The Historic Tiananmen Square and entrance to Forbidden City

Women dominate this fishing village tour industry in Hong Kong

Hong Kong's Public Transportation Systems. Impressive....

Great Wall, China

What an experience.  So amazing to step where so many others have  

My trip to China and Hong Kong: Day 1

Day 1:
To start off, we landed safely to Shanghai. Where David, our tour guide picked us up and took us to a nice restaurant and experience a lazy Susan style lunch for the very first time.

We're off to our tour bus to finally check into the hotel

  

It was a pleasant challenge to try eating my lunch with chop sticks as well as being able to share a meal with everyone. I am so used to having my own meal and as far as sharing goes, I trade my plate with my brother half way through the meal. This lunch was very refreshing and something new and very welcoming. After the lunch we went back to our hotels to finally settle in. 

Our first night we went to a french territory. Where we got to take in the city at night. The first place we arrived was a little too americanized for me and my friends, that we decided to roam around the area to find a nice authentic Chinese place, instead of an Americanized restaurant. Unfortunately after the 3rd restaurant we realized that they were closing soon or the kitchen was closed so we ended up back were we started and went inside the restaurant. Our first meal we ordered was of course not Chinese food.

It was pizza.

Days 5-8

Beijing:  Having a Good Air Day
By: Adriana D'Andrea

Geography and Scenery

While Shanghai is on a coastal plain, tightly packed with buildings and lacking substantial natural vegetation, Beijing is slightly inland, backed by mountains and full of green spaces.  The “Ring Roads” – Beijing’s concentric highways – are lined with a few trees, and the outer roads go through some patches of forest. We know Beijing for its new construction and government buildings, but there are also countless large public parks. While Shanghai’s Pudong Financial District and its Oriental Pearl Radio and TV Tower are magnificent sites when viewed across the Huangpu River from the Bund, I favored Beijing because it blends modern architectural spectacles, historic architectural treasures and foliage.

Air Quality

It seemed the air parted for us in Beijing.  We landed in a haze, but the smog dissipated by the afternoon, and we were treated to three rare “blue sky days” during our stay.  The Air Quality Index (AQI) reading – a U.S. EPA measurement that the Beijing U.S. embassy provides daily – were at “good” levels.  Only two weeks earlier, Beijing was in a pollution crisis with a week’s worth of “hazardous” readings until windy conditions arrived, ushering out the offending particulates. Below is a U.S. State Department graphic, which includes the month we traveled, and shows just how lucky we were those few days.  We could not have asked for better picture-taking conditions during our sightseeing.

Sightseeing

Tiananmen Square is vast. 

This touristy section of the Great Wall was a bit of steep climb for me (I went up about 50 feet – that’s all I could take).  The blue skies made for some awesome photo taking, though.

The Great Wall--Another Perspective

We visited two historic places in Shanghai (Jade Buddha Temple and Yu Garden/Chinatown), but in and around Beijing, we visited six.  These included The Summer Palace, Changling Tombs, Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City, The Great Wall and The Sacred Way.  I fully absorbed the vastness of Tiananmen Square through the unobstructing air, and imagined the human mass assembled in its 109 acres for democracy protests 25 years ago this June. There was a monument for the soldier losses, but no marker acknowledging the protester casualties.

Intentions hang at the Sacred Way, as they do at other faiths’ pilgrimage sites. 

This touristy section of the Great Wall was a bit of steep climb for me (I went up about 50 feet – that’s all I could take).  The blue skies made for some awesome photo taking, though.

Days 9-11  

Hong Kong: Like New York and San Francisco…and Jersey City?!

My favorite city was Hong Kong.  Like New York, it is cosmopolitan, a world financial center, and situated on islands with a portion on the mainland (in New York that would be the Bronx; in Hong Kong, Kowloon).  Like San Francisco, it is hilly (mountainous, actually), even in the downtown Central district. 

Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, but prior to 1997, it was a British Crown Colony; hence, English word spellings are British and driving is left-sided.  Mainlanders drive right-sided.

Déjà vu (Hmmm…Where Have I Seen a Building Like This Before?)

As my classmate observed in her own blog post, the second-highest building in Hong Kong strikingly resembles the Goldman Sachs building on the Jersey City waterfront. Like my classmate, I immediately suspected that the Argentina-born Cesar Pelli designed it.  I asked the tour guide who was the architect, but he did not instantly know. He got back to me later with another architect’s name, but I always doubted what he told me.  Not only are the HK and Goldman structures themselves similar, but so are their settings. Both are on waterfront financial centers that face other colossal skylines across natural harbors (the Kowloon skyline across Victoria Harbour from Hong Kong Island and the Wall Street skyline across the New York Harbor-Hudson River estuary from Jersey City).  What a remarkable connection between our own Jersey City and the other side of the world!

The Peak

Most panoramic shots of Hong Kong that one sees on postcards, the internet, etc. are taken from the summit of Victoria Peak.  At 1,811 feet, it is the highest mountain on Hong Kong Island. It is an adrenaline-inducing climb (even on a bus). The foot-high roadside barriers on most portions of the winding road were not much consolation.  It should not, however, be missed, as it is – apologies – a “high point” for many visitors.  Now I have my own photos that look, well, exactly like the shots that one sees on postcards, the Internet, etc.

General Observation: Tourists and Domestic Travel

One thing I took for granted, but that should not have surprised me, was the quantity of domestic tourists in China and Hong Kong. I saw large numbers alongside internationals – riding tour buses and following their guides, hauling luggage, checking into hotels, snapping photos and sporting “fanny packs.”  They were, en masse, everywhere we were – the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, Hong Kong, the Shanghai markets, etc.  They purchased the same souvenirs foreigners did – Red Army caps at the Forbidden City, skate wheels outside the Summer Palace and knick-knacks at the Hong Kong markets.  Domestic flights were scheduled frequently, and with respect to the internal flights our group made, most were well-booked with Chinese and Hong Kong business and leisure travelers.  Like the U.S., China is a vast country with a rich history, and there is a great deal to explore in the homeland itself.  Like a trip to San Francisco could be, perhaps, a rare treat for an U.S. Easterner, a trip to Shanghai might be a once-in-a-lifetime adventure for an inland city or countryside dweller.  Perhaps the volume is a result of more individual disposable income.  One thing is certain, however, and that is there is a great deal of activity on this front, at least among the three major Eastern cities we visited.