First Class Red Szechuan Restaurant, Shenzhen China

After 17 hours in Macau, we ferried to Hongkong then trained up to Shenzhen. My 2 weeks backpacking trip around China begins.

We have been to this grey skied metropolis before and since we had only a night to spare, we ate and stayed at the same places as our previous trip (not blogged about) to save time.

Arriving with growling tummies screaming for dinner, (more like supper since it was almost 11pm!) we were picked up by our accommodation center, checked in our bags there and almost ran over to this restaurant.

Chinese characters read 'Yi-ping-hung-chuan-chye'. So, how's accurate is my personal translation titled above?

Chinese Herbal Tea and Santan Juice. Yup. Somehow the latter has a big market in Hongkong and China. Give me the coconut water anytime but coconut milk to quench thirst? Kinda ewws factor to me.

Sliced Cucumber in Chili Oil - an oily cold dish

Spicy Skewered Shrimps. Best when hot, very oily when cold.

Cabbage stirfried with Dried Chili. Best when hot, very oily when cold

Spicy Pig Intestines. The pales are the chewy parts, red and green are chilies. Best when hot, (everybody together now) very oily when cold.

My ultimate favourite of the meal - Cured Century Eggs. This is a big deal as I'm no fan of our locally sourced century eggs in black. These are so different in colour, taste and texture especially the yolk.Not a hint of the abhorrent ammonia-like smell. Best to eat with the vinegar cured green chili. Oh how I miss it!

Cannot recall name of the herbal soup. Bill in Chinese so no help to me.

Bill:- A very reasonable RM75.00 with rice to feed 4.

Address on bill:- For those as banana as moi, maybe bring a print out of this picture?

So anyone caught that I did not mention hotel but accommodation center? Curious? Shenzhen is the land of cheap personal pampering so to maximise our short stay, we overnighted at a massage center!

Introducing the Royal Leisure and Elegance Fairyland.

Just book a minimum 4 hours service and they'll provide you a room to sleep in. We only did 3 hours each (1 hour foot reflexology and 2 hours body massage) so they put us in individual cubicles of about 7ft by 3ft fitted with reasonably comfortable mattress. I know it's hard to imagine but pity, I was too tired to grab my camera from the locker room which was on another side of the building.

All that cost me about RM170 inclusive of generous tips to the masseurs and towel ladies. Ahhh it's good to be able to afford good pampering.