Sunday, July 03, 2016

Weekend escape @Shenzhen

1-2/7/2016
Making good use of the Best Rate Guarantee (BRG) for hotel, it was much cheaper to plan some weekend getaways as the cost of hotels drops significantly.

This time we chose to stay at Luohu Holiday Inn Express, which was 10 minutes walk away from both Laojie Station and Hongling Station. Again, I used the trick of BRG which matches the lower rate I found in other websites plus a compensation of USD50/ claim, I got stay at USD9.16 only! (around HKD73)

Orbitz's offer: more than USD59.75
Agoda's offer: USD59.16- USD50 compensation= USD9.16

Arriving at Shenzhen, we took the metro to Laojie Station, headed to the holiday from the nearest exit. It was effortless getting there in 10 minutes except the weather was extremely hot.


We didn't expect much about the hotel but it was astonishing. The reception staff was nice with fast check-in time. 

We were allocated to a room on the 12th floor and it was very quiet with a few rooms occupied. It made us feel safe as the elevator was operated by the room keys.




































Hotels of Holiday Inn Express were typical. Room was spacious with basic amenities. The only down side was not having a fridge which we were not able to freeze the drinks. It was definitely value for money.






































It was dinner time and we decided to walk to Hongling Station, taking metro to Huizhanzhongxin Station for hotpot. We both want to eat a bit and stopped by a bakery. Pastry here cost more or less the same as those in Hong Kong. (RMB10) The cost of living here really raised intensively in recent years.

Hai Di Lao Hotpot is so well known that my every single friend recommends me to pay a visit. Arriving there at around 7:45pm, it was tremendously full with a long queue to go! Even lots of leisure activities like nail care and polishing, board and card games with free snacks, fruit and drinks were offered while waiting, we both lost temper! You won't believe that there were around 120 tables to go until our turn to eat!





Anyway, we wandered around the shopping mall and dropped by another bakery for a bit of food and drinks before our main course. (RMB28)


Finally it was our turn to eat almost 2 hours of wait time. The service was really nice with hot towels, hairbands and aprons given. Food was ordered with an ipad. The food was just in normal standard but not superlative. Again, eating in Mainland China was not as cheap as we were expecting.(RMB240) Although we both leave with loaded stomachs, there won't be a second chance for this restaurant again due to the crazily long wait time. 





































Slept in the next day and lazed around in our room. Then we headed down for breakfast in no rush as it served until 10:30am. Once more, it was more than we expected. A variety of hot food was provided and it tasted quite alright.



Went to bed again until noon for check-out afterwards. We got back to Laojie Station. 1234 Shopping Mall with strong air-con seemed to be the bast place to wander under hot weather. We had lunch in a randomly chosen restaurant. This time we went for Korean food. Um... despite the nicely furnished environment, everything was ordinary. (RMB84)























Next to it was a good looking bookstore called Sisyphe. Like the way that a cafe was next to it letting people to chill and take a book to read there at the same time. It would have been more perfect if English books were sold as well. P.S. only Chinese books were found! It's kinda weird!







































It was still quite early and we took the metro to Qiaocheng East Station, visiting OCT Loft. It was 10 minutes walk away and we almost got a heat stroke. Gotta find a cafe to settle down. Many restaurants didn't come with strong air-con and it felt like hell staying inside for afternoon tea. Luckily we found LayZ! We ordered an afternoon tea set with spaghetti and watermelon juice. (RM58) Again, the food proved that it was only a place to rest and chill.



Anyway, OCT Loft was a great place to be embraced by art. There was even a flea market at weekend. Seeing so many young people pursuing their dreams was wonderful. Kind of a good place to end our trip.

Was feeling restless these few days. I am so blessed to have Hubby accompanying me during the trip. Felt much better and was ready to fight for what I want.

2 comments:

  1. Do you have to book the rooms one day at a time to make use of this trick?

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    1. Like what I did for my Vietnam trip, I lived in the same hotel for 3 nights and I gotta book every single night separately and send an email to the hotel arranging the same room for me directly. Otherwise you can only claim USD50 once for 3 nights altogether.

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