Alright, alright. I know you are all disappointed. You saw that Trevor had updated his blog, you've been waiting for weeks, and it turns out to be from his mom! Hope I don't disappoint you with MY recollections of China. Trevor is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and will be updating his entries for Vietnam, China and Japan soon. In the meantime he has graciously given me permission to hack his blog.
I arrived in Hong Kong a couple of days before the official start of the "Semester at Sea Parents Trip", and puttered around the city on my own. I took a subway and was literally the only non-Asian in sight, which shocked me in such an international city. The subway was so easy to use, cheap, and all the signs in HK are in Chinese and English. I wandered through a few markets, but couldn't bring myself to barter with them. Met with the other parents (about 50) the next morning and we took a tour to see the world's largest outdoor Buddha, and a fishing village on stilts. The highlight of the day was a delicious 11 course dinner at a fine HK restaurant. If I'd only known that this food was NOT typical of what was to come, I would have stuffed it in my cheeks for later in the trip, like a hamster. On the third day the MV Explorer, Trevor's 1,000 passenger cruise ship, pulled in to dock. Tears were flowing freely as we were all trying to pick our world travelers out of the line-up along the railing, . Of course, I didn't have any trouble picking out Trevor. He took me on a brief tour of his home-away-from-home, and it's quite an impressive ship. We all toured HK Island and saw the stunning views of HK and Kowloon. Our evening ended with a nighttime tour of HK harbor on a traditional Chinese junk - the lights are like no other city I've ever seen! HK is a much more intimate city than I expected for a population of 7 million. It's quite clean and easy to navigate. I never felt unsafe. I think the only downsides were the smells (fishy mostly) and the crowds (always shoulder to shoulder), which was actually true throughout China.
The group of 80 (parents plus kids) flew to Beijing, where we navigated a section of the Great Wall, saw the Empress Cixi's Summer Palace Gardens and trooped through the Forbidden Palace and Tiananmen Square. I think my favorite experience, though, was performing Tai Chi under the guidance of a Master in the Temple of Heaven Park. The looks on the locals' faces when they stopped to watch....no, make that stare at us, were priceless. Picture it - 80 clueless Americans, arms and legs flailing about. But the atmosphere in the park was very special. There were families singing, dancing, women knitting, old men playing cards and mahjong. I feel like we saw a small slice of authentic Chinese life.
Flew from Beijing to Xi'an to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. Very impressive in person. Hard to imagine someone crafting 8,000 of those life-sized soldiers, not to mention piecing them together from the crumbled state they were found in . Trevor had to restrain me from purchasing a life-sized replica to stand sentinel at my front door here in Castle Rock (just kidding). So, every trip has a "story", right? Well, our story began as we were hurdling down the runway for our late night flight to Shanghai, when the captain suddenly (and quite frighteningly) aborted the take-off. Apparently a light came on in the instrument panel that he didn't like the looks of. After sitting on the tarmac for a couple of hours, they cancelled the flight and sent us to a Chinese hotel. Oh my goodness, what an experience. Hard to describe, but imagine the most fleabag motel you've ever stayed at in the U.S.....times two! The breakfast buffet in the morning (after a mostly sleepless night worrying about bedbugs) was pure Chinese - cold noodles, broth, sticky sweet rice, gristly mystery meat, pickled vegetables and hot Tang (remember Tang from your childhood?). And they only had chopsticks, which despite all my efforts during the trip, I had not learned to manipulate. Anyway, it was a story.
On to Shanghai. Unfortunately because of our equipment failure in Xi'an, the students had to go straight to the ship instead of being able to explore Shanghai. We said our teary-eyed goodbyes and made our way to our hotel, from which we watched the MV Explorer pull out of its berth and head for Japan. About this time, I was feeling a tightness in my chest, along with many other parents on our bus. Spent the last day of the trip with a sightseeing trip to Zhujiajiao (also know as the Venice of the east for it's canals and bridges), shopping and enjoying a very nice farewell reception at a fine Shanghai restaurant. Woke up on departure day with a fever and full-blown cold/flu symptoms, wondering how I was going to survive the long flight home. I felt so sorry for the people around me on the plane - I was "one of those people", hacking and blowing my nose every 5 mins. Sara picked me up at the airport and suggested perhaps I had SARS (haha, very funny Sara). Went to bed and woke up much worse. Very kind neighbors took me to the hospital, just to be sure it wasn't SARS and it wasn't....it was pneumonia. Turns out Trevor has it too. So, here I am back home after 3 days in the hospital. Not exactly the ending I wanted to my fantastic adventure to China, but thankful I contracted it towards the very end of the trip.
All in all, a great trip. Trevor and I laughed a lot, especially at the English translations of most signs in China. One would think that they could hire an English-speaking person to translate their signs, but I guess they haven't thought of that yet. The food overall ranged from "hmmmmm...what do you think it is?" to "tastes like chicken" to "EEWWWW!". Don't go to China for the food....just sayin'. Having been a "budget" traveler all my life, I was in awe of the western-style hotels we stayed in. Luxurious hardly begins to describe them. I think I might have starved to death if we hadn't had breakfast buffets at all the hotels, complete with waffles, smoothies, made to order omelets, just about any food you could imagine. The shopping was fabulous, once I had Trevor (my bargaining expert) teach me how to "negotiate". You just have to be willing to walk away and 9 times out of 10, they will come running back to you with a lower offer. I was very nervous the first time I had to play hardball for a T-shirt, but I ended up getting it for $2 (instead of $18 that they started with) and learned to appreciate the "art" of negotiating. I actually got quite good at it by Shanghai, where a couple of other moms and I were taken down a back alley to a secret room of knock-off luggage and I bought a Gucci carry-on for $25. I'm sure Trevor would have been proud. I'm also sure that he would have gotten it for $15.
I arrived in Hong Kong a couple of days before the official start of the "Semester at Sea Parents Trip", and puttered around the city on my own. I took a subway and was literally the only non-Asian in sight, which shocked me in such an international city. The subway was so easy to use, cheap, and all the signs in HK are in Chinese and English. I wandered through a few markets, but couldn't bring myself to barter with them. Met with the other parents (about 50) the next morning and we took a tour to see the world's largest outdoor Buddha, and a fishing village on stilts. The highlight of the day was a delicious 11 course dinner at a fine HK restaurant. If I'd only known that this food was NOT typical of what was to come, I would have stuffed it in my cheeks for later in the trip, like a hamster. On the third day the MV Explorer, Trevor's 1,000 passenger cruise ship, pulled in to dock. Tears were flowing freely as we were all trying to pick our world travelers out of the line-up along the railing, . Of course, I didn't have any trouble picking out Trevor. He took me on a brief tour of his home-away-from-home, and it's quite an impressive ship. We all toured HK Island and saw the stunning views of HK and Kowloon. Our evening ended with a nighttime tour of HK harbor on a traditional Chinese junk - the lights are like no other city I've ever seen! HK is a much more intimate city than I expected for a population of 7 million. It's quite clean and easy to navigate. I never felt unsafe. I think the only downsides were the smells (fishy mostly) and the crowds (always shoulder to shoulder), which was actually true throughout China.
The group of 80 (parents plus kids) flew to Beijing, where we navigated a section of the Great Wall, saw the Empress Cixi's Summer Palace Gardens and trooped through the Forbidden Palace and Tiananmen Square. I think my favorite experience, though, was performing Tai Chi under the guidance of a Master in the Temple of Heaven Park. The looks on the locals' faces when they stopped to watch....no, make that stare at us, were priceless. Picture it - 80 clueless Americans, arms and legs flailing about. But the atmosphere in the park was very special. There were families singing, dancing, women knitting, old men playing cards and mahjong. I feel like we saw a small slice of authentic Chinese life.
Flew from Beijing to Xi'an to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. Very impressive in person. Hard to imagine someone crafting 8,000 of those life-sized soldiers, not to mention piecing them together from the crumbled state they were found in . Trevor had to restrain me from purchasing a life-sized replica to stand sentinel at my front door here in Castle Rock (just kidding). So, every trip has a "story", right? Well, our story began as we were hurdling down the runway for our late night flight to Shanghai, when the captain suddenly (and quite frighteningly) aborted the take-off. Apparently a light came on in the instrument panel that he didn't like the looks of. After sitting on the tarmac for a couple of hours, they cancelled the flight and sent us to a Chinese hotel. Oh my goodness, what an experience. Hard to describe, but imagine the most fleabag motel you've ever stayed at in the U.S.....times two! The breakfast buffet in the morning (after a mostly sleepless night worrying about bedbugs) was pure Chinese - cold noodles, broth, sticky sweet rice, gristly mystery meat, pickled vegetables and hot Tang (remember Tang from your childhood?). And they only had chopsticks, which despite all my efforts during the trip, I had not learned to manipulate. Anyway, it was a story.
On to Shanghai. Unfortunately because of our equipment failure in Xi'an, the students had to go straight to the ship instead of being able to explore Shanghai. We said our teary-eyed goodbyes and made our way to our hotel, from which we watched the MV Explorer pull out of its berth and head for Japan. About this time, I was feeling a tightness in my chest, along with many other parents on our bus. Spent the last day of the trip with a sightseeing trip to Zhujiajiao (also know as the Venice of the east for it's canals and bridges), shopping and enjoying a very nice farewell reception at a fine Shanghai restaurant. Woke up on departure day with a fever and full-blown cold/flu symptoms, wondering how I was going to survive the long flight home. I felt so sorry for the people around me on the plane - I was "one of those people", hacking and blowing my nose every 5 mins. Sara picked me up at the airport and suggested perhaps I had SARS (haha, very funny Sara). Went to bed and woke up much worse. Very kind neighbors took me to the hospital, just to be sure it wasn't SARS and it wasn't....it was pneumonia. Turns out Trevor has it too. So, here I am back home after 3 days in the hospital. Not exactly the ending I wanted to my fantastic adventure to China, but thankful I contracted it towards the very end of the trip.
All in all, a great trip. Trevor and I laughed a lot, especially at the English translations of most signs in China. One would think that they could hire an English-speaking person to translate their signs, but I guess they haven't thought of that yet. The food overall ranged from "hmmmmm...what do you think it is?" to "tastes like chicken" to "EEWWWW!". Don't go to China for the food....just sayin'. Having been a "budget" traveler all my life, I was in awe of the western-style hotels we stayed in. Luxurious hardly begins to describe them. I think I might have starved to death if we hadn't had breakfast buffets at all the hotels, complete with waffles, smoothies, made to order omelets, just about any food you could imagine. The shopping was fabulous, once I had Trevor (my bargaining expert) teach me how to "negotiate". You just have to be willing to walk away and 9 times out of 10, they will come running back to you with a lower offer. I was very nervous the first time I had to play hardball for a T-shirt, but I ended up getting it for $2 (instead of $18 that they started with) and learned to appreciate the "art" of negotiating. I actually got quite good at it by Shanghai, where a couple of other moms and I were taken down a back alley to a secret room of knock-off luggage and I bought a Gucci carry-on for $25. I'm sure Trevor would have been proud. I'm also sure that he would have gotten it for $15.
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