Did You Miss Me?

One of the group members was able to find a proxy server for us, so I can now blog! Woo hoo!!!

It's a lot to read. But it's good!!

Saturday - June 19

This morning I got up early and went out with Cindy to check out Yangshuo while it was relatively cool and less crowded. We stopped in a local supermarket where Cindy was able to buy a giant Coke (maybe 1.5 liter?) for around 75 cents. We then found a cave entrance that had a large statue of Kwan Yin outside. My Indian mythology is pretty bad, but I believe that she is a goddess of mercy that has been adopted by many Buddhists in China.

Our first - and really only - stop today was the village of Xingping. We got REALLY lucky today as boat tours were allowed on the Li River. We went out for maybe an hour or so. The original plan was to disembark at the Xingping fishing village, but the water was still way too high to make that a safe idea. It was still a great cruise though! Beautiful scenery through the karst limestone mountains. A man boated up to our boat with his comorant birds and we could have our picture taken with them for 2 yuan (45 cents or so). It was fun and a relaxing boat trip.

The rest of the day was kind of boring as it was spent in transit. We rode back to Yangshuo, had lunch at the hotel, then bussed up to Guilin to the airport. We hung around there for several hours until our two hour flight to Nanjing.

Location: Ramada Plaza, Nanjing
Tooth Update: No issues.
Weather Update: Today wasn't bad - and the sun finally came out!


Friday - June 18

Today started a bit earlier than yesterday - 8:20, but I didn't mind much because I was really excited about the boat trip that we were going to take from Guilin to Yangshuo. When we got to the lobby, we got some good news and some bad news. For the good, it looked like it wasn't going to rain today. For the bad, because of all of the rain, the Li River was excessively high, and even if its depth wasn't a problem, the speed of its current would be. It just wouldn't be safe to go out on the river. I admit to being a little bummed. Last night we found out that the light show that we were supposed to see on the river tonight was cancelled because of the flooding, and I was worried that we would be left to do things on our own today. Luckily, we had a good twist of luck!

We visited the Guilin Art Museum where we were able to watch a demonstration of Chinese water painting. It was pretty cool! I had a chance to watch the artist paint a piece for me, and then purchase it, of course! It took him all of five minutes to create a lovely bamboo painting. I was impressed! I then had another chop made. I chose a round shape this time - the last was square - and this time I just had the Chinese symbols carved, without the English added. I recorded the guy carving the chop. So cool!!!

We then settled in for a 1.5 hour bus ride to Yangshuo. Our ride took us through some pretty stunning landscapes. Our driver pulled over so that we could get some pictures. The mountains here are very old and are karst, which gives them a very distinctive shape. Before I knew it, we had arrived in Yangshuo and then we checked into the New Century Hotel. Our lunch, which we were supposed to eat on the boat, was substituted with a fantastic meal at the hotel, which featured these AMAZING deep fried sweet potato dumplings. Seriously, one of the best things I have eaten so far! It was just like eating candy.

Our only appointment for the day was a visit to the Omeida Language School, which required us to change into our "nice" clothes. We had a tour of the school. It was so hot and humid today that the stairs were a special challenge. Both the steps and the banisters were slick, and in some places even the walls were wet! We then went to the classrooms in small groups. I went to a Basic Business Communications class. The students in this class had been learning English for a while, and were very good at conversing. The teacher led them through a 20-minute review, and then Wayne and I led a 20-minute Q&A period about life in the US. After that, we headed to the rooftop cafeteria to meet in small groups with the students. I spent a long time talking to a student named Jenny. She was VERY interested in the United States, and she had done her research! It was a lot of fun talking to her, and I gave her my e-mail address so that we can hopefully write back and forth.

After the school visit, it was back to the hotel to change, and then we had a free evening ahead of us. Mona, Edith, Dave and I stopped for pizza. Shocking that I would eat pizza out somewhere, I know. As I have mentioned before, the prices here are ridiculous, and dinner was no different. I wish the US was this cheap! After dinner we wandered up and down West Street, a pretty busy shopping avenue. It was very touristy, but fun and exciting at the same time. Another good day down!

Location: New Century Hotel, Yangshuo
Tooth Update: A bit of pressure today. Not sure what is up with that.
Weather Update: Sunny at last! The humidity must be at 99% though. It is sticky nasty out.


Thursday - June 17

Today we got to sleep in a bit considering that we had been up late the night before - what a bunch of partiers we are! While at breakfast, I saw a teenage boy wearing an Indiana basketball t-shirt. Weird, so I went up and asked him where he was from. He told me Louisville, I told him that I was from Corydon. His mom then came up to me and told me that they were actually from Sellersburg! Imagine going halfway around the world to find people from Sellersburg at your hotel breakfast! It doesn't stop there - it turned out that they were there as part of a large group of young men from St. X High School in Louisville. The lobby was practically swarming with these guys! They were really helpful in telling me how to get onto the internet and were just really nice overall. So, a big shout out to Rick Ayers and the guys from St. X!!

We left at 10:00 this morning to head out to the Longji Rice Terraces. The weather was MISERABLE. Considerable downpours, and we had heard that there had been deaths in the part of China that I am currently in due to mudslides caused by the rain. So what did we do? That's right - head right into the belly of the beast, as Longji is located at the top of a mountain. The road was crazy getting there - all kinds of hairpin turns and small rockslides over the road. It was a white knuckle ride, I can tell you that! We stopped at the Zhuang minority village for a bathroom break, where people came out and tried to sell us stuff, and then later on at the Yao village. We stopped here to transfer to a smaller bus (easier to get up the road), and I made friends with a Yao woman who desperately wanted to sell me some postcards. I kept telling her no, and she kept saying "Maybe later." She gestured that she would have her eyes on me when I came back down the mountain. She cracked me up. Yao women are known for their long hair, which can be two meters long, and how it is knotted on their heads. Google it. It was very interesting. When we got a little further up, the road ended, and we then had to take the steps.

I'm not sure how many steps I climbed, but it had to easily have been 1,000. I'm not kidding. No handrails, slick with rain...people, I could have died at any moment. But back to the sheer number of stairs...I was HURTING. The village was spread up the mountain path, so there were plenty of people around trying to sell me things. The size and length of the climb really surprised me - in fact, I had no idea that this was going to happen. But let me tell you, I am so glad that I did it. The view at the top was absolutely stunning, even on a rainy foggy day. I drank some herbal Long Ji tea at the top, was able to haggle with shoppers on the way down the mountain, have an excellent lunch halfway down the hill. It was so much fun. I bought some pretty amazing things and had a whole bag of stuff for which I only paid about $22 USD. Isn't that crazy?! But I have to admit - I was exhausted, and glad to get back on the bus. When we transferred, my new Yao friend was there and I bought postcards from her as promised.

When we got back to Guilin, Mona and I decided that all of that climbing had taken a toll on us, and that a massage was in order. We could have left the hotel to do this, and it probably would have been cheaper, but the chance to get a full body massage for 60 minutes at the bargain basement price of just under $30 doesn't happen much. The massage was extremely painful but felt SOOOOO fantastic. Definitely a good investment and one that I am glad that I made!

Today has been an excellent day. I'm a pretty lucky girl.

Location: Guilin Bravo Hotel, Guilin
Tooth Update: Felt some pressure on the mountain, but subsided when I came out of the clouds.
Weather Update: Rainy this morning, but cleared up. Sun stayed away but the temperature was fantastic.

Wednesday - June 16

This morning we left Hong Kong to go to the border. Yes, that's right - the border. You see, even though Hong Kong is in China, it is a special region (technically a Special Administration Region), and you have to have special permission to go back and forth across the border. Tricky stuff, isn't it? To be quite honest, it surprised me quite a bit. I figured that when Hong Kong reverted back to China after the British handed it over in 1997 that it would be China, period. Not the case. Immigration was surprisingly easy though. It was interesting to step over the line in the building that marked administration by Hong Kong and administration by China.

We met Michael Gallagher when we arrived in Shenzhen, the first new locale of the day. We had talked with Michael via Skype during our orientation in Bloomington, and he arranged a tour for us in Shenzhen. We first met him at the Urban Planning Building where he gave us a brief overview of the city and how it has grown since being declared a Special Economic Zone in China. The room was HOT, but since I had my special $1 fan from yesterday, I was able to be the envy of everyone in the room. We then checked out a computer simulation room where urban planners can digitize potential building plans and put them into a digital map of Shenzhen. It allows them to see what it would look like in the end. It was pretty cool! Michael then took us on a bus tour of Shenzhen. We saw some urban minority villages - don't let the word "village" mislead you though. These are pockets in the city where minority villages were once located, but now they are a collection of high rise apartment building where minorities and migrant workers live. The closest thing that we would have to those are what we would call tenement houses or slums. They were pretty sad. Michael's tour was heavy on urban planning and architecture, but we did manage to see some other places. We visited the Green Oasis school, an international school in Shenzhen. We also visited the Dafen Oil Painting Village, which was interesting. We saw an art exhibit there, but overall I was a little disappointed in Dafen. I thought that we were going to be able to visit some artist studios, but apparently what Dafen is known for has been outsourced to the surrounding area. Art here was ridiculously overpriced. Needless to say, I didn't buy any!

Our lunch stop today was chosen especially by Michael in light of the fact that we would not be visiting the Szechuan region of China. So, we went to a Szechuan restaurant! VERY good food, and very spicy. Definitely the best meal of the trip so far, but that seems to keep happening with each and every day. However, I can't say the same for dinner. We had a long day that kept getting longer, and we got to the airport to fly to Guilin a bit later than expected. By the time that we got checked in, we only had an hour before boarding and 25 people to feed. Where does a person go when faced with this dilemma in China? That's right - you go to KFC! I had chicken nuggets and mashed potatoes with gravy - and a desire to NEVER eat mashed potatoes in an Asian country ever again! Blech! After wolfing that down and getting through security, we got to our gate only to find out that our flight had been postponed from 9:30 to 11:00. Since there was a delay, the airline promptly handed out a meal and water. Can you believe that?!?! I didn't eat it since I had just scarfed down my KFC, but I was blown away by an airline making amends for creating an inconvenience for their customers. Once aboard the flight, I immediately conked out. The flight seemed like it was 5 minutes long! We finally got to our hotel in Guilin around 2, and I was out by 2:15. A definite long day in China!

Location: Guilin Bravo Hotel, Guilin
Tooth Update: Loves Szechuan food.
Weather Update:: Hot and steamy in Shenzhen, but no rain!


Tuesday - June 15

3:30 am. Most people are asleep. Most aren't experiencing jet lag. Amy, my roommate and I, are wide awake then. We finally said to heck with it, and just got up. I was able to finish up typing out yesterday's blog, and as I did so, was worried the entire time about how I was going to feel later on that evening. I read a little bit and managed to get another hour of sleep. Around 7:00 I went down to breakfast - oh, breakfast! I had forgotten how much I enjoyed Asian breakfasts! Yes, there was standard Western fare - bacon, eggs, and the like - but there was miso soup! And shark fin dumplings! And wonderfully tasty noodles! I am actually looking forward to tomorrow for the sole reason of eating breakfast - okay, wait. That could be extreme, but if you'd had one of the steamed custard buns, you'd understand.

Walking outside I was met with a sure sign that today was going to be a muggy Wonderland of Fun - my glasses fogged up. This was at 8:30. The weather card left in the room predicted 95% humidity today, and I don't think that was too high of an estimate at all. In fact, throughout the day, it looked like the sky could open up at any moment and just unleash a torrential downpour of rain. Luckily, that never happened. It did, however, create a very overcast and foggy environment. Part of me wonders how Hong Kong would have looked in sunshine, but since it was so stinking hot as it was, maybe it was better off foggy!

Our first stop was Victoria Peak, which is the highest natural point in Hong Kong. We took a cable car to the top of the peak. Unfortunately, the view of the Hong Kong skyline was less than desirable because of the massive amount of fog, but I did have the opportunity to do a little souvenir shopping. Using Hong Kong dollars is crazy. I had only exchanged $50, since we are going to be here for such a short time. That netted me $375 Hong Kong dollars. For whatever reason I kept thinking that things cost WAY more than what they did! For example, I decided to buy a cheap folding fan. The price was $7 HKD. I thought it was ridiculous to pay that much for a cheap folding fan until I remembered that it was only around $1 US. This may be the first time in my life that I am having trouble spending money! I am actually going to have Hong Kong dollars to exchange into the Chinese renminbi. Very strange. I was able to score some Hong Kong velvet wall art for my classroom as well. All in all, great time!

We next traveled tons of windy roads to drive past Repulse Bay and its beaches to the Stanley Market. The Stanley Market is full of all kinds of little stands. I would say that it is definitely oriented to tourists, but that's not always a bad thing. One of the things that I wanted to get in China was my own chop, or signature stamp. Our faculty adviser, Richard Bohr, is fluent in Cantonese (the language spoken in Hong Kong) and was able to negotiate a special price for us, and I ended up getting my chop with my name carved in it, with the phonetic Chinese symbol for "Emily", some red ink, and a box to keep it in for a ridiculously low price of around $13 US. The name on the stamp says "Michelle" instead of "Micky" or "Emily" but it's just so cool that they carved it there today, on my own little stamp with my Chinese zodiac sign of the rabbit on it, that I really don't mind that much.

There are a couple of times on the tour that we have to make "factory visits." Apparently the tour company that we are using gets some kickbacks if we buy something there, so they are scheduled throughout. We were just told to grin and bear them. Today's special visit was to a jewelry factory. The introduction took about five minutes, the "tour" all of one minute as we passed by two workers, and then we were taken into a large showroom where we could buy the goods. I bought nothing as the jewelry was outrageous in price, but I did manage to find a machine where you could get a free cup of soft drink. Woo hoo! Yay for freebies! Too bad it wasn't the jewelry!

We then took the bus to another harbor, and had a sanpan boat tour of the Aberdeen Fishing Village, the only floating fishing village left in Hong Kong. If you've seen pictures of the "junk" boats all ti4ed up next to each other, you've seen what I saw today. To me it felt a little intrusive, like I was spying on these people, but it appears that tours of this area are a good industry, so maybe in some way they benefited from it. After the tour, which took around 25 minutes or so, we ate at the Jumbo Floating Restaurant and had a Cantonese Dim Sum lunch. This was SOOOOO good! All kinds of dumplings, rice, and soup, and a fantastic mango pudding at the end. I absolutely loved it. It was nice also to sit for a while and talk to members of the group and just hang out. There are some really cool people in the group!

Lunch was definitely filling, and the next part of our day brought nap time to many - a 40-minute drive to Lanpau Island to see the Giant Buddha. We took a cable car (!!!) to get there, which was a 25-minute ride. It was AMAZING!!!! Up at the top, we walked through the Ngong Ping village to the Giant Buddha, which like everything else today, was wrapped in fog. You had to climb the 300+ steps to get up to it, which was intense due to the altitude and the fact that I am fat, but it was pretty cool up at the top. Had the sun been shining I surely would have died, but it was nice to be up there. My pictures aren't great at all because of the fog, but I still know that I was there. Before getting back on the cable car to go down the mountain, I bought a bottle of Pocari Sweat, my favorite drink from Japan, and was able to sit on a bench and do some people watching.

After arriving back at the hotel, Mona and I decided to walk along the harbor front to the Hong Kong Avenue of Stars - think of Hollywood's Walk of Fame and you have its American equivalent. I took a picture of Bruce Lee's statue against the Hong Kong skyline, and then we walked around a bit more to find some food. We ended up in a French deli across the street from the hotel. It was really tasty, and cheap! It felt good to sit down in air conditioning and relax for a bit. It was a perfect way to end a very jam-packed day!

Location: Royal Garden Hotel, Hong Kong
Tooth Update: Other than my tongue continuously playing with it, nothing to report.
Weather Update: Foggy, muggy, hot, hot, hot.



Monday Evening, Having Lost a Day - June 14

Today was LONG. IT was the flight out of Chicago, in all of its 15.5 hour wonder. For some reason I thought that the flight would lift off at 4:30, but it turns out that we were to leave around 12:45 or so. I am not sure at all where I got that time. Nevertheless, it finally was clear why we had to meet downstairs at 8:30. We walked off and did a group check-in for the flight, which was very speedy, and then to security. I've been through security at O'Hare, and let me tell you - it isn't pretty. But for whatever reason, it was a BREEZE! INSANE! I was in and out of there in no time at all. The biggest excitement of the day came when I went to check my luggage, featuring my new rolling duffle bag. I was allowed up to 50 pounds, and my luggage came in at 30.9 pounds! EXCELLENT! I must have finally learned how to pack, or I have forgotten something drastically important.

Upon arriving at our gate at Concourse C, I had a meeting the others who had arrived late because of weather. The remainder of the time was spent getting to know others in the group. So far it looks like a really fun group, maybe just one or two that will keep lagging behind (I figure if you can't get to where you need to be on the first day, we're going to have issues - I really hope that I am wrong). The biggest crack-up of the pre-boarding time was listening to Alan, a teacher from Indy, describe in detail the numerous diseases that we could contract while in China. It sounds like many of the teachers went out and fully armed themselves with every immunization known to man. I didn't. I believe that I will be fine, but if I am not, that's why I bought extra trip insurance! I may be acting a bit too loosely with this, but life is too short to worry all of the time!

We boarded out 747 jumbo jet for our non-stop to Hong Kong. I shared a row with Mona (my roommate from Bloomington) and Shari. It was nice to have a row with people from the group. I hate asking strangers to move so that I can get up, and when you have a window seat such as I did, you have to ask often. I actually felt a little motion sickness from time to time, which is weird for me as I usually have no trouble flying. But, it was long, and very turbulent, so there's my excuse! Lots of TV shows, lots of movies, and lots of bad airline food later (with the exception of the ramen noodle snack - pretty tasty!), we finally landed in Hong Kong. The only real highlights of the trip for me was being able to see the Arctic Ocean and Russia. I was sad and disappointed that I couldn't read SkyMall - one of these days I'll remember that you don't find those on international flights - duty free catalog, yes, but definitely not to Sky Mall.

Getting through Immigration was a piece of cake, and through Customs the icing on that cake. Hong Kong seems laid back! One of the signs in the airport said that it is the 4th busiest international airport in the world. Not hard to believe. I did get to see the Chinese health officials whose job is to check you for fever when you come into the country. I didn't see any of the laser guns that I had heard about - I think it was just a large general area that we walked through. We met Linda, our city guide, who escorted us to our bus. We had about a 40-minute drive to the part of the city that we are staying in. We drove past Hong Kong Disneyland, but I didn't get to see it. Very sad. When we arrived at the hotel, we jumped off, and I was hit with a blasting wave of heat and humidity. The hair grew, people. It grew. We got our room keys, and were able to freshen up very quickly before we met downstairs in the lobby to walk to dinner. We ate at a Cantonese restaurant, one of those places where the dishes keep coming and coming. I really have no idea what I ate, but my favorite was the steamed spicy eggplant. My goal is to try everything that is put in front of me, even the dessert...and you may be questioning why I would ever question dessert. Well, kids, it's really simple...an old nemesis of mine is back...

The Red Bean.

When I was in Japan, the red bean was everywhere. It showed up in dumplings, pastries, you name it! Well, it showed up at my dinner...in the form of red bean soup. I tried it. I didn't like it. But I tried it, and that is all that matters! For a girl who doesn't like beans, the red bean in any form is a force to be reckoned with, and I defeated it again!

We were divided into two groups for dinner, and most of my group had left prior to the red bean soup. I would have joined the other group but everyone was still there. Part of me wanted to go out and walk to the waterfront to take pictures, but I felt kind of weird waiting for people to finish their meal. Cindy was the last person at my table besides myself, and she wanted to hit the 7-11 to buy a bottle of water, so we did that. That was a bit of culture shock - the bottle of water cost me about $7.50. Insane, right? But that is in Hong Kong dollars - it was really right around $1. I only changed over around $50 US dollars here since we will be in Hong Kong such a short time. We'll see how it all works out! I then came back to the hotel room, got things ready for the next day of touring, and fell immediately asleep.

Location: Hong Kong, Royal Garden Hotel
Tooth Update: Some pressure on the flight, but nothing painful. Hates red bean as much as I do.
Weather Update: Like someone keeps slapping you with a hot wet towel. And that's at night.



Saturday Evening

So, I FINALLY made it to Chicago. It took forever. My flight lifted off at around 7:45, but because of the thunderstorms, we had to reroute around St. Louis and come up from that direction. That added about an hour onto our flight. The only thing good that I can say about this is that United was very thoughtful when it added fuel to our tank so that we wouldn't run out midair. It's the little reassuring things that make flying so fun, you know?

Unfortunately, I had to miss the meeting, and by the time I ran from Terminal B to Terminal A to get my luggage and then back to Terminal B to check into the O'Hare Hilton, I almost missed dinner. To be honest, dinner was pretty much over, and people were getting up and leaving, but I was encouraged to go ahead and get some dinner. I was starving - famished, really - but I felt bad at the group leaders having to wait on me, so I ordered a salad. It was a good one though! Field greens with strawberries, oranges, tomatoes, and feta cheese with a raspberry vinaigrette. I did manage to get a little dressing on my shirt, so the first Shout wipe came out. Sigh.

I think I need sleep as I am starting to feel violent. Wait, I've felt like that all day!!

Location: Chicago O'Hare Hilton
Tooth Update: Enjoyed salad greatly. The gritting of me teeth in frustration throughout the day was probably a bad idea.
Weather Update: Haven't been outside, but I did see a puddle, so I guess the storms were real.