Sunday, June 10, 2007
![31-May thru 9-June-2007 Excursion to Xi’an, Beijing, and Shanghai:
Somewhere between my last final exam and the first day of my internship I was required to leave the country (or technically, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region) so that I could switch from ‘student’ status to ‘employment-eligible/work’ status. Not being sure if or when I would have sufficient time for a proper China trip, I decided to push back the start of the internship one week and embark on a nine day tour of the best-known cities in China....
Thursday 31-May-2007:
Sometime in the early afternoon Tobi, Hege, Koen, and I had lunch at the cafe before heading to Shenzen, China to catch our airplane to Xi’an. This trip went relatively smoothly and when we arrived in Xi’an we found Michael (AKA ‘Denmark’) waiting for us at our hostel. After getting settled and attempting to sort out train tickets, we proceeded to wander the streets of Xi’an and a few hours/beers later hit the sack for a decent nights sleep.
Friday 1-Jun-2007:
Up at a reasonable time and meandered our way to the busses going ~2 hours to the Terracotta Warriors. Upon arrival we hired a guide who brought us for some overpriced breakfast and then led us on to the entrance of the UNESCO world heritage site where we completely unexpectedly ran into Arjun, a fellow HKUST colleague. We spent most of the day wandering about the centuries off terracotta figures and learning all kinds of fun facts from our guide. One cannot help (as we realized several times and places on this trip) feeling a sense of awe at the accomplishments of these people, enhanced further by the knowledge of the technology at the time of creation. So after the Warriors and haggling over souvenirs with the shop owners/operators we took the bus back into Xi’an and separated from Arjun and his Israeli travel-buddy.
We figured that we still had allllll kinds of time to explore Xi’an before our train, so Hege, Tobi, Koen, and I rented bikes atop the Xi’an city wall and proceeded to take the 1+ hour (14km) loop around the inner city on top of the wall that surrounds it. We found that the bikes were a great way to see the city because we were able to move quickly and still see everything, or we could go slow or stop if we so chose.
Once down from the wall we proceeded to a VERY hasty dinner at the hostel once we realized how little time we actually had to make the train. We were so rushed, in fact, that at one point I was running out of the hostel with a handful of spaghetti to eat on the run. We quickly hailed two taxis and proceeded in our bolt to the station. When we got there (it seemed like ages) we threw money at the cab driver, grabbed our bags from the trunk and RAN through the train station with people yelling at us in Chinese and some pointing hurriedly where we were supposed to go.We did get on the train with about 60 seconds between when the attendant agreed to let us on and when the train started rolling... we were all hysterically relived and clamored about it for the next few hours. WHAT A RUSH! The train then took us overnight to Beijing where we spent the next five days.
Saturday 2-June-2007:
Liu, the gentleman with which I shared a sleeping compartment, woke me up around 0700 welcoming me to Beijing. Fittingly, as we were the last ones on the train, we were the last ones off the train as well. We navigated the subways and sidewalks past Tienanmen Square and surrounding areas in a hopeless search for our hostel, which we eventually found. As no one really had anything planned, I wandered the streets for a while in search of a new digital camera (I had broken my last one in HK.) During this endeavor I came across a PLA ([Chinese] Peoples Liberation Army) hat that I decided that I needed. Of course this was just one of the many random things that I think is a great idea at the time, but eventually realize that it is just junk. This time, however, my investment of around 50 US cents paid off big time. As long as I wore this hat, the rest of the trip could not have been boring if I had wanted it to be. It was obviously very novel to the Chinese to see a white guy running around with a Chinese Army hat! There is no way of knowing for sure how many amused looks, salutes, thumbs up, hand shakes, and conversations that this hat drew in! I quickly learned that I could turn a wary look into a giant smile by either saying hello in Chinese (“nie hau”) or by accompanying it with a salute. Almost without exception this got either approval, a big smile, or other sort of semi-hysterical reaction out of them. This hat (shown in many, if not most pictures) was a great ice-breaker and helped me make a lot of friends... this was the cultural experiment.
Soon after we went on a beautiful 2+ hour bike tour of the city (which, again, is an AWESOME way to explore a city!) which included [some of] Tienanmen Square, the Forbidden City, the drum and bell towers, and other various stops along the way.
Once our bike tour was over we showered up and headed to the “Kung Fu Theater” to watch a fairly amazing Chinese acrobat show. The final stunt of these talented individuals was when they managed to get twelve people riding on one bike without breaking a sweat.
The night ended with Michael, Hege, and I biking to the train station to get our tickets to Shanghai, a snap decision to buy a new camera (Samsung S1050, bargained way down of course), and Matt appearing at the hostel out of nowhere.
Sunday 3-June-2007:
Sunday was our Great Wall day. We took a minivan about 2.5 hours to this “Secret” unrestored portion of the Great Wall, and it was actually devoid of any other tourists (with the exception of our group of ~20.) Again, the enormity of this structure cannot be fully realized until ones stands atop it, walks a few kilometers on it, and realizes that it just keeps going... it was absolutely breathtaking and beautiful (really struggling for words here!) After a few hours of trekking along the wall we picked our way down to a small rural town for a much appreciated meal.
Matt was at the hostel when we got back, and after a shower I convinced him to go with me to the “Kung Fu Theater” again, but for the Kung Fu show this time. This show was equally amazing, but for different reasons. I would definitely recommend both the acrobats and the Kung Fu shows.
After the show everyone that I was traveling with headed out to the bars to meet some other USTers while I (obviously vastly more mature than the rest) roamed the streets talking with locals and bargaining for souvenirs.
Monday 4-June-2007:
While everyone slept off their hangovers, I got up early and used the internets for a bit to catch up on some e-communications (and let my parents know that I was still alive.) Once everyone was up we set out across Tiananmen Square wondering if there would be any sort of gathering for the 18th anniversary of the ‘incident’ that officially never happened. There wasn’t, and so we spent the next few hours exploring the Forbidden City in all of its ancient glory (although it has been rebuilt several times through the ages.) It was much larger than I expected and could take several days to explore the whole ‘city’ if one so desired. After this we headed to ‘Silk Street’ where we all bought ever more bargain-priced souvenirs. After food and then a shower at the hostel we finally headed out to the “Bar Street.”
Tuesday 5-June-2007:
Whence we arrived at a bar called “Shut up and drink” I developed an ingenious plan (which will be unveiled as you read on) that was partially made possible by out extremely late start on a night of partying.
After several hours of hoping around to different bars, we emerged from one of them (actually near the 2008 Summer Olympics Football [real football/soccer] stadium) into the blinding sunlight of the morning. Hege was the only one really in love with my ingenious plan besides me and hence was the only other person that biked the 2+ hours to the Summer Palace (the ‘+’ is for a 1 hour nap that we took at the halfway point.) When we eventually arrived at the palace we found a spot away from the masses atop a small hill to pass out for a few hours. About five hours later we awoke, sunburned, and met up with the others for a while before out journey back to the hostel. The journey back was much more fun due, among other things, to the fact that we stuck to back roads and made frequent stops and side trips to investigate local culture... and I think we got quite a lot out of it.
When we finally got back and showered up, I wandered around a bit more (which I find to be one of my favorite ways to acquaint myself with a city and its inhabitants) and headed off to bed without much hesitation.
Wednesday 6-June-2007:
I forgot to take notes on these next few days, but they were relatively uneventful anyways. On Wednesday we spent almost all day at the Temple of Heaven and were back at the hostel to get our bags (after having a mandatory Peking duck dinner) leaving ourselves (Hege, Koen, Michael, and I... Tobi had been to Shanghai before) with easily enough time to catch the train. And so began our overnight trip to Shanghai.
Thursday 7-June-2007:
In my first real attempt to plan anything on this particular trip, I decided it would be a good idea to investigate the details of the train schedule back to Shenzhen (city on China’s border with Hong Kong) so that I didn’t miss the first day of my internship at Colliers. From a poor source (damn Lonely Planets) I discovered that it was a 24 hour train ride (it actually turned out to be only 18 hours,) which meant that I could only stay in Shanghai one day, and that I had to buy my ticket immediately upon arrival in Shanghai, which I did. After getting the ticket and managing to find and settle in at the hostel I set off in a different direction than the others seeing as I was on a tighter schedule. I realized that I wasn’t going to get the real experience that I like to get by staying at least a few days somewhere, so I decided not to stress myself and just walk around a bit. In my wanderings I was pulled into a student art gallery/show/? (which, I guess, is pretty common in China,) stroll along the Bund, get lost in some very local alleyways, and wander about in the Yuyuan Gardens and Market. It was an enjoyable experience, but there was not nearly as much going on as in Beijing.
We all met back at the hostel, went our for some food, and then met up with some friends of ours from UST; Dan, Jenny, and Sigrid. We made an evening of painting Shanghai red hopping around to numerous bars, singing, dancing, climbing bus stops, falling out of trees, and the whole lot. It was wonderful.
Friday 8-June-2007:
The next thing I remember is my alarm going off and getting ready to head to the train station. I headed down to the front desk to get directions to the station, hoped the bus that they told me, and was on my way. About half an hour later my uncanny sense of direction told me that this bus was not going to take me to a train station at all (which wasn’t surprising in retrospect seeing as the same desk attendant told me that I should walk about five miles to a bike rental place the day before... thanks.) So after asking a few locals on the train what was up, which damn near started a riot on the bus from what I could tell, I found out that I could take a [local] train to that train station and that it would take about 40 minutes... and I had 30 minutes. I had them scribble something down in Chinese (which only caused confusion for me / a cab driver who wouldn’t let me in after showing him this note) and bolted for the door. A few cab drivers later and with some very descriptive body language (along the lines of ‘I NEED TO GET TO THE TRAIN STATION AND I AM LATE’,) the cab driver told me (via body language) to buckle up and we sped forth to the station, arriving with minutes to spare.
I was the only non-Chinese person that I saw on the train and it went very smoothly. I was pleased to find out that the trip was going to be six hours shorter than expected, but the thing that made the trip whip by was “1984” which Matt so graciously lent me, thanks Matt!
Saturday 9-June-2007:
Arrived in Shenzhen, passed back into Hong Kong (on my work visa), and moved in with three girls in a sublet flat in Tai Po Tsai, which is a stones throw from HKUST, until 18-June when we will move to Hong Kong University.
Pictures:CHINA
Now... “Colliers, moving, Dragon Boats, OH MY!”](3E17275D-8146-4FB6-9387-56B7A8CAF2DD_files/shapeimage_2.png)
