"Life's a BEACH, in China"
So I'm listening to the conversations in the crowd here. Apparently, you need to book ahead of time and then get a ah...
like a number on your phone, and then you come here and
put your ID card and you get it. So of course, I'm not going to get in.
Which is ridiculous.
So I'm going to go and talk to the security here and see if it's at all possible for me to go in.
So guys. Once again. I'm here to show you how to survive in China without a car.
Today is a very strange day or not really strange if you live around here.
It's a typical strange summer's day here in Shenzhen where one minute you've got beautiful blue skies and the next minute a massive torrential
downpour. So
umbrellas required. Anyway. Last time we took the subway, and that's easy mode.
It's pretty easy to figure your way around. It's all in English. Well, you can change the machines to English.
It's very straightforward, but today we're going to take a bus.
It's a good thing. I bought my swimsuit because we're going to go to Shenzhen's most popular beach today and it's usually
jam-packed, but luckily it's a weekday. So it should be quite nice and pleasant out there. All right.
So this is what a bus station more or less looks like.
Very simple to spot. They usually have an awning over the top and
you'll see here is the name of the bus stop at the top. The Diwang Dàshà, Diwang building bus stop and
underneath it has a list of all the buses that leave from this station.
Of course, on the opposite side of the road...
Okay, which you can see down there will have the same bus stop you know with the buses going in the opposite direction.
Anyway, back to this.
Unfortunately, there is no English on these
bus stops but what you'll be able to do is. You'll be able to see, for instance, this is where we start and
it's kind of handy because you can see the metro station there.
So these. You know. That's where the metro will get you so if you're familiar with the metro system
you'll be familiar with where these places go
and... ah...
you know you can understand Chinese. At least, I understand a well enough to know what most of these characters mean.
It also gives you information like the times over here. The times in which the the buses run and you know every five to six
minutes or every seven to eight minutes. It will arrive during these different times.
Anyway, looking at all of these. There is not a single one of these buses that will take me to where I
need to go. Well, since that bus stop did not have a bus that goes all the way to the beach
so I'm going to just walk around until I find a bus stop that actually does have the bus.
It's entirely possible to use an app. In fact, if you just Baidu which is the equivalent of Google
you can quite easily find the routes but once again you have to be able to type in Chinese and understand Chinese.
Okay, so this is the Shenzhen Shūchéng bus station. Let's see what we've got here.
29. No. 85
No. No... no... no. That's Mén Dōng. Never mind.
No. Shā tóu. Shā tóu.
Ah. There we go.
Xiǎo Méi Shā, If it goes to Xiǎo Méi Shā. It goes to Méi Shā. Méi Shā Diǎn. So that's where I want to go there.
That's a lot of stuff. Go take a look at that. That's going to take like an hour and a half.
It's like 20 plus stops maybe 30. Anyway.
That's where I'm going so I've got to take the bus.
103
Easy enough. Now before I get on the bus,
I have to tell you how you actually pay when you get on the bus. There are two kinds of buses.
Those with a fixed rate. In other words, their entire route will cost say 2 RMb or maybe 2.5 RMB
and then you have, you know, sort of variable rate buses like the one I'm taking. Because it goes so far,
it's not fair to charge somebody a set rate so they'll charge you like 2 RMB to go for about five to ten stops.
I'm not sure the exact amount but then you know you go past that amount you have to pay more.
Now, the ones that have a set fee is fairly easy as you step on the bus. They have a little machine.
You can either swipe your card if you've got like a local Shenzhen Tong as it's called
or you can drop some coins or notes into a little sort of
machine that the bus driver has but there's no change. So it has to be exact.
The second type will usually have a bus lady or bus assistant and
what she will do is she'll come up to you and actually ask you where are you going.
And then you tell her the destination. This is where you need to know your Chinese.
You tell her the destination and then she will tell you how much and you can either scan a card on their special
machine or give her a cash and she can actually give you change.
There comes my bus. The 103. All the way to Dameisha which is the small...
the smaller beach.
Okay, looks like it's going to be standing room only. Watch the mad rush.
See that's a big problem. You're suppose to let people off first.
So. I got a little ticket and it cost five RMB to go the entire length of this bus.
Unfortunately, it is full. So there are no seats, and this is like a probably hour-and-a-half journey.
Hopefully, a seat will clear up a little later along the routes but you know this is what I... ah...
This is what I do for you guys. My subscribers. (laughs)
Ah. Good. I'll go sit at the back.
Now, don't expect any English when it comes to the buses although there are actually English announcements. The problem
is that the English announcements don't help. Listen.
Get on if you heard that correctly but if you know in Chinese, it says the next stop is Chun-Li then in English
it says the next stop is Chun-Li. If you don't know what Chun-li is. It's not a Street Fighter 2 character.
You're not going to know what you're doing, so once again.
If you're going to take a bus, you kind of need to know where you're going it probably has to be following like a
GPS on your phone to see if you're kind of in the area
or you have to memorize the name. Well done to get stuck into the journey. I will see when I get there.
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Right. So I've arrived at the bus station. Which is closest to the beach.
I got a little bit of a walk
so let's go and see what this beach is all about.
Judging by all of those sort of floating rings and swimming costumes and all that kind of thing over here.
I'd say I'm pretty close to the beach. For those of you
who are interested. It took about an hour and 10 minutes to get here on the bus. It's shorter than I expected.
Anyway, let's go to see this beach.
I've arrived at the entrance way to the beach. The Dà méi shā beach
which is the most popular in Shenzhen, and it's got a security checkpoint and sort of turnstiles and all sorts of nonsense
um....
and...
Well, let's see if I can get in because things have changed since I was here last.
Okay, so this is something that you'll probably only ever get in China. In order to get onto the beach,
you actually have to come and get a ticket from these machines. I guess it costs money.
Let's find out. See what's going on here.
So I'm listening to the conversations in the crowd here. Apparently, you need to book ahead of time and then get a... ah...
like a number on your phone and then you come here and
put your ID card and you get it. So of course, I'm not going to get in.
Which is ridiculous.
So I'm going to go and talk to the security here and see if it's at all possible for me to go in.
Okay so apparently, he wants me to show my passport which I didn't bring along with me
so let's see if they'll let me through anyway.
Maybe I have a copy on my phone.
Okay, so I have a copy of my passport on my phone. Let's see if these guys at the security will accept that.
Scan my stuff first.
Well, I mean, it's convoluted. It's ridiculous
but they're reasonable if you just talk to them. Thing is uh...
I wasn't expecting that I'd have to show my passport to get onto a beach and go through security scanners, but there you go.
Now
let's talk about the Beach itself. Well. It's a good thing
I'm dressed for the occasion anyway. Get a little bit of sand in my shoes.
Let's quickly talk about this beach because there are quite a couple of significant things about it.
It's free
so
it's open to the public although as you can see now you have to actually register.
This beach is always packed. Now you've got to bear in mind,
it's Thursday right now in the middle of the day sort of what's it.. quarter past one on a Thursday and... uh...
Hello. Man: Hello.
and you can see there's still a fair amount of people
but if you come on the weekends. Once again, you can't actually walk here. It's just not possible.
And it's actually "the stuff of nightmares" to be completely honest
Anyway, in order to stop all the trash because I mean you just need to look anywhere here on the beach.
You'll see there's trash lying around.
It's just the...
It's unfortunately still the Chinese way.
So you know when it gets really crowded, it's just full of trash
and so in order to stop that and in order to stop the overcrowding.
They do have this new registration system in place. C-Milk and I did a video about it. I'm going to link it
so you can go and take a look if you like.
But yeah. There we go. That's the beach. It took...
well it took just over an hour to get here.
Cost me 5 RMB (0.75 USD) here. It's going to cost me 5 RMB back.
Exactly the same as the other day when I took the metro. So 10 RMB. It's really not a lot.
Unfortunately, it's quite a hassle and once again
not much for me to do here. Even though I did bring my...
my bathing suit. I'm not going to really go swimming or anything, so I'm basically just going to turn around and go straight back.
(laughs)
Hope you guys found this informative. Next time, we'll be trying a different kind of transport here in the city and
until next time...
you know the drill guys...
as always...
Stay awesome!
Oh and don't forget. If you want to go to the beaches here in Shenzhen, bring your passport along apparently.
or at least a copy on your phone like I did. What a pain in the ass. Who'd want to go to the beach with
their passport. It will get lost and full of sand.
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So I'm on the bus back and just in the nick of time, it's just started raining. Told ya. Shenzhen's weather is weird.
Now the interesting thing about this bus is that it's actually a hybrid diesel electric.
In other words, the actual drive of the bus is electric but it uses a diesel generator to kind of generate electricity and
a lot of the buses here in Shenzhen are actually fully electric.
Obviously, this one goes on a very long trip so it needs to have the range.
That's why it's a hybrid
but I do believe that Shenzhen is trying to be the first city in the world to be fully electric when it comes to buses.
I know at least in China. And it was the first city in China to introduce electric taxis
so it's kind of interesting to see how
advanced the bus fleet and taxi fleet are here in the city.
And you can hear right now
we're pulling off
and very little noise.