Hong Kong

AND Week three was spent in Hong Kong - with a day trip to Szenzhen... As you will see from these photos, Hong Kong was warm. It was strange to be in 70 degree weather a week before Thanksgiving. It was BEAUTIFUL there!

One of the many adventures we took was to see the largest seated Buddha. He is located on a hill that you can only reach by a tram. It is a 20-30 minute ride on the tram. To get to the ticket booth you had to go up these amazing stairs (They say welcome in many different languages).


From the tram, there were AMAZING views. These are some of the students and me. And my favorite sign in the trams...








Seeing the Buddha was also pretty awesome. I don't think the photos truly capture the enormity of the statue but it was impressive.







At the same monastery - where I would have loved to spend more time - there was a Wisdom Path through which you could wander and reflect. Or sprint through and take as many photos as possible :)



After the Buddha visit, my Buddhist explorations extended the next day when I went to a nunnery with some of my students. There was a GORGEOUS garden connected to the nunnery and a lot of rules for the garden.



My final adventure in Hong Kong was to see a garden that had an aviary and an Olympic square... that was actually a circle... And the Olympics have never been there... but it was fun to play in the rain and impersonate the trash cans at the play area (I won't post the student's pictures as they may not want those on the internet).




So, as I hope you can tell from this photo journey, I had a blast in China and traveling with the lovely people pictured below. I can't wait until my next traveling adventure!



I leave you with some of the food that I enjoyed while on the trip, as that is one of my favorite parts of traveling. First, you will see the amazing dumplings I had in Beijing. They were even good cold, two days old.



These are sugar-coated crab apples - a Beijing Tradition I was told.


My Shanghai top food was hot pot. Something that should be in the US, if it is not. Basically you have a pot of hot broth and then they bring out plates of things to cook in the broth (the veg variety was lots of 'shrums and greens). You drop things in and then let them cook, pull them out and dip them in the dipping sauce (that you prepare from the sauce buffet). It was tasty.

In Hong Kong, the traditional food we had was milk tea with sticky buns. These buns had sweetened condensed milk drizzled on them (As you can tell Philisile and I were very excited for them).


Happy Holidays!

Shanghai

Week two of my trip was spent in Shanghai. The pollution was a bit better. The city was far more westernized so the food was also more western and there for not as enjoyable and exciting in my mind. BUT, there were people who spoke some English, which I greatly appreciated because it is hard for me to not be able to chat up strangers. Should have mastered Mandarin before I went...



These are all photos of the Shanghai skyline during the day and at night. It was very lovely. And I couldn't help but photograph the bikes. I wish I could have gotten the Louis Vuitton in the background to show the stark contrasts in Chinese Society.



One of our cultural experiences was visiting the Temple of the City Gods. It is a Taoist temple with many alters where you can go and make offerings to many different Gods for wealth or health or whatever else one needs. All of the red ribbons were offered by people to the God that corresponds to their



Another attraction in Shanghai is the World Financial Center. I want to say it is the third tallest building in the world. There was an amazing view, though the glass floor hundreds of feet up freaked me out. It is a place of business but it also has an elevator for tourists that reminded me of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory, though we didn't break through the roof and they didn't seem to take kindly to licking the wallpaper...



I even found a Catholic Church in Shanghai! So, of course, I went to mass. Thankfully, you don't actually have to speak the language to know what to do in a Catholic Mass. And I met an English speaker from Brazil who is studying Mandarin in Shanghai who was sad that I was only there for a few days as she said she hadn't found many people who spoke English or Portuguese with which to socialize.

Just in case I had forgotten what a small world it truly is, I 'ran into' my friend James from Oregon while in Shanghai and we spent my day off sight seeing. The Yu Yuan Gardens, pictured below, were AMAZING! We also took the scenic route to the Bund - the ritz-ee waterfront district and got to see some of the back ally's and the normal everyday people that lived there. Our adventure ended with an interesting foot massage - something I was told I had to have done in China. It was only interesting because the guy in the chair next to me seemed to have some sort of ingrown toenail issue and the process of addressing that left him hold a pillow for dear life and writhing in pain. Needless to say, neither James nor I let them near our toenails :)


Other than a day trip to Wuxi - another Chinese town where lots of multinational tech companies are based - the only other adventure I had in Shanghai was visiting the sight of the 2010 world expo. There was not a lot of stuff left behind to see at the world expo grounds but the few buildings remaining were amazing, architecturally. And I encountered the most persistent hawkers of anywhere we had gone. I heard "lady, lady, I give you good price" more than at any other attraction and had a number of people grab my arm to try and stop me. More on the joys of shopping in China later...





I leave my Shanghai portion with a few amusing signs from my trip. Most of these were actually in Beijing, but I didn't want to bore you too much and that post was longer :) It really makes me worry what signs in the US say that have been translated into other languages since English is one of the most commonly used languages, I can't imagine what we do to Mandarin.

Beijing

One month ago today I got back to the USA from my three week trip to mainland China and Hong Kong. It was overall an amazing experience. If anyone knows of a job that will allow me to travel internationally with college students, let me know. :) I figure a month later, it is about time I share the experience with y'all - I tried to include a lot of photos as I have heard those are greatly enjoyed. So first, Beijing.


Exhibit A: I call this smog in Beijing. You may or may not be aware that China has a known pollution problem. This is the first photo I took in China, and my lungs that are still recovering will be the first to tell you Beijing has a pollution problem. I love first moments in a country, seeing signs all in other languages, observing how people dress, act, drive, etc.



Exhibit B. The Hutongs. These are the 'traditional' style of living in Beijing. Basically, there is a common courtyard type place with lots of tiny apartments all clustered around. Some of these were set up based on certain regions of China because people would come to study for the exam that allowed them to work in the government - an exam few passed and many committed suicide over. In USA terms, it would be as if there was one Hutong for people from NW who moved to DC. That way they could enjoy the food, company, and cultural traditions of other NW-ners - things like flannel, North Face jackets, and a 'work fleece' could be appreciated by all. I found these little back alleys fascinating - though jetlag fogs many of my memories there. This is where Chinese modernization is very present as many Hutongs are being destroyed to put in highrises that house China's ever growing population.



Exhibit C: Yes. I did walk on the great wall of China. I may have been singing the songs from Mulan for the entire day... It was simply amazing to think, 'I am walking on the great wall.' It is HUGE, though due to the fog/smog we could not truly appreciate the incredible size of it.



Exhibit D: These are my children. Also known as the students with which I traveled. These photos are at Baidu (the China google equivalent) and Peking University Campus. My students were amusing beyond belief and just happen to hail from all over the US and world - so I look forward to visiting...


Exhibit E: Summer Palace. This is the summer palace - where the emperor and family could go to get out of the hustle and bustle of the forbidden city... It is GORGEOUS!


Exhibit F: Olympic Torch and The Bird's Nest. I had to check out the 2008 Beijing Olympic attractions. The most fun part of this was getting there on the Subway and Bus. By myself. Very early in the morning. I love traveling on adventures with little real plan :)


Exhibit G: This is in front of the Forbidden City, with Mao's Picture. The Forbidden City is where the Emperor, his family, concubines, and eunuchs used to live. It WAS HUGE! And Beautiful. And we kept having conversations about where Mulan had been :) The second picture is of Tianamen Square, again, one of the places I had a 'I can't believe I am here' moment.

And those were the highlights of my week in Beijing. Stay tuned for Shanghai and Hong Kong.