Mr Shallot’s Mum stayed with us as a stopover on her way to India (she’s volunteering for a few months).

In order to help prepare her for the crowds, we decided to take her to Shenzhen – a Chinese shopping mecca. The trip there goes through other shopping areas and some rural spots which look like scenes from kung fu movies.

After the usual tedious wait for a visa and then through immigration, we had finally arrived. We instructed Mr Shallot’s Mum on the Shenzhen Drill – look straight ahead, walk with purpose and don’t talk to anyone unless you actually want to buy something.

On this day, the drill was unnecessary.

For a place that’s reminiscent of an ant colony, it appeared that an ant-eater had been in and decimated it to a third of its usual size. The soldier ants still guarded the escalators, armed with menus in order to escort us to their dim sum restaurant. There were still some worker ants scurrying along once we’d picked what we liked from a catalogue or if something we wanted didn’t quite fit they would be sent from the stores to the inner sanctum and bring back another product.

Then there’s the bull ants, these are the ones that no matter where you move to, they seem to follow you. At Shenzhen, these are the ones that pull on your arms, “missy, missy, missy” trying to entice us to purchase everything from DVDs to massages, manicures and MP4s.

Normally I find the experience exhausting and a little stressful. Due to the lack of people, it was actually quite a pleasant shopping experience.

I had been given a set of written instructions from a colleague to guide us through an elaborate maze and secret codes to find ‘the good stuff’. I left it at home in our rush to leave. Apparently there is a shoe shop that is reached by going to a tattoo stall and asking to be taken to the quilt shop. Once arriving in the quilt shop, you’re meant to ask to see the shoes. Then you’re taken behind a quilt to reveal an exquisite selection of designer products. All seems very clandestine. This is probably because the designer shoes are either great knock offs or stolen so they need to be careful to not be caught by the security and police that constantly roam the centre.

Every product touched is an invitation to bargain with the shop owner. Amazing to realise that sometimes I’m bargaining over less than AUD1 but the shop keepers see it as a game and I’ve improved with practice. At times I think I’m ripping them off but they are there whenever I’ve returned so I have a feeling the shoe is really on the other foot.

After shopping, we each had a foot, leg and shoulder massage for HKD25. This is about AUD4 for one hour. Felt fantastic and the men that did it were nattering away in Mandarin the whole time. Interesting what you can understand from a mixture of charades and facial expressions. They were asking for a tip so when it was finished, we gave them one.

Laden with a few pashminas (very handy given how cold the air-conditioning is here), a belt, new wallet, two bangles and two pairs of pants, for Mr Shallot’s Mum’s Indian adventure, we then returned home.

The day turned out nothing like I had planned – much more relaxing and a nicer way to shop! Poor preparation for the crowds of India though.

* Thanks to Powderfinger for the title to this post.