April 3rd, Day 70
Today we arrived in Hong Kong. It seems like every patch of available land has a sky scraper placed upon. Even at this early hour of arrival the harbor is bustling and the streets are busy. After the ship was cleared Megan, Lauren, Kristen and I set out into the city. Our first destination was the Mong Kok Computer store where we had hoped to find some good deals on electronics. We made our way to Hong Kong’s highly efficient subway system, called the MTR. Fortunately their subway is well organized and it was easy to see where to go. Buying tickets simply entailed pressing the destination you wanted on a map and it would automatically calculate the fare to that station. I also had the good fortune of using dad’s Octopus card from when he was in HK on business so I breezed through the ticket gates with the grace of a regular. We never ended up making it to the electronics store, getting lost instead in the huge streetside marketplaces. I managed to get three futbol jerseys for about $8 apiece and found later that they even had included a set of matching gym shorts with each one!
Afterwards, Lauren had to go back to the ship and I managed to badger Megan and Kristen into going to the Hong Kong Space Museum. We arrived just in time to see a planetarium presentation on Black Holes, which was fairly interesting but had somewhat poor English dubbing and ended up becoming a struggle to stay awake instead of a dazzling display of the stars. After the show we made our way around the rest of the museum. It was very interesting to see another country’s take on space science and policy. It also made me proud of our national accomplishments as NASA and the United States featured prominently in the exhibits. I have to admit it again makes me question whether I really made the right decision to switch majors from Aerospace Engineering. Or should I be majoring in Astronomy? Anyway after the museum we got some American food at California Pizza Kitchen which was much appreciated. Hong Kong also does an entertaining light show at night where the skyscrapers of the city flash lights in synchronization to music that plays at special viewing locations along the shore. I loved the city and though I’m excited to see the Great Wall I wish we had a bit more time here!
April 4th, Day 71
This morning a small group of us left the ship and caught a cab to the airport on Lantau island to catch a flight to Shanghai. Upon arrival to the airport I had a stressful start to my journey to the Wall. As our group was split and traveling on two separate flights and airlines to get to Shanghai we had received a confirmation of which airline would be carrying us. Mine reported that they did not have a reservation matching my name on file for any of their flights for the day. I had them check the flights for the other airline, which luckily ended up just being a commuter version of the main airline and to my relief my reservation popped up! A few hours later we stepped into the gargantuan stadium that is the Beijing Capital Airport. We ran into another snag as we discovered that apparently this coliseum our plane had landed at was just one of several terminals and that the other plane had landed at a different terminal. This somewhat complicated our plan to meet at the baggage claim as now the others would be waiting at the baggage claim at effectively another airport. Unfortunately it took us long enough to figure this out plus a 15 minute bus ride to the other terminal to place us there about 2 hours after the other plane was scheduled to land. Keenly missing our cellphones at this moment we decided to proceed without the other half of our group and assume that the directions we had all been given would be sufficient to get them to the hostel where we could then make our rendezvous.
Navigating to the hostel was an experience in itself as navigating the bus route to the subway and then the subway to the street of our hostel with only a minimal amount of English was quite an accomplishment. After reuniting with the rest of our group we headed to a restaurant less than a block away from our hostel. It had excellent food but also some quite unusual choices such as seahorse, dog, dove, turtle, black fungus, eel, etc. I wound up with an excellent tasting lemon chicken dish. There were also dough things which tasted quite similar to manapua from Hawaii. Jake also ordered a plate of the dog meat and we all gave it a try. I can’t say I recommend it, not only because I’m a dog lover, but it was a quite odd stringy tasting meat. Our hostel was situated down an alley that initially looked a bit sketchy but now just makes the experience feel more local. Our rooms are comfortable and we have access to TV and wireless. There is a bar literally next door which doubles as a breakfast restaurant in the mornings and the front desk sells Oreos and Ritz! Tomorrow we head on to the Wall!
April 5th, Day 72
Today we started the day off by going to the tomb of one of China’s emperors. It was fairly interesting to see but frankly nothing remarkable. Unfortunately the tomb was a victim to the passage of time so the majority of the artifacts were replicas and not originals. From there we headed for the reason most if not all of us had come to Beijing, The Great Wall of China! We finally arrived at a section of the wall just before sunset. The sheer size and scale of the Wall is mind boggling. The wall stretches on as far as the eye can see beyond the mountains in both directions! After our brief teaser of the Wall we got dinner at a local restaurant, stocked up on sleeping bags, mats, and beer and began our trek up to one of the watch towers for a night on the wall. It was without a doubt one of the most fun nights I’ve ever had! We combined with another SAS indy group and wound up with about 30 of us laughing and playing games on the top of the watch tower. We even got our Chinese guide Jason and some of his family to join us in some good fun. Amazingly enough out of the 30 some odd SASers who spent the night stumbling around the very uneven and crumbling wall, there was only one injury, a sprained ankle! In the morning we will make a 10 km trek along the Wall.
April 6th, Day 73
This morning we arose to fog and grey skies, shook off our sleepiness from the night before with some granola cereal and bananas, and saddled up for our hike along the wall. Though it was foggy and actually got darker as the morning progressed it added a mystique and magnificence to the wall! Some sections were quite treacherous at times with the Wall in various stages of decay, including a section that was bombed out during WWII. There were incredibly steep ascents and descents but the view the entire time was spectacular with the Wall almost organically winding through peaks and valleys into the distance in both directions. Words cannot describe the experience. I can hardly imagine how the laborers who completed this monumental task could have done so and created something which has stood for so many years!
Before long the ever darkening skies gave way to rain and intense claps of thunder and there was a gene3ral consensus that walking on the top of a mountain on an uncovered wall in a thunderstorm was not the most conducive thing to our health. Fortunately, we made it into a large enough tower for shelter while we had to wait for the rest of our group and our guide who had our tickets to continue onto the next section of the wall. It was a truly gratifying experience and one which my calves and knees will not soon forget. After the wall we ziplined down a huge drop across a river and then headed back to Beijing. Once there we stopped to see a tea ceremony and to see Olympic Park where the 2008 Olympic Games will occur. The stadium for track and field aptly called the Bird’s Nest is a very interesting architectural design with a mass of steel molded in the shape of a bird’s nest.
April 7th, Day 74
Today for our last day in Beijing we went to the infamous Tiananmen Square and the Gates of the Forbidden City. Afterwards Kayleigh’s friend Jessie who is studying abroad in China met us and took us to the silk market where her Chinese speaking ability helped get us some excellent deals on some market wears. We somehow managed to spend the entire day at the silk market and afterwards found ourselves at Beijing Capital Airport and our flight to Shanghai. Leaving the airport in Shanghai was a bit hairy as Clare, Ashley, and I originally started to go with a guy who we thought was a taxi driver, but who actually was driving an unmarked car. Feeling that this was a bit sketchy we hopped into an empty marked cab we passed as we were following the other guy. After this the first driver began pounding on the window and yelling at our driver. Immediately a police officer ran up and the three began having a very heated discussion in Chinese. Thoroughly spooked we snuck out of the taxi and ran to the arrivals area of the airport and caught a cab from there. I have never been so relieved to see the white and blue of the MV Explorer!
April 8th, Day 75
Today was a very rainy and lazy day for me and as a result I didn’t see much of Shanghai. I went out with Claire into the blustering rain to wander around Shanghai a bit. Struggling against the sheets of rain an old Chinese woman took pity on us and gave us her umbrella! We also saw a large tower and after finding our way to it went to the top to discover a revolving restaurant which provided excellent views of the city and our ship. While getting back on the ship we lucked out on getting a free Papa John’s Pizza that was confiscated from my shipboard parents Jono and Lisa as ship security will not allow us to bring on board ANY open food items.
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