Unfortunately, I am not writing this blog entry on the ship, and therefore I do not have the dates of my trip. But I will update the entry later on with the dates. Anyways, as I said before I am not on the ship, but instead I am currently on the bullet train in Japan travelling to Tokyo. So what a better time then now to write my entry about China! I am sorry in advance for the length, but it was an amazing experience in China.
The trip in China started out in Hong Kong. When first arriving in Hong Kong, all my friends only had the first day to hang out because they were all leaving on SAS trips to Beijing the second day so immediately upon getting off the ship we went to the Star Taxi, which is a water ferry. Traveling across the harbor by this ferry was beautiful because we were able to look out at the buildings of Hong Kong. Now this city puts every other city I have ever seen (New York and Chicago) to shame!! Hong Kong is beyond gorgeous. And as night they put on a light show, which consists of the skyline lighting up to music. Each building is equipped with lights on the faces and lasers on the roof. But anyways, after taking the ferry to Hong Kong Island my friends and I went to explore. Our first stop on our exploration was at a restaurant for Dim Sum (Jeff I know you’re proud). Ordering Dim Sum was an experience, first of all, we did not know that you had to call the waiter over to order, second of all, everything was in Chinese (with no pictures), and third of all, none of us knew how much food to order! After staring at the menu for about 5 minutes, trying to compare the characters on the menu with the order form, the one English speaking waitress came over and helped us out. It was definitely a funny experience.
After eating Dim Sum, we travelled to the Worlds’ longest Escalator to start making out way up to the top of Hong Kong Island. As we got about half way to the top, we stopped off to get Krispy Kremes (directly out of the oven) and o walk over to a temple. The temples are really interesting in China, mainly because they are constantly burning incents making it slightly hard to breathe while inside them. Despite it being hard to breathe the temple we went to was gorgeous. It was also interesting because the whole time we were there, many Chinese locals were there praying and giving their offerings to the Gods. It was definitely a sight to see!! Finally after leaving the temple we decided that we would head back to the ship to get ready for dinner and see the light show.
We found a Cantonese Restaurant to eat at for dinner, and in the end ended up eating dinner next to the deans and other faculty from the ship. Ordering in Chinese food restaurants as I said about Dim Sum is hard! In fact, the only way to order is by looking at the pictures and decided what foods look yummy. So to order dinner, we looked at pictures and just picked what looked really good. Thankfully our method of ordering worked, because all the food that was brought to us was delicious. After dinner my friends and I decided to travel up to Victoria Peak, which is a place that you can look over the whole city of Hong Kong. Upon arrival at the top of Victoria Peak I was beyond speechless for the first time in China. The sights of the city lit up at night is beyond amazing, and unfortunately pictures just don’t capture the sight that I saw. Hopefully with some editing, the pictures will show even half of what I saw.
The next day all my friends left for Beijing, but since I was staying an extra night in Hong Kong I decided that I would go off and explore Hong Kong on my own. So after leaving the ship I went into a tourism office to pick up a map and ask where they thought I could walk to. While in the tourism office, I bumped into two SAS girls whom I knew by face. After saying hello I asked them what they were planning on doing for the day and they said they were going to Disneyland (yes, there is one in Hong Kong). After they told me what they were doing they asked if I would want to join them. SO being that I had no plans, I hopped on for the trip. TO get to Disneyland in Hong Kong was ridiculously easy, all you had to do was take the subways! (oh yea, I have grown VERY fond of subway systems, maybe ill start going into NYC more often now.. hehe) But yea, so we took the train to Disney and had a really fun day going on the rides. It was so nice being able to just relax and have fun, especially with people I did not know! After leaving Disney, I rushed back to the ship to meet up with my group for Beijing. We all got our stuff and left the ship, to meet up with it in Qingdao.
The last night in Hong Kong we stayed at a hostel, this was my very first hostel experience, and thankfully it was a good one! We had private rooms that we all shared. That night, we all went to the night market and out to dinner. Then my friend Deb went to visit a friend of hers from high school and I decided to join her. It was a fun night because we got to hang out with students from America and other parts of the world whom were studying abroad in Hong Kong. The next day in Hong Kong we made our way to the train station to take the 24-hour train from Hong Kong to Beijing.
When I first got on the train I thought that it was going to be an awful experience, but surprisingly enough I loved every minute of it! It was so awesome being able to just do nothing for a whole day. I was able to catch up on my sleep (yes I slept for 18 hours) and I was able to just play cards all day. We ate on the train and had a lovely time. Upon arriving in Beijing, we made our way to our hostel. This time, we had 2 private rooms (a double and a triple) and the normal dorm-style rooms. Being that our group consisted of 5 girls and 7 boys, the person who booked the hostel had the girls stay in the private rooms and the boys all stayed in the other rooms. Our hostel was located in such a great area, we were 5 minutes walking distance from Tiananmen Square and also located on an alley street with a market and a lot of excellent restaurants.
The second day we were in Beijing we traveled to the Temple of Heaven, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall with a private tour guide and private bus. The temple was really cool, and relaxing. It was cool because the whole time we were there, there were dance classes and tai chi classes being taught. Also, many people were playing hacky-sac and bad mitten. After the temple we went to the Forbidden City in which we were able to just walk around. The second time I became speechless while in China was while climbing on the Great Wall. This was an experience that again I will never forget, and again pictures will never describe (Jeff when I get home we will compare Great Wall stories). But yea so China was great.
After seeing everything in Beijing we slept a second night in the hostel and then took a plane to Qingdao in the morning. Qingdao is a place I will NEVER go back too, there is just nothing to do there! But I am sure after the Olympics in 2008 Qingdao will be an attraction because all of the aquatic sports are being held there. That is all for China, since I am on the bullet train I am going to try and sleep. I will see everyone in less than a month!!!!
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