In Case You Don't Have Time to Visit the Real Thing....

Our days in China are numbered and we know that the time when we come home for good is fast approaching so we decided to visit a city we have not been to yet.  We chose Shenzhen which is located just north of Hong Kong. It is really right next door..

Being  south meant that it should have been warmer than Xi'an but it was cool and overcast. Perfect weather to walk around outside.  The highlight of our trip was "Splendid China" and "China Folk Cultural Villages". They are part of the same attraction and were so much fun.  Splendid China is an outdoor display of many of both the major natural attractions and man-made historic sights in China. "Epcotish" except all outdoor displays and no food. Every display is built to scale (typically 1-8) and a lot of them include small, ceramic people, animals, and equipment  to make each one just that much more lifelike. It was fun to recognize some of the sights since we had already visited them. The detail was amazing, like 1,000 meters of the Great Wall built of tiny individual bricks and took 2 years to complete.

The other half of the attraction was composed of replicas of many Chinese minority villages.   Each village included young people dressed in the native costumes. It really reminded us of the Polynesian Cultural Center which is logical since the PCC helped the Chinese in the planning. The Chinese took the idea and really ran with it making the whole area larger, and including at least three large productions in huge theaters and stadiums.China is 90-95% "Han" Chinese with the rest of the population divided among 55 minority groups so only a few were highlighted.

The entrance was so impressive and fun! I love Chinese dragons. Here are two!

No man-purse. When Ann has the camera, Paul is the sherpa.

Miniature Dragon boats

The Great Wall went on and on and was beautiful.

The Forbidden City

We attended a real Chinese warrior battle.  Much like the cowboy or medieval shows in the U.S.

The costumes in the minority production were beautiful.

This really does speak for itself.

The birds on the girls' hats are real!! There were about 15 live peacocks in this number.

Some of these felt like they were straight from Polynesia.

Waiting to do their next demonstration.

These are replica "living caves." About 30 million Chinese still live in them. Compared to the actual, non- tourist, still lived in ones we have visited in the mountains, these are like 5 star hotel rooms. If you missed it you might want to look at our earlier post on the topic with their photos.