the canals of Venice. I even had my photograph taken with my arm around an osterich, and spent the best part of the next five years showing the photo to people while waiting for them to mention how incredibly brave I was to do such a thing. Only recently have I thought to look more closely at the photo, and have noticed that there is actually a large rubber band wrapped around the bird's beak - so no bravery was required after all, even if I hadn't known that at the time. I suppose it could still have kicked me, though, or pecked me to death.

As it began to get dark, Windows of the World began to transform into night mode. The sight of the sun going down over the Great Pyramids and the Valley of the Kings at Geza took me quite by surprise, and I thought I'd seen it all by then. It isn't often I can say I am truly awed by something, but I returned to my hotel convinced that I was not going to see anything as impressive as Windows for a while - and that is not, in any way, an advertisment for Microsoft.

About Simon and Burfords Travels:

Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.