Cairo -> Beijing -> Hong Kong
Arabic -> Mandarin -> Cantonese.
I don't speak Cantonese. As I flew into Beijing, I sat, franticly try to remember how to speak the language I had slaved away at for two years... only to be sadly disappointed at the strange, broken, nonsensical arabinese hybrid language that ran through my head. Oddly impressive though. Every time I had to speak while in Beijing, I was struck stiff with nervousness as the same frantic search began, face frozen in confusion, until at last I was able to spit out the simplest of sentences. Must have evoked a lot of sympathy - cute face, but she sounds so dumb when she speaks. Aaaaaaw.
So, I was thankful to get to Taiwan and have my sister near me and able to speak for me - which I made her do, much to her annoyance, I'm sure. Sorry T. I spent about twelve days in Taiwan, and made sure to continue my dumpling-eating binge. Having just come from traveling a lot, and knowing that there was much more traveling to be done in the near future, I spent a good few days on the couch in Tarryn's living room. Bliss.
I did do some stuff while in Taiwan. I wasn't just a dumpling-eating, milk-tea-drinking lump-on-a-couch for twelve days. Some of my fun activities included: a heinously awkward lunch with some distant relatives, a day trip to San Yi, hiking with Tarryn and some of her teacher friends, and going to Taipei.
If someone with a hidden camera had been taping the lunch date with my relatives, it would definitely be something you'd want to watch. Me not speaking much Chinese, them not speaking much English... it was a fun game of guess-the-meaning-of-what-I'm-saying, pictionary, and miming. One thing was easy to keep clear though - no fish. Har har, funny funny. It actually was funny how cautious they were about making sure I steered completely clear of fish.
What was introduced to me as a little hiking trip, turned out to be climbing almost all the way up a mountain. It was nothing like climbing up rock faces, but there were a lot of stairs at one point. And not that I minded the exercise, it was just a lot longer than I had initially expected. But it was great fun and the mountain/park was a beautiful place to go for a hike, however long it ended up being.
In Taipei, we stayed with a friend of mine from Kalamazoo, who is in Taiwan teaching English (like Tarryn). We made a trip to a nearby city called Ying Ge, which is famous for its pottery. We also spent some time around Taipei itself, did some shopping, saw some cool stuff, etc. It was a nice, relaxed trip to Taiwan.
Then, Tarryn and I were off to Thailand for a while. Tarryn stayed for a whole week, but I had to jet out two days earlier in order to make use of an already paid for ticket home from Cairo. In Thailand, Tarryn and I pretty much spent our days sitting on the beach. We also went elephant riding, took a Thai cooking class, and got massages. Basically Thailand was way relaxed and involved a lot of laying on the beach, eating good Thai food, and reading good books. We stayed one night at a really nice little bungalow place, but it was a little far from the water, so we moved to a different one, from which we could roll out of bed and walk right to the beach. It was nice. No AC and not hot water, but those weren't really necessary anyway. The days spent in Thailand were an excellent way to end my mini tour of Asia, and ultimately my six months abroad.
I'm home now. After probably the longest trip of my life. I left Thailand on Sunday evening and did not get home until late Tuesday afternoon. There was lots of plane switching, layovers, waiting in airports, and one last gracious half day spent in Cairo.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Asian Adventure (unabridged)
My mini-tour of Asia has thus far included Beijing, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Thailand. Here's my journaling from the trip so far. (Dan, I hope this appeases you).
Beijing Day 1:
I guess yesterday was technically the first day, but I was too pooped to do anything.
So today,I had some fun. I went to the Forbidden City this morning. It took me about two and a half to three hours to get through. After that, I went to Tianamen Square, which is literally right across the street. As i was walking, trying to decide where to go next, two girls came up to me and started talking to me. They wanted to know where I was from, because my face was a little confusing. Turned out they were studying English and wanted to practice a little. So, we stood and talked a while, then they offered to help be set up some tour stuff. They took me to buy a ticket for a Beijing night show. Then they offered to take me to an old Beijing Hu Tong and market. On the way, we stopped to have some tea. After the tea, as we were on our way to the market, one of the girls said she had a friend who works with a travel agency and could set up a Great Wall tour for 150 yuan. Didn't sound too bad, so I took her up on making some travel arrangements. After the market, the two showed me a good restaurant to have some Beijing duck. Yum. Then they left. Kind of a strange little encounter... but they didn't seem to be scamming me in any way. So, no harm done.
Later that night, I went to the Kung Fu show. Hahaha.... it was entertaining. Even more entertaining was another strange encounter I had at the Kung Fu show. I was sitting in my seat, waiting for the show to start. I was by myself, and noticed this guy sitting in the same row as me who was also alone. Probably five or ten minutes later, he came over to me and struck up a conversation. Ends up his name is Max, and he graduated Princeton last year, and is now in China, doing PIA (Princeton in Asia) - JUST LIKE TARRYN! And he happened to know of Tarryn was because she is also on PIA. What a small world. I think he might have been trying to pick me up, but I wasn't having it. So I went back to my hostel and fell asleep.
Beijing Day 2:
Well, the two girls came through on the tour. I woke up at 7am, got breakfast, and waited to see if someone would show up to get me. Sure enough, they did! I went out to the tour van to find that I would be joining a family of three on the tour. They were from Hungary. Very nice husband and his wife and their nine-year-old son. (Although the man called me Chen for half the tour, because he misheard me telling the tour guide what my Chinese name was... my half-heritage is cause for great confusion.) The tour cost 150 yuan, which is about 25USD, and ended up really being worth it. We went to the Ming Tombs, then a jade factory, then the Great Wall, then a closinne factory, then lunch, then a silk factory, then we got a foor massage. Not too bad if you ask me. The tour guide was really nice. Oh! We also saw the Olympic stadium (from afar) - pretty funky. The tour took a total of about 10hours. We left at 8am and got back around 6:30pm. Definitely worth it.
That night, I met up with the kids from Kalamazoo who are studying abroad in Beijing. By all [logical] means, I should have been there all along. But at least I got to visit! My friend Ryan came and met me at my hostel, then took me to the night market where I got some dumplings. Then we headed over to the bar district and danced (almost) til dawn.
Beijing Day 3:
Well, probably needless to say, I slept in late the nest day. Once I did get up and going, I went to the Temple of Heaven. It was a bit of a struffle to find it, but eventually I got in. I ended up walking aroudn a lot longer than I had thought I would and got really cold. Then I went over to the side of town my friends' university is on, had dinner, and hung out. Then I went back to my hostel, packed, and slept. The next 24 hours of my life were spent on a train transit from Beijing to Hong Kong.
Train:
To be updated later.
Hong Kong Day 1:
I arrived here about 1pm and got to my hostel around 1:30 or so. It's a pretty shitty hostel. But I'm only here for a while. After taking a freezing cold shower, in a toilet cell, I headed out into Hong Kong. I spent a good amount of time just sort of walking around. I didn't really feel like heading out on any major sight-seeing expeditions. So I found some food, and eventually stumbled upon a street market. Spent some time around there, and later treated myself to some real ice cream.
Hong Kong Day 2:
Went sight-seeing today. It was fun. Kind of lonely by myself, but I didn't mind too much. Woke up a little later than I intended, but that didn't turn out to be a bad thing.
First thing I did was find myself some breakfast. I had spotted a little bakery the day before, that looked like it had one of my favorite Chinese delicassies - barbeque pork buns. And sure enough, they did! So, I got one of those and some sort of sweet bun for breakfast. Then I headed to the tourist information center for some directions.
My first site was Lan Tau Island. Hong Kong is divided into a few parts - Hong Kong Island, Lan Tau Island, Kowloon and the New Territoris, and something else (I think). Lan Tau is in the western part of Hong Kong... unless I was holding my map upside-down for two days. Anyway. What's on Lan Tau? I big frickin Buddha. And a monastery and some industry and, I'm sure, some 100,000 people's homes. But I just went to see the big Buddha. It was incredible. I don't think I would have been as one of his fingers (if that gives you any prespective.)
**side note** Right now I'm in the airport, reflecting on my travels. And there's this little kid who's probably about 10 years old, wearing a full pin-striped suit. Including dress shoes. I can only imagine the mentalitly of such a kid. Future CEO if I ever saw one. **
Back to Buddha. Big. And it was pretty fun getting there too. I had to take the MTR (mass transit rail) for about and hour to get over to Lan Tau. Once on Lan Tau, I took a cable car up to the little tourist village set up near the Buddha. It was fun. The town was cute. There was a Starbucks. And I can only imagine what Hong Kong looked like from up there, once upon a not-smog-filled time. Must have been great. Even with the smog and polluted South China Sea, I still think Hong Kong was nicer than Beijing. Maybe it was the scenery, or maybe it was the booming capitalism that reminded me of home... either way, I liked it more.
After I said hey to the big Buddha, I went off to visit another Buddhist site, the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery. This place is called '10,000 Buddhas Monastery', but in actuallity, I think I read that there are around 12,000 Buddhas. Sounds pretty cool, right? Yeah, it wasn't as impressive as the one giant Buddha on a hill.
This one was on the Kowlon side. gain, I took the MTR to get there. Didn't take as long as getting to big Buddha though. ONce I got off the train, I walked a little ways to find the entrance. I ended up having to walk along th back of some municiple building to get to it. And when I found the entrance, it looked all sorts of run-down. There were chicken wire fences and sheet-metal walls separating the Buddha path from shacks. It was pretty cool though. Definitely lots of Buddhas. The walk to the monastery was entirely uphill. The girl at the information desk that morning told me it would take about 40 minutes to an hour to walk up. Probably took me about 20. But then again, I'm not a senior Chinese citizen.
MOre than halfway up the path was the first part of the monastery. I'm not sure if the word "monastery" was exactly translated correctly. However, not being among the more devoute, I could be mistaken. Either way, the temple/monastery was cool. There were a lot of Buddha statues. The walls of the main temple were covered with ons of little Buddha statues. I was tempted to count... not really. But there were probably at least 10,000.
I stared in awe at some of the buddhas outside, snapped a few pictures, and continued up the Buddha-lined path. Actually, the statues switched from golden Buddhist monks to colored Chinese warriors. Then after them, it was back to gold, but this time it was girls. At the top of the hill was another temple area. All the statues here were female. I'm not really sure how Buddhism works, so if someone can explain this to me, please do.
After a morning/afternoon filled with Buddhas, I went back to my hostel to sit for a while. Only after grabbing a couple more buns to snack on.
That evening, I went up to Victoria's Peak. Victoria's Peak is on the Hong Kong Island. I took a ferry over from Kowloon. (only cost about 30 cents). Victoria's Peak is one of the highest points on Hong Kong Island. There's a tram that takes you up the mountain and drops you off in this ridiculous shopping center at the top. It was probably about 7 stories high, including a swarovski crystal store, several fine jewelry stores, and an EA sports video arcade. Mass consumerism absolutely everywhere. On the very top, there's a look out point. I went in the evening, so I got to see Hong Kong all lit up in the dark. I took the tram back down, talk to an interesting dude from L.A. on the bus back to the ferry, saw the biggest Luis Vitton store ever, then went back to the Kowloon side ot Hong Kong. I had also intended to go to the Jade Market, but it was closed by the time I got back. So I strolled around the night market some more, got some [questionable] dinner, and went back to shower and pack my stuff.
Now I'm in the airport. Unfortunately, being on a bit og a budget, the cheapest means of getting to the airport left at 8:30am. My flight isn't til 3pm. Looks like it's going to be a long day.
I'm not in Hong Kong anymore. I am actually sitting on an island in Thailand. (Life is excellent.) But there's a whole little bit between Hong Kong and now. So I'll update when I feel like it.
Ciao!
Beijing Day 1:
I guess yesterday was technically the first day, but I was too pooped to do anything.
So today,I had some fun. I went to the Forbidden City this morning. It took me about two and a half to three hours to get through. After that, I went to Tianamen Square, which is literally right across the street. As i was walking, trying to decide where to go next, two girls came up to me and started talking to me. They wanted to know where I was from, because my face was a little confusing. Turned out they were studying English and wanted to practice a little. So, we stood and talked a while, then they offered to help be set up some tour stuff. They took me to buy a ticket for a Beijing night show. Then they offered to take me to an old Beijing Hu Tong and market. On the way, we stopped to have some tea. After the tea, as we were on our way to the market, one of the girls said she had a friend who works with a travel agency and could set up a Great Wall tour for 150 yuan. Didn't sound too bad, so I took her up on making some travel arrangements. After the market, the two showed me a good restaurant to have some Beijing duck. Yum. Then they left. Kind of a strange little encounter... but they didn't seem to be scamming me in any way. So, no harm done.
Later that night, I went to the Kung Fu show. Hahaha.... it was entertaining. Even more entertaining was another strange encounter I had at the Kung Fu show. I was sitting in my seat, waiting for the show to start. I was by myself, and noticed this guy sitting in the same row as me who was also alone. Probably five or ten minutes later, he came over to me and struck up a conversation. Ends up his name is Max, and he graduated Princeton last year, and is now in China, doing PIA (Princeton in Asia) - JUST LIKE TARRYN! And he happened to know of Tarryn was because she is also on PIA. What a small world. I think he might have been trying to pick me up, but I wasn't having it. So I went back to my hostel and fell asleep.
Beijing Day 2:
Well, the two girls came through on the tour. I woke up at 7am, got breakfast, and waited to see if someone would show up to get me. Sure enough, they did! I went out to the tour van to find that I would be joining a family of three on the tour. They were from Hungary. Very nice husband and his wife and their nine-year-old son. (Although the man called me Chen for half the tour, because he misheard me telling the tour guide what my Chinese name was... my half-heritage is cause for great confusion.) The tour cost 150 yuan, which is about 25USD, and ended up really being worth it. We went to the Ming Tombs, then a jade factory, then the Great Wall, then a closinne factory, then lunch, then a silk factory, then we got a foor massage. Not too bad if you ask me. The tour guide was really nice. Oh! We also saw the Olympic stadium (from afar) - pretty funky. The tour took a total of about 10hours. We left at 8am and got back around 6:30pm. Definitely worth it.
That night, I met up with the kids from Kalamazoo who are studying abroad in Beijing. By all [logical] means, I should have been there all along. But at least I got to visit! My friend Ryan came and met me at my hostel, then took me to the night market where I got some dumplings. Then we headed over to the bar district and danced (almost) til dawn.
Beijing Day 3:
Well, probably needless to say, I slept in late the nest day. Once I did get up and going, I went to the Temple of Heaven. It was a bit of a struffle to find it, but eventually I got in. I ended up walking aroudn a lot longer than I had thought I would and got really cold. Then I went over to the side of town my friends' university is on, had dinner, and hung out. Then I went back to my hostel, packed, and slept. The next 24 hours of my life were spent on a train transit from Beijing to Hong Kong.
Train:
To be updated later.
Hong Kong Day 1:
I arrived here about 1pm and got to my hostel around 1:30 or so. It's a pretty shitty hostel. But I'm only here for a while. After taking a freezing cold shower, in a toilet cell, I headed out into Hong Kong. I spent a good amount of time just sort of walking around. I didn't really feel like heading out on any major sight-seeing expeditions. So I found some food, and eventually stumbled upon a street market. Spent some time around there, and later treated myself to some real ice cream.
Hong Kong Day 2:
Went sight-seeing today. It was fun. Kind of lonely by myself, but I didn't mind too much. Woke up a little later than I intended, but that didn't turn out to be a bad thing.
First thing I did was find myself some breakfast. I had spotted a little bakery the day before, that looked like it had one of my favorite Chinese delicassies - barbeque pork buns. And sure enough, they did! So, I got one of those and some sort of sweet bun for breakfast. Then I headed to the tourist information center for some directions.
My first site was Lan Tau Island. Hong Kong is divided into a few parts - Hong Kong Island, Lan Tau Island, Kowloon and the New Territoris, and something else (I think). Lan Tau is in the western part of Hong Kong... unless I was holding my map upside-down for two days. Anyway. What's on Lan Tau? I big frickin Buddha. And a monastery and some industry and, I'm sure, some 100,000 people's homes. But I just went to see the big Buddha. It was incredible. I don't think I would have been as one of his fingers (if that gives you any prespective.)
**side note** Right now I'm in the airport, reflecting on my travels. And there's this little kid who's probably about 10 years old, wearing a full pin-striped suit. Including dress shoes. I can only imagine the mentalitly of such a kid. Future CEO if I ever saw one. **
Back to Buddha. Big. And it was pretty fun getting there too. I had to take the MTR (mass transit rail) for about and hour to get over to Lan Tau. Once on Lan Tau, I took a cable car up to the little tourist village set up near the Buddha. It was fun. The town was cute. There was a Starbucks. And I can only imagine what Hong Kong looked like from up there, once upon a not-smog-filled time. Must have been great. Even with the smog and polluted South China Sea, I still think Hong Kong was nicer than Beijing. Maybe it was the scenery, or maybe it was the booming capitalism that reminded me of home... either way, I liked it more.
After I said hey to the big Buddha, I went off to visit another Buddhist site, the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery. This place is called '10,000 Buddhas Monastery', but in actuallity, I think I read that there are around 12,000 Buddhas. Sounds pretty cool, right? Yeah, it wasn't as impressive as the one giant Buddha on a hill.
This one was on the Kowlon side. gain, I took the MTR to get there. Didn't take as long as getting to big Buddha though. ONce I got off the train, I walked a little ways to find the entrance. I ended up having to walk along th back of some municiple building to get to it. And when I found the entrance, it looked all sorts of run-down. There were chicken wire fences and sheet-metal walls separating the Buddha path from shacks. It was pretty cool though. Definitely lots of Buddhas. The walk to the monastery was entirely uphill. The girl at the information desk that morning told me it would take about 40 minutes to an hour to walk up. Probably took me about 20. But then again, I'm not a senior Chinese citizen.
MOre than halfway up the path was the first part of the monastery. I'm not sure if the word "monastery" was exactly translated correctly. However, not being among the more devoute, I could be mistaken. Either way, the temple/monastery was cool. There were a lot of Buddha statues. The walls of the main temple were covered with ons of little Buddha statues. I was tempted to count... not really. But there were probably at least 10,000.
I stared in awe at some of the buddhas outside, snapped a few pictures, and continued up the Buddha-lined path. Actually, the statues switched from golden Buddhist monks to colored Chinese warriors. Then after them, it was back to gold, but this time it was girls. At the top of the hill was another temple area. All the statues here were female. I'm not really sure how Buddhism works, so if someone can explain this to me, please do.
After a morning/afternoon filled with Buddhas, I went back to my hostel to sit for a while. Only after grabbing a couple more buns to snack on.
That evening, I went up to Victoria's Peak. Victoria's Peak is on the Hong Kong Island. I took a ferry over from Kowloon. (only cost about 30 cents). Victoria's Peak is one of the highest points on Hong Kong Island. There's a tram that takes you up the mountain and drops you off in this ridiculous shopping center at the top. It was probably about 7 stories high, including a swarovski crystal store, several fine jewelry stores, and an EA sports video arcade. Mass consumerism absolutely everywhere. On the very top, there's a look out point. I went in the evening, so I got to see Hong Kong all lit up in the dark. I took the tram back down, talk to an interesting dude from L.A. on the bus back to the ferry, saw the biggest Luis Vitton store ever, then went back to the Kowloon side ot Hong Kong. I had also intended to go to the Jade Market, but it was closed by the time I got back. So I strolled around the night market some more, got some [questionable] dinner, and went back to shower and pack my stuff.
Now I'm in the airport. Unfortunately, being on a bit og a budget, the cheapest means of getting to the airport left at 8:30am. My flight isn't til 3pm. Looks like it's going to be a long day.
I'm not in Hong Kong anymore. I am actually sitting on an island in Thailand. (Life is excellent.) But there's a whole little bit between Hong Kong and now. So I'll update when I feel like it.
Ciao!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)