I have definitely visited China, and it seems like it is not a right thing being an Asian and not having to visit China before. So, a year back, my parents brought the whole of us siblings to visit China and we stayed at the Shangri-La Hotel Shenzhen. This hotel is no ordinary hotel, and it is actually a very fantastic and luxurious hotel with lots of good service given out and amazing looking rooms. The only bad thing? Price, baby. But my parents had saved up enough for us to have a few days’ stay there.

The one thing that I observed when being in Shangri-La Hotel Shenzhen was that there were lots of foreign travelers. And I really meant it. There were Europeans and Americans and of course Asians. All from different parts of the world, with different reasons being in the hotel. Some of them looked downright as business travelers while others were like vacationers or something.

The busy district of Shenzhen was quite jam-packed and since the hotel was reputed to be a 5-star hotel, the following were my experiences. My best advice would be to avoid walking alone during night-time since it looked a bit risky and all the people there (locals) speak in their native, Chinese language, so you might not kno when danger lurks. Other than that, the hotel is near to this Lo Hu area and I was told to stay away, if possible beacuse there were cases of crimes there. Okay, shudders for that.

So, I sticked to mainly the nearest vicinity to the hotel and there my whole family found KFC, McDonald’s and the likes. There were also lots of fine dining restaurants and they looked again jam-packed with greedy-looking people who seemed to not have a meal for years, ha! Okay, that was a bit exaggerating, but that was what I really felt they looked like.

Now, back to the hotel.

The room that I had and shared with my sister was the least expensive room but then everything was lavishly set up. The bed was so comfortable and there were 3 telephones at least and a nice storage for valueables. Besides that, there was a high-speed Internet connection and surprisingly, it worked well in China, to my pleasant surprise. There was even an automatic wake-up call and the cable TV had lots of programs; both Chinese and Western.

Other facilities would be a swimming pool, a Jacuzzi and also a nice massage spa.

I tried everything and since the Jacuzzi was free, it was great after doing some hard workouts. To tell you honestly, once inside the grounds of Shangri-La Hotel Shenzhen, the feeling was just like in any other Western hotel, but once you set foot outside the hotel, then reality starts to sink in and you realize that you are in someone else’s land; a foreign land that is, and that added to the mystery of Shangri-La Hotel Shenzhen. I give this review a 9.

Rating: 9