If people have not ever heard about Guangzhou, they've probably heard about the famous neighbor city, Shenzhen. This special commercial area has been built to look like a new metropolis and nowadays is full of businessmen all around the world. I haven't heard too much good about the city, but still I didn't want to believe all the bad rumors about it, I wanted to experience it by myself.

I have few old friends from Finland who are also studying in China at the moment. These boys came to see me to Guangzhou and we decided to check not only Guangzhou but also Shenzhen during their visit. One of my Italian friends is a big fan of Shenzhen. He told us to skip the city center and go to see other things what the city offers. I am so happy that we did exactly what he told us to do, because out trip was just amazing!

We took a hostel called Happy Valley international Youth Hostel and it was very good. It was quite far away from the city center but the area was very nice. Right next to the hostel there was this huge happy valley, where you can see all the miniatures from world's most famous buildings. There was also an amusement park and many other activities to do. We didn't go to the amusement park, but we took a sightseeing train (~4 Euros) around the big area.

In the coast side (about 30 minutes/50 Yuan away from hostel with taxi) there is a nice small boulevard which is full of small restaurants and bars. In many places there are "All you can eat"-Menus with nice prices (from 7 to 15 Euros). You can easily spend the whole night in this block just wandering around the pubs. In some of them you can also find live music.

In Shenzhen there would be many places to see, but we had only 1,5 days time, so beside these places that I have already mentioned, we went to see the parks. Many people had told us that Shenzhen's parks are very beautiful and relaxing and that was the truth. I really recommend to go to some of these parks to relax, play jianze, eat cheap and tasty food from the street sellers and talk with your friends.

Train from Guangzhou to Shenzhen took only 55 minutes and 8 Euros, so it is very easy to get there and have a day off in modern city for a change from Guangzhou chaos.