China

3.29.09

HONG KONG! I LOVE HONG KONG! I WANT TO LIVE HERE!

I don't even know what to put it. Hong Kong was superb. I love it, I love it, I love it! We went to a traditional market, saw the other side of Hong Kong Island, walked through a super westernized super expensive mall in Kowloon, took a ferry (multiple times), took a bus through the mountains (double-decker and scary), ate from small restaurants, experienced the tall buildings, gazed at the immensity of the skyline, got lost in a sea of millions of people, and basically had a great time.

Hong Kong made me feel right at home. It reminded of Chicago... but with the intensity of New York and a hint of Asia. I was super happy.

I could probably go on and on and on about it, but I won't. At least not now.

3.30.09

Freaked out because our overnight train plans fell through. We had to leave today instead. Too bad. Less time in Hong Kong. >_<

So we took a sleeper train. Twenty hours from Hong Kong to Shanghai. Somewhat painful. The beds were pretty nice. Double Triple Bunks. So two set of three beds in one "room". It was cramped. And all we did was watch Family Guy and the Office, eat Ritz crackers (the diner closed before we got to it), sleep, and starve. But it was an experience we had to have.

So this took from the afternoon of the 30th until the late morning of the 31st.

3.31.09

Arrived in Shanghai just around noon. Got through customs (since the Hong Kong government isn't part of the Chinese government), grabbed some lunch, did a little snack/grocery shopping, bought tickets to Hangzhou, and left on another train.

The two hour train ride to Hangzhou was relatively painless compared to the ten times longer ride to Shanghai. Took a little nap. Nothing too much.

So, Hangzhou is another city. Not nearly as big as Shanghai, but still somewhat of a city. Let's make an analogy:

Hangzhou:Shanghai::Pittsburgh:Chicago

Make sense?

Anywho, we grabbed a cab to the West Lake district of Hangzhou, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful areas in China. And boy did it deliver.

Surrounding a lake (guess it's names), the West Lake District is astoundingly beautiful. The mountains are the backdrop, the lake is a nice bluish-green, the trees are all blossoming, and the sun shines over the land. And what was even better, a large amount of the buildings in the area were traditionally styled. And there were even pagodas up in the hills and mountains, their silhouettes visible on the peaks.

After being dropped off at the Four-Eyes Well, we searched high and low for the hostel we had booked for the next night. We didn't find it until after booking a room at the hostel next door. Whoops.

After dropping our bags off and resting for a few minutes, we ran out, grabbed a cab, and went in search of the night markets. Unfortunately, we never found them. Luckily, we got to explore the city, ate some street food, and enjoyed the cool 50 degree weather. It also rained a bit. But it felt nice. And it continued our streak. So it was okay. Eventually, we gave up and cabbed back to our hostel where we pigged out on food and drinks while watching "Yes Man" before going to sleep.

4.01.09

Happy April Fool's! I hope Adil performed some amazing pranks today.

So we woke up not so early today and got ready to enjoy Hangzhou. Packing up, we moved from our first hostel, to the one we were originally booked for, got our rooms, dropped off our stuff, rented some bikes, and set off to ride around the city.

We rode up to a monastery/temple, to a Pagoda, along a causeway across West Lake, and back to the hostel.

West Lake was gorgeous. Looking across the lake to the East, you could see the skyline of the city center of Hangzhou. Looking across to the West, you could see the towering mountains with little temples/pagodas on top of their peaks. We rode around the causeway, stopping intermittently to take pictures and simply gaze in wonder. Pictures will illustrate the beauty better than I ever could with words.

After our bike ride, we took a taxi out to the Longjing Tea Village where Longjing (Dragon Well) tea is grown, harvested, and sold. We walked around looking at the people working in the fields and evetually came upon a restaurant where we stopped for a bite to eat and drink. We each got a cup of Dragon Well tea. I thought it was amazing. Hussain and Keith didn't exactly agree with me. After some tea, we were presented with a menu, which was all in Chinese without any pictures. Our waitress didn't speak any English, so we decided to play the "point and pray" game. I opened to a page, pointed to a few dishes, and accepted those as our orders.

The first dish came out and to our surprise it was more than edible! It was basically a tomato broth with potato slice and some meat. We think it may have been lamb or pork. Not sure. So that was good.

The second dish was a bit scarier. It was another soup. Lots of greens. And (hurray!) chicken. But a lot more chicken then we hoped for. We got the whole thing. Breast, leg, wing, foot, neck, HEAD. It was quite disturbing pulling out a chicken head from a large bowl of soup. We decided not to eat the head or the foot. The rest of the soup was good, though.

So after that disgusting event, we caught a cab back to our hostel to plan the next leg of our plans and to warm up a bit. It was a high of 56 degrees today. Probably in the low 50s for most of the day. Just a tad colder than perfect. But still quite refreshing after so many terribly warm countries.

So we decided to try to find the night markets again. This time we succeeded. I looked up the area of town on wikipedia and copied down the chinese characters so we could show the taxi driver. We got there quickly and easily. It was nice.

The markets themselves were a bit disappointing. It was mostly regular shops that stayed open late and a few stalls in the middle of the parking lot/square/sidewalk area. But it was still fun. We basically were the only western people there. It felt nice.

After shopping/looking around a bit, we stopped for some food and then found our way back to the hostel.

And it is now time to sleep. Shanghai looms in the future.

4.02.09

Woke up and realized I had wasted April Fool's Day. Poop. I'll just have to be extra awesome next year.

Departed West Lake for the Hangzhou train station where we missed our first train, because we can't read Chinese. But I did learn the chinese for Hangzhou and Shanghai. And we did make it to Shanghai.

So we got back to the ship, via a taxi, which was nice since we got a great view of a lot of the city along the way. As soon as we got back to the ship, we put our stuff away, ate lunch, got ready and left to explore Shanghai!

While exploring Shanghai we did a many things:
-Explored Zapu, Sichuan, and Nanjing streets. Great places to spend money, eat food, and simply see all the awesome architecture and people.
-We went to the top of the Radisson hotel to see the most amazing view of the city. You could see just about everything. It was spectacular. And I got some pictures. And the funny thing about the trip to the top was the viewing area is in a restaurant and a person at the front desk of the hotel simply said we should pretend we were going to eat, look out, and leave. So we did that. But no one was up there. So we walked through an expensive looking restaurant getting close to the windows, smearing face oil everywhere. We bolted as soon as I spotted someone out of the corner of my eye. Good times.
-We saw the People's Square, a park in the center of the city. Quite pretty. And a funny story goes along with that. I'll detail it at the end.
-We explored Nanjing road again and got a delicious dinner comprised of beef noodles, Yangzhou fried rice, buns filled with pork, a sesame pancake, and sichuan style noodles. Yum yum yum!
-We stopped at a quick mart for some ship snacks... Mostly ramen.

After all that, we came back to the ship to rest. We decided to go out at 11:30 pm to a Karaoke Bar, but it fell through. We had to split into two taxis, the first didn't know where he was going, and we were supposed to be following him, but we ended up following another taxi, and I tried to get him to take up back to Nanjing road, but he ended up taking up to a different part of Nanjing road, so we got out, walked back to the shop area, gave up on the search for Karaoke, caught another cab, and came back to the ship to sleep.

And now for the funny story:

To begin we'll introduce the characters. Some you'll already know. Some you probably won't.

-Steven -> That's me.
-Keith -> Friend from Pitt, he's gregarious, a genius, and crazy (good crazy, that is).
-Hussain -> Friend from home. He's brown, somewhat suspicious of people in other countries, a great guy, and loves to talk with people.
-Hannah -> Part of my extended family on the ship. She's crazy and we've had great times with her on and off the ship in Thailand, Vietnam, and Hong Kong.
-Caroline -> One of Hannah's friends. Don't really know her at all.

The last characters are the four Chinese girls that we meet in the People's Square.
-Girl #1 -> Talks with Hussain, obviously the leader of the group
-Girl #2 -> Talks with me, very talkative, but her English is a bit hard to understand
-Girl #3 -> Talks with Caroline and Hannah, wears a red coat
-Girl #4 -> Talks with Keith, the shortest and youngest of the girls

So the five of us are walking through the People's Square, admiring the beauty of nature juxtaposed with the architectural world around it. As we're walking, snapping photos, we walk past a group of girls simply talking amongst themselves. They turn towards us, smile, say "Hello. How are you?" in English and giggle to themselves. We smile back and respond, opening up a dialogue.

They ask us where we're from, we explain we're on a ship sailing the seas. So they continue to ask us questions and tell us about themselves. They admit that it's fun to be able to practice their English with native speakers, so we humor them and converse with them.

After awhile, they say they're heading to a tea shop for a tea ceremony and they invite us along. Hussain looks at each of us and says, "Sure! Sounds like fun!" And so we take off.

At this time, we've split off into our groups, each talking with a different girl on our way to the tea shop. Everyone was happy, conversing quickly, excited to have some new Chinese friends.

After a short walk, we arrive at a mall of sorts, the girls lead us through to a tea shop, back into one of the rooms, and the ceremony begins. Girl #1 translates for us as the tea server performs the ceremony in Chinese. We have time to glance at a menu with prices we don't exactly understand, but something along the lines of 39 yuan for each tea per person(which is roughly five and a half dollars). So we assume it's going to be a whole pot of tea. The whole pot turns out to be for everyone. So we decide to stop the tea ceremony short at two teas (apparently they usually include three to six teas). We decide we're not ready to spend more and the 108 yuan (~$16) we owe is more than enough for each of us.

So after finishing our tea, taking pictures, and exchanging e-mails, we all leave the tea shop. When outside, the girls say good-bye as they leave to meet a friend outside of Shanghai for dinner. We wave good-bye and go on our way.

About two minutes later, Hussain says, "I think we just got scammed." Everyone else disagrees, feeling the girls were simply excited to find some Americans to practice their English on. And we walk on.

Soon, Hussain's suspicions begin to take root in everyone. Until finally, I go on Wikitravel and search Shanghai. Looking through, I find a section about scams. Here is what it read:

"Various tourist-oriented scams, long practiced in Beijing, are unfortunately spreading to Shanghai as well. Be cautious if you meet a group of overly friendly students or attractive women who insist on dragging you along to an art gallery, tea shop or karaoke parlor - you're unlikely to be physically harmed, but the bill may well be more than you bargained for."

Yep. We were scammed. Oops.


4.03.09

Woke up early and went to the Shanghai Museum in People's Square. It was mostly artifacts. The Painting Gallery was closed. But we did see:
-Ancient Bronze Gallery
-Jade Gallery
-Calligraphy Gallery

The jade was definitely my fave of the three. The intricacies of the later dynasties was insane! And I have pictures!

After the museum, came back to the ship to grab a quick lunch, shower, and get ready for a SAS trip for my Macroeconomics class. It was stupid.

So we took the bus to the Shanghai Stock Exchange. I was dressed up in black slacks, a black shirt, black tie, black vest, pocket watch (which I got in Hangzhou), and my Chucks. I looked spiffy. So anywho, we get there and for the first ten mintues we're standing in the lobby while stupid people of the group decide to take a billion photos of them with different people in front of a sign that simply says "Shanghai Stock Exchange". Nothing glamorous or exciting. Then we were led up to the seventh floor to look down upon the great trade floor. I look out and nothing. Nearly no one's in there. It was 2:30 pm on a Friday and no one was there. Apparently the market closes at 3:00 pm, and since it was Friday, everyone left early. So there was nothing to do. It was a bust. The Chinese man did say "IGTF" (It's God, Thank Friday).

Less than an hour after we arrived, we left. And that was it. It was too late in the day to go out and do anything before on ship time. So now I'm just sitting here blogging waiting for dinner to start.

A very anticlimactic ending to an amazing country.

Alright it's the time you all were waiting for... PICTURE TIME!


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