Biking Afterparty - Lok Ma Chou! 落馬洲の初め！

自転車で死の山後、僕は上水駅で自転車を止まった。中国の深圳市の羅湖区で安マッサジしたいけど、今回新所も行きたから、違電車を乗った、ロクマーチョウ（落馬洲）の新入境へ行って見たかった。

After biking the hills of death and living to tell the tale, I rode back to Sheung Shui station and locked up my bike.  Despite all the riding I wasn't actually that tired or sore....  I had planned on going across the border to get a massage in Shenzhen, so I brought my passport with me.  When I got to the station I thought "why not try Lok Ma Chau for once?"

For those who don't know, Lok Ma Chau is a new station and border crossing on a 5 mile spur line that was added to the KCR (now MTR) East line last year (opened last August actually).  I had wanted to check it out, but never had a chance... now I did. :-P

The reason for this spurline is straightforward,  the traditional train line crossing, Lowu (羅湖) is on towards the east side of Shenzhen,  so it takes a while to get over to the western side once you get across.  Lok Ma Chau is a shortcut and also a pressure relief, since Lowu is apparently the busiest border crossing anywhere in the world. 

Basically the line goes right up to the banks of the Shenzhen river that forms the border.  On the HK side, the station building connects right to the immigration station, which connects to a footbridge over the river.  On the China side, known as Huanggang (黃崗) there's an immigration building that has a Shenzhen Metro station in the basement.

You can see there's also a vehicle crossing here.  You may have read the blog from May 07  where I actually rode my bicycle near here... but you can't bike up to the border crossing apparently.

Here's the view when you get off the train:

Thats Shenzhen over there... 　これは深圳です。

A bit less menacing than the last sign... but still:

I guess I better go across the border then... don't want to be in contravention!  (British English... bah!)

Actually I was in contraventionhere with my surreptitious photo taking of the immigration control...

That's the HK immigration exit check point on the other side of the ticket gates...  in the last few years HK has implemented a super awesome automated immigration clearance system...  so nowadays the immigration point is mostly just rows of gates w/ ID card readers and thumbprint scanners... it only takes about 20-30 seconds per person! 改札口の反対は香港の出国ゲートです。

Ok, technically i took that picture from inside the train station... so maybe its ok...

The next one is even more contraventional:

There's a long walkway across the bridge over the river.  Lowu's bridge is relatively short, this one is like 3-4x longer, hence the moving sidewalk.  It was pretty empty...

(actually there 'no photos' sign wasn't posted until you get to the China side, so maybe its ok here in the middle...)

From the China side, I was able to exit the building and walk down to the river bank (or at least the chain link fence next to the river bank).  Here's a view of the footbridge from the China side.  Bottom deck is entering China, top deck is leaving China. 　中国法がから撮ったの写真。落馬洲-黃崗の歩道橋です。上階は香港まで、下階は中国まで

I ended up taking the metro to Lo Wu and crossed back from there after getting a nice 45 rmb massage (cause Etchy is a big tipper). :-P

That's it for today.... I have a bunch of pictures from Shenzhen saved up from the last several trips I've taken... I'll upload them sooner or later. ;-)