24 may It's raining cats and dogs...

It's sunday today, but nobody notices that over here. In China everything goes on 24/7 (or almost). I had maybe 2 hours of sleep last night. Shen slept from 8.30 to 11 PM, and then woke until 2 AM.

I got out of bed at 7 or so, took some cereal as breakfast and took a bath. I woke Shen at 8 and at almost 9 we went down to the lobby. Our guide Jasmine arrived at 9 and we first talked a bit. She is a nice lady I guess, helpful, but very young. As everything in this city is :-)

The weather is really, really bad, it's raining constantly, the streets are flooded with water, it's almost impossible to  walk across a street. Not what I imagined travelling here, I must admit. I checked the Wunderground website before, and this period of ime has been beautiful sunny weather for the last ten years. Too bad. This week it is raining. From the forecast at this moment this should be the worst day, let's hope so.

http://www.hko.gov.hk/wxinfo/currwx/fnd.htm

We went of to the metro, and went to the big bookstore near the city hall. I wanted to buy a photo book about Shenzhen, a map and maybe some other stuff. The ride was great, the metro very clean and everything went well. At  the  book store it was not so clear where to buy the desired goods.We eventually found a map with  English signs on it too, a book I promised to buy for M (Shopping in Shenzhen) when I encountered it and a photo book about China. Then we ate some bread at a bakery, Shen loved that. He is so much into food here, he wants to eat all the time. We wanted to go and walk to the Childrens Palace, a scientific center with activities for kids, but it rained heavily at that moment. We eventually went, and got poured. On the pictures you can see how wet Shen's trousers are. At about 1 PM I didn't feel too well again (no wonder) and we went back  to the metro through rivers of water and drove back to the hotel. The rain was still there when we arrived above the ground, and it got even worse, so we hopped in a mini McDonalds and gave Shen some Chicken Nuggets. He ate two portions :-) and then I decided we would go through the rain. The hotel was nearby, so dry clothes and a hot shower or bath also. So it's half past two and we're back in our  room. In the last metres we walkes some thief tried to  open my backpack  (I was too tired and didn't feel a thing), luckily our guide stopped her. There was nothing of value in the backpack, only the books and some water we bought.