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China / Travel — Comments Off on Hong Kong Day 4
27
Jul 08

Hong Kong Day 4

Sunday, July 27, 2008 Today we got up early and unpacked absolutely everything.  We jettisoned all unnecessary items:  travel sized shampoo, bug spray, sun screen…  We have to fit everything in our pack and small roller luggage case. Somehow, losing those little, mostly empty bottles really helped!  Now only our carry-on feels super heavy (it has the tea set and… it’s full of rocks for Jeannette – what’s new?).  We checked out just before noon then asked the Y to watch all our bags for the day while we went and explored Kowloon.  There’s a ton of shopping to be done there, but we weren’t much interested in real shopping today.  We visited Tin Hau temple in Yau Ma Tei, then realized we were famished. Not much was open yet, but we found a Nepalese and Indian restaurant open and Jeannette was super excited.  She loves to eat Indian on Sundays.  It’s a great weekend routine.  The service was super slow for Asia and they were really into the CSI marathon on their TV (that was funny) but after waiting almost 45 minutes for the prefixe lunch special, it was good food and fit the bill.  We then hit … (drum roll please) … one of Jeannette’s favorite markets EVER! The Jade Market. Its not so much jade as it is rocks! We had so much fun and were able to buy plain old uncarved rocks for *super* cheap.. The sellers must think its a little silly to want them before they are “pretty” or they “become” anything or any of their talented and hard work has been put in to the rock.  But it was a highlight of the trip for Jeannette on the very last day.  We were there for a couple hours then headed back to the Y as lightning and thunder (but no rain) started, got our luggage and took the subway to the airport.

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China / Travel — Comments Off on Hong Kong Day 3
26
Jul 08

Hong Kong Day 3

Casino Lisboa


Saturday, July 26, 2008 Today we decided to hit China’s other SAR (Special Administrative Region), Macau. China has two of these SARs and uses the statement “One country, two systems.” to describe the governing principle. It works quite well for everybody involved and we got more stamps in our passport… But that was about the highlight of our Macau time. We didn’t like it so much – not our style maybe? It was SUPER tourist filled in a bad way. WAY too crowed in the old Portuguese parts of town we could have enjoyed. Too many people, shoulder-to-shoulder, in blazing, over-the-top-heat, all WITH umbrellas at our eyeball height, all withOUT any sense of self awareness or unilateral direction. They cut you off then walk *backwards* into your eyeballs with an umbrella prong. They are nuts. We are not into casinos so those were of no use to us. The heat was heavy you couldn’t force even a slight breeze no matter how you fanned your guidebook. It was not our favorite day. We did finally find a yummy “cake shop” that sold tasty lunch rolls after searching for an hour or so for suitable food in a not great for eating (we found out) part of town. The one other place we found was so ridiculously scuzzy and dirty! And needlessly so! There was a store selling toilets, of all things, next door that was spotless! But here is the list of fun things we saw on Macau that we will soon post pictures of: the odd Fisherman’s Wharf, a huge statue of Kun Iam, Hotel Lisboa, the new Grand Lisboa, the finest Portuguese building on Macau – Leal Senado, Senado Square, Sao Domingos, the remaining facade of the grand Sao Paulo, the ramparts of Fortaleza do Monte, the classical (and gorgeous) Chinese garden Jardim Lou Lim Ieoc, the botanical gardens of Guia Hill (where we rode the cable cars up to the top), the Guia fortress (and chapel and lighthouse), and of course a myriad of city views from different hills and many random buildings. We know many people have loved Macau. We do not belittle your fondness for your Macau. We may have missed something, gone at a wrong time, or it may just not be for us.

Pictures and more follow the jump.

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China / Travel — 1 Comment
25
Jul 08

Hong Kong Day 2

Giant Buddha


Friday, July 25th, 2008 Today, the camera was full. Josh spent some time this morning transferring photos and Jeannette brought back coffee and pastries. Then we headed via subway to Lantau Island to see the world’s largest Buddha. Well, the largest seated, bronze Buddha. But it was HUGE! And the day was hot. We got to take a cable car up to the monastery where the Buddha sits. It afforded some pretty sweet views. But the Buddha itself was definitely the highlight. After the cable car ride back down and subway ride back to Hong Kong Central, we went to a Chinese noodle shop Josh had visited before and had super yummy noodles and sandwiches. We did a little school clothes shopping for Josh at Shanghai Tang‘s sale then headed for jaunt on a double decker trolley out to the Wan Chai neighborhood and back. Then we rushed to the Star Ferry to get back to Kowloon and the Y for one of our Tsingtaos we stuffed into the minibar fridge and the skyline night city light show. It was spectacular from our harbor view windows.

Tomorrow… we’ll see what the day holds.

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Pictures after the jump.

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China / Travel — Comments Off on Firang crossings
25
Jul 08

Firang crossings

We have had multiple firang (fuh-rung, Hindi word for foreigner, see http://en.wikipedia.org/Firang — thanks Ninad!) crossings with a few different people on our journey. What we mean by this is that we met a fellow journey person (or peoples) on one leg of our trip, only to have our seemingly unrelated paths cross again further along in a later city. This is the way of the firang. We are all seeing the same sites in a similar order.

1. Not so much astonishing as we were still in Beijing, but we saw Josh’s classmate when we began our holiday.

2. A couple we met in Datong on our tour of the Hanging Temple and Yungang Caves were on our flight to Guilin (and Josh also had seen the man while we were in Xi’an but we didn’t stop).

3. A couple of Japanese girls who were on the Datong tours with us, were on the morning bus we ended up on (after the wrong ticket train experience) to Taiyuan. And then after that we also ended up on the same bus to Pingyao.

4. We saw a German couple we first met on our black market ticket bus from Pingyao at the Terracotta Army Pit 2, and then again back in Xi’an city center.

5. This also may not count quite as much, but the family at our lunch table on our Li river cruise was on our flight to Guilin, but we didn’t interact on the flight.

6. Our last day in Yangshuo we ran into the two french girls who had been a part of our black market bus experience from Pingyao. Both of whom sat seatless in the aisle at various times with Josh.

7. We rode the Star Ferry between Kowloon and Hong Kong Central with a family who had been on our Li River cruise (they were memorable due to the daughter’s headgear and reluctance to be a part of her father’s constant picture taking while wearing it).

This is the way of the firang …

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China / Travel — Comments Off on Hong Kong Day 1
24
Jul 08

Hong Kong Day 1

dsc_0816.jpg


Thursday, July 24th After we checked into the YMCA, it was still too early to get into our room, so we left our weighty luggage behind and headed out for coffee, pastries, and skyline viewings from the Harbor. After about an hour or so we headed back to the Y and got to see our awesome room! You would not believe how nice our room is. No joke. Our room is sweet and our view is incredible. If you are so inclined, you should google it. We are at the YMCA Hong Kong, Salisbury. We have a Harbor View Room.  Incredible.

Pictures and our very long day exploring Hong Kong and introducing the city to Jeannette after the jump…

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