Back from the Mainland!

After 10 days, lots of travel and lots of rain, Tom and I returned to a HK of sunny blue skies and temperatures in the 70s. Glorious -- I just took an hour and a half walk around Kowloon and it felt magical.

I have a ton of stuff to say about our trip, so I think I'll break it up into a couple of posts. Some of you may remember that on Saturday the 16th, we took a 24-hour train to Beijing. We stayed there until the evening of the 21st, at which point we took an overnight train to Shanghai. On the afternoon of the 26th, we flew from Shanghai to Shenzhen, which is just over the border from HK (domestic flights were much cheaper) and hopped a bus into the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in the evening.

Tom and I took roughly 650 pictures (fo' realz) of which 620 were from the Beijing portion of our trip (not that Shanghai isn't pretty -- but it doesn't have the Great Wall or the Forbidden City -- and it was very rainy for more than half of our time there). If I can expand my computer skills at all, I'll try to put a couple of those pictures on this blog.

First, the trains. I loooove trains, and have always wanted to take an overnight one somewhere -- you get your own little bunk, and free slippers, and can walk the hallways through the night while the train rushes you to your destination... Well, it wasn't quite as romantic as I'd pictured, but it was a very economical way to travel, and we had some nice cabinmates. On the train to Beijing, we shared the cabin with a young man named Hu who was a fur trader (there's a short story in that somewhere -- a fur trader wearing Air Jordans and switching among 3 different SmartPhones). We also shared the cabin with an older woman who seemed to be devoutly practicing some kind of meditation that involved lots of breast-beating and loud nose-breathing. That wasn't so pleasant, particularly at 3 in the morning when everyone was sleeping. But we managed to all carve out enough personal space to get some sleep, and Tom and I each basically began and finished our novels.

We foolishly did not pack any snacks, assuming we'd find things to eat on the train. We found things, but they were overpriced and disgusting versions of Chinese food -- sheer hunger meant that we ate them anyway, and washed them down with a couple of cheap beers (by far the culinary highlight of the train trip). The countryside that we passed along the way (and we had a lot of time to watch it, since we were on that train from 3 pm Saturday until 3 pm Sunday) was pretty gray -- as we got further north it got closer to wintery-feeling and there stopped being the lush palm trees and other greenery of the south. We did see rice paddies for the first part of the trip, and some subsistence-looking farming during the latter part of the trip, interspersed with more industrial development. When we arrived in Beijing West Station, we were thrilled to get off.

Beijing West is huge, and filled with the flashy giant TVs that grace many squares in the city, vendors selling various things, and taxi drivers trying to rip us off. Luckily our hostel's website told us what to expect to pay to get there, so when we were quoted a price that was 4 times that we were able to walk away in disgust. A cold snap had just descended upon the city, so we were shivery, and happy when we found the official taxi stand.

Our hostel was a place recommended to me by my dear friend Kevin, who lives in Beijing with his Beijing-born wife and their 5-month-old twin boys. It was a few blocks from their apartment, facilitating visiting, and in a charming old hutong. Hutong means essentially alley, and in Beijing, hutongs link the larger, more commercial streets, providing a lot of the character and soul of the city. A lot of people living in hutongs don't have their own toilets, so most hutongs have public toilets at either end. Lots of individuals make use of their space to sell cigarettes and sodas and snacks out of the ground floor of their buildings, so there is a semi-informal economy going on there. Sadly, in China's mad rush to "modernize," a lot of hutongs are being destroyed (and people are being forced to move further out in search of affordable housing).

Our hostel, luckily, did have its own plumbing, and our room was actually very nice (no more of the dorm-style hostel rooms for me -- this was a proper double with an en suite bathroom!). We settled in and grabbed some showers, and then set out to explore the city in the dark.

We walked down the hutong to one of the main avenues and strolled down that for awhile, just looking at the buildings. After the hyper-commercialism of HK, it was kind of surprising to see how little retail/restaurants/etc., existed, although there were definitely shops and places to eat. It was a Sunday evening, so it was fairly quiet, but we walked along Wangfujing Street, which is considered a major pedestrian-friendly street in the city. There was some public art, several hotels, and a gorgeous old Christian church, and a lot of stores advertising name brands like Gucci and Burberry. However, it definitely didn't have as developed a feel as, say, 5th Avenue. It felt slightly abandoned -- although that might have just been the cold and the fact that it was a Sunday night.

The next morning, we met up with Kevin (who kindly brought us an umbrella and Tom a sweatshirt -- we hadn't planned very well for the weather up north) to grab breakfast and head with him to his office at Disney English before sightseeing. He brought us to a typical hole-in-the-wall Beijing eatery where we got two trays of steamed pork buns (baozi) for 10 yuan (US$1.50). The place was still dirty from the breakfast rush, but those steamed pork buns were some of the most delicious and wholesome things I'd tasted in months -- and we were glad to get some fat and protein in us to help us stay warm in the rain. [As a side note, the street food in Beijing and Shanghai was one of the highlights of the strip -- more on that later].

I'm going to pause for now, but my next post will talk about Disney English and hotpot with a typical (Kevin's) Beijing family :-).

Comforts of Home

This jaunt in HK is the third instance in which I've spent a chunk of time living in another country. Not that that makes me an "expat expert" (::groan::, I know, but I love plays on words); however, I think it gives me some authority to speak to my own natural progression when living in a foreign land.

The first week or so is like being a tourist -- there are tons of things to do, and see, and I notice them all. I probably take pictures of them all. My senses are bombarded from all sides. It is exhilarating, and exhausting.

After that phase comes the "settling in" part, where I figure out what things I like at the grocery store, and find a place that sells toothpaste, and learn how to navigate public transportation to get to places I'll visit often, such as school or my apartment. The second part of this phase includes finding less immediate staple options, such as a used English-language bookstore and a spot where I can get a real cup of coffee if I want a taste of home (that bit was easy in HK, where Starbucks abound).

Finally, I get to a point where I'm walking home at the end of the day, and instead of looking around and thinking "I'm in ___!" I look around and think "I wonder if that pepper in the fridge is still edible. And I really need to get a pedicure." In other words, I've hit the comfort phase, and it's happened a lot faster in HK than in happened in other places (the wide usage and understanding of English helps -- as does living with my fiance :-)).

Right now Tom and I have a long-term place to stay, a daily routine, a weekly grocery list and a rapport with most of the security guards in our building. We have some restaurants we know and like -- Tom even has a barber. It's nice -- it makes HK feel manageable, and like it's beginning to be "mine." Which is probably good, because we leave for our journey to the Mainland on Saturday and I have a feeling that's not going to feel familiar at all -- not even in the "I've travelled somewhere in Europe that felt like this before" kind of way.

While there, I won't have access to Blogger (thanks, Great Firewall!). But I will try and write my posts as we go along, and put them up all at once when we get back on the 27th.

At that point, I will be supremely grateful for all the comforts of home that HK can provide!

Lamma

On Saturday, Tom and I met up with two different sets of friends for an excursion to Lamma Island, the "other" major outlying island of the SAR (I always think of Lantau as the primary one -- perhaps because that's where we spent the previous 2 weekends). Lamma has a slightly different vibe than that on Lantau (and that on HK Island and Kowloon, for that matter). No cars are allowed, and everyone seems to have a couple of dogs and a couple of kids. The main "street" is like a wide sidewalk lined with little shops selling sarongs and snacks and organic soap. It's kind of like the South China Sea version of Woodstock, with beaches.

Our primary destination was a spot called the Bookworm Cafe, which serves delicious vegan and vegetarian food. Since most of (affordable) HK is heavy on the meat and starch, we were all craving some salad. After that, we planned some reading at the beach to take advantage of the warm weather.

On the way over, we noticed that the ferry ride was much rougher than other trips we'd taken -- the captain was obviously booking it (maybe he wanted some vegetables too). We also noticed that a bunch of locals were getting sick -- I mean puke bags and all (and this only got worse on the way back). We found it very curious, since it was pretty likely that these people take such ferry trips on a regular basis. Luckily, our Western stomachs were apparently immune to seasickness (on that day at least) and we made it to Lamma uneventfully.

The cafe was charming and the food was delicious -- once it came. We were there for more than 2 hours before our party of 6 was fully served and had eaten, but the soy mango cheesecake at the end saved the cafe from a bad review -- it was really really yummy. Using soy yogurt instead of cream cheese, the cake managed to get the sweet tanginess of normal cheesecake spot on, while being less brick-like in the stomach. It's enough to make me want to buy a springform pan!

Not to segue from food immediately to the loo (but actually, yes, I'm doing that...), the cafe was also the first place in HK where I utilized the traditional squat toilet (albeit a finished porcelain one). In China, squat toilets (as opposed to the ones you sit on, like we have at home) abound, but HK's western influences mean that most places here utilize the familiar porcelain throne. However, more casual places do contain porcelain squat toilets (and I'm sure the really casual places just have a hole in the floor). This squat toilet was quite nice, although balancing in a squatting position reminded me that I need to so some lunges. Anyway. It was good practice for our trip through the Mainland, which commences in about a week :-).

After our meal, we walked along Lamma's main road and peeked into many delightful stores -- since we were running so late, we didn't do as much browsing as I'd hoped, but Tom and I plan to return this weekend to meander to our hearts' content. The beach itself was crowded, but swimming in the South China Sea was wonderful, as always, and the relaxed atmosphere of the island was truly charming. I'll share our future adventures there with the blog next week!

National Day

Last week, Tom and I were lucky enough to get another holiday -- HK celebrates both western and Chinese holidays, so the vacation schedule is a mishmash of nationalist and Christian and older religious traditions. Unlike the Mid-Autumn Festival, people came OUT for National Day, which celebrates the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949. Of course, the turnout may have had a lot to do with the fact that there is a big fireworks show in the harbor. The major artery of Nathan Road was shut down to allow people to walk down it, and all of the roads by the harborfront in Tsim Sha Tsui were blocked off to keep the crowds under control.

Tom and I bought some Tsingtao at the 7-11 and drank it as we walked down the street (it's still weird not to reflexively hide the open container from the police!). We found a good spot by the highway rail (the highway was closed to both human and automobile traffic -- giving the entrance into the tunnel a weird, slightly apocalyptic look, despite all the crowds of people everywhere else). The fireworks show started about a half-hour late, but from the get-go it was impressive. The fireworks were huge, and bloomed impressively up above the skyscrapers. But the coolest part was the sound -- the harbor gave each "boom" a magnifying effect so that it reverberated throughout the city. Plus, each "boom" was punctuated by the collective "ooohs and aaahs" of the crowd.

Fireworks are one of my favorite things in the world anyway, but to be surrounded by such crowds showing such vocal appreciation was a delight. Tom bought a light-up pair of bunny ears for me and "forced" me to wear them, and I grinned like a little kid at the circus all the rest of the evening.

Although National Day celebrations on the Mainland are arguably bigger and more impressive (and the Mainland gets the whole week off -- unlike capitalist HK), this was quite the show for a region that is only celebrating its 14th National Day (the first was after the handover in 1997).