Off To See The World

Well, we had a busy day around Beijing yesterday (Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, and Forbidden City)… but our timing here kind of sucks. First of all, due to some Congress meeting here, Mao’s Tomb and Tianniamen Square were closed off because of their close vacinity to the congress meeting. Secondly, all the snow has melted so we don’t get a nice winter scene but not leaves are out yet so we don’t get to see spring… so everything just kind of looks dead. There are a ton of buds on everything though so I can only imagine what this place will look like in a month of so. Lastly, the main big palace in the Forbidden City is sealed off and covered up for restoration so we didn’t get to see that either!

Oh well, I guess our timing was good in that there weren’t as many tourists as normal. Only 10,000 visitors a day to each site versus 50,000-60,000 visitors… geez a lot of people come through here. Also, the Temple of Heaven has just finished being repainted too so timing was good there… it looked immaculate. I think when they are done restoring everything (for the Olympics), this place will look even more amazing that it did for us.

Other than that, not much to report. We are meeting up with my Aunt Rosanna (who we saw in Switzerland… and Hong Kong… and now here!) today before catching our train to Xi’an. Toodles!

Well, we went to the Great Wall of China today… for some reason we decided to take the stairs instead of taking a cable car up to the wall. Man that was a lot of steps. On the plus side, the weather was great today and the view was amazing.

We went with a couple American girls and a Netherlander from the Hostel so the company was good. I must say though… John and I felt totally out of shape. I don’t know how we were able to summit Kilimanjaro at all! We walked to one end of where the tourists to go and about halfway to the other end…. the huge wall of stairs kind of scared us away from walking all the way to the other end. Either way, it was an wonderful view and well worth seeing… I would recommend taking the cable car up though… save some energy for walking the wall.

The way down was SUPER fun… they built like a little tobaggan slide thing that you could take down… it’s basically a metal chute and you get to sit on a little sled thing and swirve your way down the mountain. Kind of a strange thing to find at the Great Wall of China… but whatever, we’re tourists and we had a ton of fun.

That was pretty much our whole day… just driving out to see the wall and then coming back. Now we are at the hostel… pretty pooped and just hanging out with the people we met. Wish I could post some pics but there’s no SD reader thing here… Ummm, that’s all for now.

Well, after 24 hours and 15 minutes on the train, we have arrived in Beijing! It’s funny though, people said that the hard sleepers on the train would be a challenge to take for that amount of time… but in all honesty, the hard sleepers (4th class) are cleaner and more comfortable than the 2nd class air conditioned cars in India. I don’t know why they still call them “hard” sleepers. The beds are padded and you get a really big fluffy blanket and pillow too. I guess in a way it’s good that people in Hong Kong think that hard sleepers suck because I think there was a total of maybe 10 people on our car so there was nobody sleeping on the beds above us. The food was decent too… not great but it was good…. of course, it was chinese food.

Upon arriving at the station in Beijing (it was a direct train -no stops in between), we walked out to discover that we might be in over our heads with the language thing… heh heh. Everything that has english letters simply spells out the phonetic sound of the chinese word. So… after a whole bunch of pointing to either John’s mandarin phrases book or a handy sheet that my uncle peter gave me, we figured out how to take the bus from the train station to our hostel (for 1 Yuan!). The bus wasn’t that packed when we first got on but stop after stop, it got more and more crowded…. luckily, we were able to somehow communicate with a lady on the bus to tell us when we got to xiajiankou or something like that. I think John will be extra happy because there is a Dairy Queen and a McDonalds really close to our hostel.

Now we are sitting in the common room of our hostel waiting for our food. As those of you who know us can probably guess, we didn’t order chinese food. I mean, there are good Chinese foods… but John and I have been up to our ears in Chinese food for the past few weeks… we’re from Sherwood Park and Stony Plain… come on, you can’t seriously expect us to be able to eat that much Chinese food when we are raised on steak and potatoes.

Anyway, tomorrow, we will be going to the Great Wall at Mutianyu and the day after, we will be going to the Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, and Forbidden City. Ummm, I think that’s it from us for now… C’ya!

Well, we are leaving the lap of luxury of my family taking care of me. My mom is back in Edmonton and we are leaving Hong Kong today by train to begin our own adventure in China. Our first stop: Beijing. It’s about a 25 hour train ride there. After that, we will be going to Xi’an to see the clay sodiers, then Chengdu to see giant Pandas, then Lhasa to see stuff in Tibet, then Chonqing to start a boat ride to the 3 Gorges Dam, then to Yellow Mountain, then Shanghai, and then we’ll be back in Hong Kong on April 9th!. Soo, I will do my best to keep putting up new posts. I probably won’t get to post pics at the same time but I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures. See you all soon!

I just had to post this here… hehe. It’s Fonzy wearing his new traditional chinese shirt and hat… hehehe.

From the names of the cities, I’m sure you can guess we were in China. We are actually back in Hong Kong now to see my mom off (back to Canada) but I’ll fill you in on our 6 day tour in China. This tour was with my mom, my aunt from Hong Kong, and my aunt and uncle from Melbourne and we were on one of those bigger tours (30 people) where we had to follow the tour guide who carries a little flag for us to follow. John and I usually laugh at the people on these tours so it’s a little ironic that we end up on one of them. We even had little button pins that we wore to identify which tour group we were with. Anyway, here’s a quick synopsis of the places we went to these past 6 days:

Changsha

Changsha was basically the place where we flew to and from Hong Kong. It has a tiny little airport but the city appears to be growing and preparing for more tourists and what not. However, there is still a lot of construction going on so it’s not quite a tourist destination yet. The only saw 2 things in Changsha. One was a place where Mao used to conduct his political “stuff”. I guess Mao was born here and they considered it his hometown so he spent quite a bit of time here. The other place that we saw was one of what used to be the four best colleges waaaayyyyy back in the day. This college was built over 1000 years ago. It isn’t active now but they keep it open for tourists. It’s actually a pretty nice campus; there are lots of trees and really nice gardens. There’s also a little temple dedicated to confucious which was pretty cool. That’s about all we saw in Changsha though.

Changde

There also wasn’t too much to see in Chengde… and I’m going to have to apologize ahead of time: The descriptions of these places might be kind of vague because the tour was in Chinese and my Chinese is “ok” at best. You can imagine how much of the tour John understood… heh heh… although, I will admit, his Cantonese is improving, and his chopstick skills are very good now. Anyway, here is my vague description of Chengde. We stopped at a place on the side of a river where there was a really nice building and a long walkway with poems and quotes written in Chinese calligraphy along the walls. I’m not really sure what the history of the place was but it was pretty. Ummmm, that was about all we saw in Chengde… it was really just a place to stop before moving onto our other destinations.

Jishou

In Jishou, we went to a small town or village or something Then we went to a little ancient village (known for their dried pig faces or something? Picture is up on flickr) and their houses on stilts on the riverside. The village itself was kind of neat… old style construction but is turning more touristy with small shops everywhere. Here, we caught a ride on one of those old fashioned boats where the guy uses a big stick of bamboo to push us along (even though he did end up using a paddle for a bit). We took a short ride down the river, surrounded by large mountains… it was very scenic. As the sun started to set, we made our way back to the tour bus to head for a night of rest before heading to our next destination.

Zhangjaijie

As we approached Zhangjaijie and area, the terrain started to get more mountainous and lush. Each hill/mountain was covered in either trees or crops (step planting)… and every so often we’d cross a very scenic river or stream. There is a “Stone Forest” inside a national part which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. This park was magnificent. It took us 2 days to go to the most scenic places in the park, each turn having a more amazing view than the one before. It was really like the paintings that you see of china with the rocks jutting out and a light fog floating between the pillars of rock. On the second day, we were even luckier. It had snowed the night before so the view was even MORE amazing. There was a light layer of snow on everything and it was still snowing a little bit so it was like a “winter wonderland” (excuse my corniness). But really… it was breath-taking. This would be one of the places I would recommend. It’s a little pricey (the 2 day pass for the park was 245 Yuan…or whatever the China dollar is called)…. but I do think it was worth it. Since it is protected by UNESCO, they don’t allow smoking or spitting in the park… probably one of the few places in China where you will find this. Yes, there is a lot of spitting and smoking in China. Ummm, oh yeah, one more thing we saw on the tour: some WICKED caves… I put the pics up on flickr. They are the caves with the stalagmite and stalactite thingies… I think thats what they are called?? Either way, they are sweeeet… and they light them up in such a way that it’s even cooler. Ummm… Oh, and we also went to the theater to see a Chinese Cultural thing… it was really entertaining and the acts were very fascinating to say the least.

Anyway, that’s a quick synopsis of the places we have been so far. After my mom heads back to Canada, John and I will head back into China to take on Beijing, Xi’an, Chengdu, Lhasa, Chonqing, The Three Georges, Yellow Mountain, and Shanghai before coming back to Hong Kong one last time.

For those of you who have requested access to my flickr pictures, I have posted the ones from China already. Enjoy!

I guess it’s not really a short vacation since I’ve been on vacation for over 5 months… it’s more like a quick trip into China. We are leaving in about a half hour for the airport and flying to Changsha, where we will start on a 6 day trip (with my mom and aunt). I think the tour takes us through the mountains to Zhangjaijie, Chengde, and Jishou or some crazy name like that.

It’s one of those tours where we have to wear a little star badge so the guide knows that we are part of his gaggle…. great… I have a feeling that John and I will be 30 years younger than most of the people on the tour…greeaaattt….(no offence to my mom and aunt).. haha.

As for the past few days in Hong Kong… they were pretty laid back. We went to try acupunture at a local chinese medicine place… and I had an old chinese medicine man diagnose that I’m dying (well, not really but he said I’m not healthy and should eat some meat… haha). Then they gave me some disgusting tea stuff. Ummm, other than that, we’ve just been power shopping and resting.

Ummm, that’s all for now. I’ll post about China when I can. Later!

Well, we’ve been in Hong Kong for over a week now but I don’t really have much to report. The whole first week and a bit were pretty much just visiting relatives because almost everything was still closed for the New Year Holiday. So, we continued our trend of waking up, having lunch with some random family members, going to see a few touristy streets in Hong Kong, meeting up with family for dinner, stuffing our faces until we couldn’t move, and then going home. We continued this for quite a few days.

Finally, we had our last planned dinner with family and we were free to do whatever…. and what did we do? We went to the horse races! I guess in Hong Kong, horse racing is quite big. My relatives here invited us to the Hong Kong Jockey Club for the races so John and I got all spiffed up in formal wear… something quite different than the old rags we’ve been wearing for the past 5 months. I’ve been to the races at Northlands before but this was totally different. We were up in the members’ area where everyone is pimped out in suits and what not… AND we got to go down to the owner’s area to see the horses and the jockeys too. That was pretty cool. In terms of the actual winnings, we didn’t really win big or anything like that. It was fun watching the races and stuff though. It’s amazing how fast the day went by.

We also went up to see the World’s largest bronze Buddha on Lantau Island. That was pretty cool. We got to ride a gondola all the way there so we got to see quite and amazing view of Hong Kong, the island that the airport is on, and Lantau Island. On the island, it was pretty much what it looked like from a distance: A big bronze Buddha. It was quite beautiful and the surroundings (lush green mountains) made it seem quite peaceful even though there were quite a few tourists there. John was a trooper and came for the all vegetarian lunch… which was pretty good… but not great. There wasn’t much else up there other than the temple, some gift shops, and cafes. So, we headed back down and did what we’ve done way too much of out here… shopping. We ended up going back to Kowloon for dinner because we wanted to go to the night market. After dinner, we went to the night market… where we picked up all sorts of things. It was a pretty fun experience. There are fortune tellers of all sorts there… even ones where birds pick out your fortune. There are also really shady characters selling fake name brand watches and loud people calling you to come to their stall. I guess it’s actually not that different than a lot of the markets we’ve been to on this trip… just that everyone is Chinese instead of African or Indian… hehe.

The next day, we found ourselves taking a REALLY steep tram up to “the Peak”… I think it’s actually called Victoria Peak, which is the highest peak in Hong Kong. The weather held out so we got an amazing view of Hong Kong.. and as we walked around the peak, we got an amazing 360 view of everything around Hong Kong. Getting that little bit of excercise was quite refreshing as well.

Ummm, other than that, it’s still just been shopping and chillaxin. I guess that’s all from Hong Kong for now… I have a feeling it will be pretty uneventful for the next couple of days but I will post when we leave for China.

Well, since Chinese New Year is like a 10 day holiday, we’ve been visiting family and going out to eat almost all the time. It’s funny though, we hadn’t had a chance to buy new clothes before some of the dinners so we showed up to some pretttty fancy restaurants wearing the same thing you would have seen in pictures from London (Grey pants, blue shirt). Luckily, we went shopping the other day and got some new clothes.

Other than that, we’ve just been taking in the sights of Hong Kong and relaxing too. It’s nice to be in once place for a little bit longer time. I think tomorrow is the last day we have to do family stuff… which is good and bad. Good in the sense that we can fully relax and not have to go house to house to house visitng people but bad in the sense that it signifies the end of us receiving the “lucky red envelopes” of money (lai see) for Chinese New Year. Yes, I said “we”… white-boy John has been cashing in on our Chinese holiday as well! haha… I guess we can make him an honorary Chinese person while he is here. He’s actually getting quite good with chopsticks and he has learned a few basic words other than Goong Hai Fat Choi… so, kudos to him.

I think we are headed up to the peak later today since it is more clear out than it has been for the past few days… I’ll try to post the Hong Kong pics onto Flickr soon. I’ve posted all the other ones up until now at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mushu but they are still private so if you want access to the almost 4000 pictures, you’re going to have to request access to them. Annnyyyway, catch y’all lata!

Well, today is Chinese New Year. Goong Hai Fat Choy (Happy New Year), Sun Tai Geen Hoan (Wish you good health), Loong Ma Jing Sun (Be alert and healthy), Saang Yee Hing Loong (Wish you good business)… yada yada.

This is my first time in Asia since I was 2 so it was really cool to see Chinese New Year Eve here and to experience the holiday here. It’s apparently like 10 days of celebration. There’s supposed to be a parade with dragon dance, fire crackers, and all that jazz tonight…. Hope I get a chance to see it but with all the people here, it might be tough to get down there.

John went for dim sum for the first time today. I’ll have to give him credit, his chopstick skills are improving! He’s also willing to try many things, which is brave when it comes to chinese food… haha. Now we are just relaxing at my aunts house… John is playing the new Nintendo thing but it is in Japanese so we are all just guessing what anything says.

Ummm, I will try to post all my pictures since Europe on my flickr site so keep posted for those.

Well, our last day in Sri Lanka was pretty good. We went to a big temple which is like a tooth relic or something like that… were 3 levels to the temple… a silver level, a gold level, and a sandal wood level. Some tour guide dude invited himself to give us a tour even though we told him no thank-you a few times. He kept trying to make us take pictures but it just feels really awkward taking pictures in a religious place. There were many monks there and many people praying there. Many people also bring flowers (mostly lotuses) to offer. It’s quite a beautiful setting with the peaceful monks, amazing craftsmanship of the temple, and fresh flowers everywhere. We spent a good chunk of the morning there.. and on our way out, the guy that was “giving us a tour” (it was more like following us), asked for a tip… grrrr… so, because he did tell us a few things, John and I gave him a hundred rupees… which he threw back in our faces… and threatened to call the police. Considering we told him we didn’t need a tour guide from the start, we told him to call the police… he didn’t, and we walked away with the tip he didn’t even want. Our driver was cool about it though, apparently he had told the guy that we didn’t need anyone either so he was happy that the guy didn’t get anything.

Anyway, we drove back to Colombo, stopping at a few shops along the way. We always get channeled into these places where we don’t really want to buy anything but they do some big demonstration and expect money. This time, it was a herbalist place (much like the one in Morocco). We sat through the demonstration where we got a massage with oils and John got a chunk of his leg hair removed with some kind of cream… very impressive actually. Regardless, we didn’t buy anything and people were pissed… life goes on.

We watched the sunset from the resort in Colombo before retiring for the night… we had to get up at 4:30am to go to the airport….wooo!

We made it to the airport with time to spare, said goodbye to our driver, and got ready to catch our flight. The flight itself was fine, aside from John laughing realllllly loud and shaking the seats.. not only annoying the heck out of me but also annoying the heck out of the lady in front of him because he kept pushing the volume button really hard on the back of the seat in front of him, shaking her seat. She kept looking back but John was too busy laughing his ass off to notice… he didn’t notice the guy right next to him giving him the evil eye for like a minute.. haha. It was quite entertaining…. and annoying… haha. I don’t think I could ever go to a comedy with John cause I’d just get really annoyed and what started as a comedy would end up with a homocide. Other than that, the flight was good (I moved to another seat halfway through…haha)…. unfortunately, John broke our streak of luck… yeah, he has poo problems… haha… and when he was on the can in the plane, we started to land, and one of the flight attendants opened the door while he was squatting there….haha… man, that would have been embarrassing for the both of them.

The Hong Kong airport was really nice, we ate at McDonalds while waiting for my mom to arrive from Canada. Mmmmm, McDonalds… When my mom finally arrived, I had a tough time finding her… all us asians look the same! I didn’t even realize I was standing behind my aunt for the longest time… haha. I actually didn’t realize it until my mom waved and the lady in front of me waved back… haha.

We drove into Honk Kong Island and went for dinner… it’s New Year’s Eve so everything is very festive around here. After we dropped off our luggage, we went to a small fair where they sell flowers for the New Year. They sell orchids VERY cheap here… the flowers smell really nice too. We stayed out until almost 2am crammed in a venue pretty much shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of asians. It wasn’t exactly the most comfortable of times but it was neat to see. I have no idea why, but the Hong Kong people buy balloons and inflatables as part of their celebration so lots of people were carrying around balloons or plastic inflatables in all shapes… everything from giant lollipops to exacto knives… it was quite strange.