It was around 06:00 AM when the members of SPOCK5 opened their sleepy eyes. Some woke up with a well known tune in their head, others due to the train personal barging in to collect the hangers. Shenzhen was still sleeping as the tired group walked towards the hotel. After leaving the luggage some used their time to eat breakfast with a lot of coffee while others used it to catch up some sleep at the same venue.
Around 09:45 the energised group walked to the Shenzhen Market. Which isn’t just your regular Dutch food and clothes market. Where sellers shout their reduced prizes all over the place. The difference starts even before entering. It was like taking a journey through Mario land with tunes every 50 meters cast by an intercom. Spontaneous dancing occurred very often until the LED strips and other electronics were spotted. Like enthusiastic children they swarmed over the first floor of on of the skyscrapers. It felt like a real life Ali express.
Micro controllers, SIF sockets, battery-packs, chargers, sensors, computer fans, motors, caps, wires, etc were all on the first floor in little flea market stands. On higher ground the products changed from components to gadgets to interconnecting cables to fingerprint scanners to phones and other big stuff like rip-off Segways. Some products like go pros were even occupying around 2 floors in total. At the 45th floor the big boss of the drones (7 additional stores at lower floors) was located. Many battled the maze of elevators to get to this gym leader. Many failed in their quest, since some elevators could only go to floor B3, B2, B1, 1, and 11 t/m 26 while others could only go to 1, 2 and 45.
As you can imagine losing sight of each others was not very difficult between two skyscrapers and their surrounding (shady) Apple, Huawei, Samsung all in one stores. (Literally every corner had one) But that did not stop the SPOCK5 community from fighting back. As they were a very musical group one only had to follow the sound of random drum solos on electric pads and catchy jazz tunes on flexible piano keys.
After lunch the passports were assembled and everybody checked in at the Shangjian Capsule Hotel Inn to play with their newly found toys. For those wondering if the space capsules were made for 2 meter tall people from Europe the answer is NO!!! However, they do fit in the bed, which is the most important part.
After getting acquainted with their new surroundings the Chinese game Mah-Jongg was played or Johnny English was watched in the lobby of the Hotel.
It was around then that Cora and Herbert joined the group to grab some dinner. Of course again a lot of movies and photos were made from the big group of tall white people and the little girls from the restaurant were clearly flabbergasted with the amount of people that came in at once.
However they handled it well and even got us an English menu through WeChat (what a beautiful app). Furthermore our dinner place had a Food Safety Grade B, which is good. Did I mention they grade everything?
Anyway, after a delicious meal we all walked back to the hotel, sat together for a while and went to bed to prepare for the Nexperia visit which the company would use for promotion videos.
With these last words even I will go to bed looking back at an adventurous day in yet again a new city of China.
