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Hong Kong

March 4th, 2010

An early morning in Shenzhen, some dumplings for breakfast, and a taxi to the ferry station began our trip to Hong Kong. IMG_0742Upon setting foot on the ferry, I reminded Tyler, “you’re leaving China for a long time man”. “But isn’t Hong Kong part of China?” he responded. Well, yeah, it’s “part” of China, but in reality, it’s nothing like China. An hour later on a fairly empty ferry and we were waiting in line to get our passports stamped, granting us entry into Hong Kong.

After getting into Hong Kong, we left the ferry station, into the attached building, which turned out to be a mall. That was convenient I guess, we found an ATM machine so that we could get some Hong Kong dollars, since they don’t even use the same money as mainland China does. We had two options to get to the place we were staying, take a taxi or take the metro. The only difficulty was we weren’t exactly sure where we were, and couldn’t find any sign of a metro station nearby. So we eventually conceded to taking a taxi. It took a few tries, but finally we found a driver who knew where we wanted to go. It wasn’t easily noticeable at first, but oh shit, these guys drive on the other side of the road! Clearly Britain had been here before. The driver happily took across the harbor to Kowloon (a section of HK) and the place we were staying. Chung King Mansion, was the name of the place. Sounds pretty swanky right? Hardly. It’s actually a huge converted “project” building that has more than a dozen “guesthouses” some licensed, some not. As soon as we got out of the taxi there were quite a few middle eastern and Indian guys trying to help us with our bags, and get us into their guesthouses. We declined and walked through the lines of restaurants, net bars, and people selling random crap, this place seemed pretty shady, and on first sight, scared me a little that we were even staying here. Finally we managed to find the only one, out of 12 or so elevators that went where we needed it to. Upon arriving on the 12th floor and getting our tiny and expensive room, I actually felt rather comfortable. Looking online the night before, I had read many good reviews, saying that this guesthouse was pretty respectable and not too expensive compared to some of the others in the building.

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Guangzhou & Shenzhen

March 2nd, 2010

Note: These posts are a little late, as I’m already back from my trip and started school again earlier this week. They’re late because didn’t have nearly as much time as I thought I would to post them while traveling. Now you know.

Guangzhou was the first stop on our tour of southern China. Getting off the airplane was nice, I didn’t need to wear my coat, and what’s this?IMG_1367 There was actually green vegetation outside! Something Tyler nor I had seen for at least a couple months. Since we were only in Guangzhou for about a day, we simply roamed around, checked out the Pearl River, sampled some of the good local foods (Egg McMuffins are nothing compared to the egg biscuit I had!) and in the evening went tor a night ferry ride on the Pearl, to see the beautifully lit up buildings and bridges.

The next day, about an hour train ride later and we were in Shenzhen, mere kilometers from the border to Hong Kong. We didn’t do a lot in Shenzhen because it’s mostly just a border city and shopping haven for those coming from Hong Kong to buy cheap goods. Not to mention, so much of the shopping and eateries were still closed for the Chinese New Year “golden week” (what they call their week long national holiday). Thus there wasn’t a lot to do in the city, but it was alright, we relaxed and had some really spicy noodles as well as some local beer while we planned on how to get to Hong Kong, as well as what we’d do when we arrived.

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Harbin & Yabuli

February 27th, 2010

Harbin Snow & Ice Festival

Arriving in Harbin was bittersweet. We were happy to be there but Marina was still very worried about what she was going to do about her missing ID card. How was she going to stay in a hotel, how was she going to do anything, how was she going to get back to Beijing? Not only that, but we didn’t actually have train tickets to go back to Taiyuan and Xi’an for Spring Festival yet. Of course I tried to comfort her, telling her that, no matter what, we’d be okay and I’d make sure she got home for Spring Festival either by train or plane. Of course, my word only means so much, considering I can’t really speak Chinese. She must have felt pretty stressed, since she’s practically babysitting two foreigners.

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Taiyuan & Beijing

February 15th, 2010

After about 24 hours in Pingyao I awoke relatively early in the morning to head to the bus station. From there I was able to get on a bus for ¥25 RMB to Taiyuan. On the bus I chatted with a guy from Nanjing. He asked me the same typical questions, like why I’m here, where I live, where I’m from, etc. This guy told me he really enjoyed photography so he showed me a lot of his work, a lot of which was quite good.

Upon arriving in Taiyuan about 2 hours later I was greeted by Marina. I was pretty happy to see her because she had been in Taiyuan for a little over three weeks before I arrived. We spent a good part of the afternoon just walking around and seeing things in her hometown. A bit later on we met up with

Back to School

two of her friends (one of which we visited in Chengdu in November) and hung out with them as well. They showed me their high school, we ate some local snacks  as well as a nice dinner and then went to a club for a few drinks. A very enjoyable day without all the touristy sightseeing.

The next morning I went to pick-up Marina outside her house so we could walk to the train station. There I met her mother who wanted to come out and see who this boy, her daughter was going traveling with, was. We didn’t really talk, but I said “hello” and shook her hand and 30 seconds later Marina and I were walking to the train station.

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The Ancient City of Pingyao

February 3rd, 2010

Today was the first day of my vacation, if you don’t count the traveling I did overnight. It all began last night, at the Xi’an train station. When I arrived, the station, like I expected, was packed to walls. There were people seated on every available space as well as standing and waiting for their trains. Being so close to Chinese New Year, the train system in China is being stressed to its limits. After a two hour wait for my train, we finally took off at a max speed of 120 KPH toward Pingyao. I had from about 11:00PM to 6:15AM to sleep on the train, but due to the jerky motions and stops and starts most of my sleep was pretty unfulfilling. As a result I think I was just as tired when I finally arrived in Pingyao as I was when I first went to sleep.

When I arrived in Pingyao it was still dark. I didn’t really know where to go but I simply followed the other people to the train station exit. On the outside of the train station I must have been asked if I needed a taxi at least 5 or 6 times. I didn’t. The hostel I was looking for was only a couple kilometers away, and I wanted to see the city early in the morning before most people were awake. I stopped for breakfast, and ate some sort of noodles and bread, though I don’t really know what it was called.

My first look at the old city of Pingyao was beautiful. The surrounding city wall and the old buildings within, give it a very quiet and ancient feeling, like stepping back in time a bit. » Read more: The Ancient City of Pingyao

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Vacation Time

February 1st, 2010

Just a few quick things to update.

  • Added about 100 new photos of the area around my school and interesting things I snapped with my phone cam.
  • Tomorrow evening I’m heading to train station for the first leg of my trip to Taiyuan. My vacation is finally starting!
  • Keep checking back here as well as on Twitter, I plan to take a little bit of time and make some posts as well as update pictures throughout the trip.

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