Friday, May 16, 2014
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Days 5-8
Beijing: Having a Good Air Day
By: Adriana D'Andrea
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.
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.
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