Good point about visas! I'd like to add that when I went, I had difficulty getting a visa from the Chinese Embassy in Hong Kong. (I'd already used 30 days x2 entries, and I wasn't a Hong Kong resident).
Instead, I went to Forever Bright, a visa agent who take passports over to Shenzhen PSB. Sure enough, they got me a 90 day single entry tourist visa with no more questions asked.
It is also possible to get a visa on arrival for the Pearl River Delta area. That lets you visit for 5 days to do some shopping. (when I went I think it used to be 2 weeks).
There are areas outside Shenzhen city that are quite scenic, particularly little islands. But I agree, the city isn't for tourism unless electronics shopping is your kind of thing. I did go on dates there with my ex (message me if you want to know specific ideas), but it helped a lot that she was there to translate. The things that bothered me most when living there were the firewall (no Facebook) and going to church (I could only go to the church for foreigners that's based in an international school or the official government-run Three Self Movement, not a local house church).
Another point about visiting the surrounding area is that people speak Cantonese. Shenzhen is special because everybody moved there from all over Greater China (yes, including Taiwan - there's something special about the Special Economic Zone so many companies are run by Taiwanese businessmen). So Shenzhen speaks Mandarin, but Zhongshan speaks Cantonese.
Now for a shameless plug: if you want to try to learn Chinese, I wrote Pingtype to make the parallel Pinyin and word-by-word translation. I wrote it for and used it for daily Bible reading, which improved my vocabulary significantly. I still use it to process lyrics to sing along in church, though I'm not studying as hard now I don't live in a Chinese-speaking country.
Instead, I went to Forever Bright, a visa agent who take passports over to Shenzhen PSB. Sure enough, they got me a 90 day single entry tourist visa with no more questions asked.
It is also possible to get a visa on arrival for the Pearl River Delta area. That lets you visit for 5 days to do some shopping. (when I went I think it used to be 2 weeks).
https://hktravelblog.com/china/how-to-get-shenzhen-visa-on-a...
There are areas outside Shenzhen city that are quite scenic, particularly little islands. But I agree, the city isn't for tourism unless electronics shopping is your kind of thing. I did go on dates there with my ex (message me if you want to know specific ideas), but it helped a lot that she was there to translate. The things that bothered me most when living there were the firewall (no Facebook) and going to church (I could only go to the church for foreigners that's based in an international school or the official government-run Three Self Movement, not a local house church).
Another point about visiting the surrounding area is that people speak Cantonese. Shenzhen is special because everybody moved there from all over Greater China (yes, including Taiwan - there's something special about the Special Economic Zone so many companies are run by Taiwanese businessmen). So Shenzhen speaks Mandarin, but Zhongshan speaks Cantonese.
Now for a shameless plug: if you want to try to learn Chinese, I wrote Pingtype to make the parallel Pinyin and word-by-word translation. I wrote it for and used it for daily Bible reading, which improved my vocabulary significantly. I still use it to process lyrics to sing along in church, though I'm not studying as hard now I don't live in a Chinese-speaking country.
https://pingtype.github.io