With pedestrianized cobbled lanes, diverting street art, free galleries and plenty of cafes and bars in which to make pit stops, OCT Loft feels tailor-made for strolling.

​A wooden boardwalk winds its way around the artificial lake that contains the Minghua, a vintage cruise liner, at Shekou’s famous lifestyle plaza.

One of Shenzhen’s older skyscrapers, this 384-meter office tower was Asia’s tallest building when it topped out in the mid-1990s. Built at the rate of four floors every nine days and completed in just 40 months, it was a widely touted exemplar of “Shenzhen speed.”

Overlooked by the thousands of shoppers on this busy Luohu street is a former clan guildhall, which sometimes has gallery exhibits inside.