The Jolly Green Giant

So there are two things about China that stick out in my mind the most. The first is the weather. It was so cold in China. Hong Kong was nice; the first day it was about 75 degrees. Then the next day I went to Beijing and when we landed in the airport, they informed us that it was 42 degrees Fahrenheit out. I honestly didn’t know what to do, I forgot what 42 feels like. The cold weather definitely took me by surprise, especially in April when I’m used to being in at least the 60s at home. And the second thing that stood out to me, in correlation to my blog title, was how tiny Chinese people are. I literally stood taller than some of the men there. I felt like a giant, and then I had my green winter jacket on, I just felt like I was the jolly green American giant in China.

 

We were in China for a total of 6 days. Our ship docked in Hong Kong for two days, and then sailed to Shanghai where it docked for another two days. But if you wanted to stay off the ship and then meet the ship in Shanghai on the last day, you could also do that. I decided that option and traveled to Beijing for four days.

 

Day 1

This was our first day in Hong Kong, and we arrived at about 8 in the morning. Me and Jaclyn woke up a little later and then decided to go out. The port that we were docked at was attached right to a shopping mall so we looked around there for anything interesting. We didn’t find too much so we decided to take the ferry to the other side of the city and get some lunch and explore. The ferry was filled with people and me and Jaclyn had a hard time figuring out how to get our ticket. We asked a few people where we could get change and a couple other things, and they either looked at us like we were crazy, or one man just bluntly replied, “I don’t know”. Okay, thanks for your help. But we figured it out, some nice man helped us and we got on the ferry and made it to the other side.

 

When we got off the ferry we walked around and I was surprised how empty the city seemed. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there were still a lot of people, but I guess in my mind, I had expected it to be like jam-packed and people bumping all into each other, but it wasn’t like that at all. We walked through the streets and it reminded me a little of New York City. We were getting pretty hungry so we stumbled upon a nice little Chinese restaurant and decided to eat there. They brought us the menu and I ordered Sesame balls with mashed up egg yolk, and then we decided to share shrimp flour rolls. Well, let me just say, when they say mashed up egg yolk, they mean raw runny egg yolk. And the “flour” rolls, meant slimy rolls with shrimp that are impossible to pick up with your chopsticks. Don’t get me wrong, I tried everything once, and the sesame balls were really good, I just didn’t want to eat the raw egg, well because from my experiences, raw egg is supposed to make you sick. And I’m bad enough as it is with chopsticks, so the slimy flour rolls were just too hard to eat.

 

After lunch, we did a little shopping at H&M and browsed in some local boutiques. We wandered through another mall for a little and everything was completely out of my price range. We did stumble upon a little café and decided to get a snack there. We got a sandwich and a drink. Then we headed back on the ferry to go to the ship and use some free internet. In the middle of the mall, they had free internet so we used the internet for a little while, uploaded some photos and then decided it was dinner time. And lo and behold, what did we see, but a California Pizza Kitchen! And after our lunch disaster, we decided to just stick with something easy and quick. I ordered the Reuben pizza which was more than delicious and Jaclyn, Anders and I ordered a few drinks and then headed back to the ship to get ready for the night.

 

We went to a street called Lan Kwai Fong at night. During Hong Kong and that time, there was a competition called Rugby 7’s which is like the World Cup of Rugby and everybody was pretty much just raging in the streets. The streets were crowded with hundreds and hundreds of people, from all around the world. The bars were all just a crowded and a lot of people were dressed up too. I think they were part of a rugby team. We went into one of the emptier bars to try and get a drink and we stumbled upon 20 people all wearing the same polo shirt and we got to talking with them and figured out that they were the Australian rugby team. They bought us a few drinks and then we went into another little bar that had some good music playing. It was a really really good live band that sang so many good songs. That’s another thing I’ve realized, is that in the bars and live music places, the people always sing American songs. It’s strange, but a little taste of home at the same time. We stayed there for a little while and then talked to the band afterwards for a little and then headed back to the ship.

 

Day 2

My flight for Beijing left at 530 in the morning, so I had to be up pretty early. We got to the airport and the security was about the same as the security in the U.S. so it took a little while to get through everything. Our flight was a three hour flight as well, but I was pretty tired as it was so I slept most of the time. We finally got to Beijing and like I said, they announced that it was 42 degrees. I had a sweatshirt on but honestly couldn’t remember what 42 degrees felt like. We transferred to the bus outside the airplane and exited our terminal. The Beijing airport was unlike anything that I have ever seen. It was absolutely the biggest airport I have ever been in my life. It took us about 40 minutes just to walk to one end to the other. We finally got to the end and we had to take another bus to the parking lot where our bus was waiting for us.

 

After waiting for our entire group to catch up, we took our bus into the city of Beijing and toured the Summer Palace. After touring it for about an hour, we drove to our hotel and had about an hour of down time to unpack and get settled into our hotel room. Then we met in the lobby to head off to dinner.

 

For dinner we had Peking duck and several other kinds of Chinese food. It was definitely better than the first experience of Chinese food I had. The Peking duck was definitely the highlight of the meal. They brought out the whole duck cooked and cut it up right in front of us. It tasted really similar to pork or chicken and was very good.

 

After dinner we went back to the hotel, and I watched a movie with my room mate and then finally just went to sleep so I could get rest for the great wall the next day.

 

Day 3

 

This day we woke up at about 730 am and got breakfast and headed to the great wall. It was about an hour and a half drive to the great wall. We got there finally at about 10 am and it was pretty cold. There were shops set up all along the way to the Great Wall and people were grabbing my arm and asking me to buy their things, and I felt like I was back in India. It got a little frustrating, but I just kept telling myself that in no time I would be climbing the great wall and didn’t let myself get upset. Let me just tell you. The hike up the great wall was killer. It was all steps and it was like the ultimate stair master. But it was worth every single second of agony. The view was breathtaking. You could see the mountains, the trees, the wall, and just feel the cool air. I couldn’t have asked for anything better. It took us about an hour or so to climb to the top. And once we made it to the top, the best thing happened, it started to snow. It was such a sight, because I honestly hadn’t seen snow since November, so it was a nice change in the weather. We continued up a little more and then decided to eat our lunches there. It was the most amazing view, and although it was really cold, the snow was so beautiful, I didn’t even care.

 

After eating our lunches and admiring the scenery for a little while longer, we continued down to take the cable car back down to the bottom. I would have climbed down, but honestly, my legs were tired and it was still snowing. So we took the cable car to the bottom and I wandered around for a little by myself, just to take it all in for myself. I wandered into a nice little coffee shop and got a cup of coffee also. I bought a few souvenirs and then we all met back on the bus.

 

On our drive back to the bus, Michael, our tour guide, informed us that we were going to take a quick stop at the Olympic stadium to take pictures. After about an hour drive, we finally arrived. I was so taken back by the fact that we were actually standing where the Olympics had taken place, not even a year ago. There were hotels all around that you could tell were brand new because they were probably built for the Olympics. It was just an amazing feeling. I walked over to where the actual stadium was and where the opening Olympics took place. And then I saw the swimming building. It was a once in a lifetime experience, and I couldn’t help but imagine how many people there were in that one area several months back.

 

Our tour guide, Michael, told us that if we were interested in a Kung Fu show that night, that he could get us tickets, so I decided to go, because a Kung Fu show just sounded awesome. So we had about an hour and a half to grab lunch before the show. So we ended up going to this fast food kind of Chinese place called Mr. Lee. The food was still really authentic though. I got a beef soup really similar to the Vietnamese Pho soup we had. It was really good. They also gave us some type of salty custard thing with garlic and onions, and it tasted very strange, but good at the same time.

 

After dinner, I headed back to the hotel to drop off my things and meet up with the bus for the Kung Fu show. When we got there, people were already lined up to get inside. The outside of the theater was all lit up with red and colorful lights. I was really excited. We got inside of the theater and took our seats just as the show was beginning. The show began and the things they did were just absolutely ridiculous, and they made it look so easy! They did flips all across the stage, back head springs (like a back hand spring, but instead of using their hands, they used their heads), and amazing leaps. It was more of a musical/play type thing that an actual King Fu demonstration. But there was a lot of Kung Fu incorporated into the show. They did things like breaking cement bricks with their heads and balancing themselves on sharp objects, it was really cool. I don’t know how much of it was actually real, but I pretended it was, and really enjoyed it nonetheless.

 

After the show, we headed back to the hotel and I went up to my room to get ready to go out for the night. I went to my friend Ryan and Ryan’s room and me, Ryan, Ryan and my friend Mike played some beer pong and hung out with people before we decided to go out. Around 11 or so, we took a taxi to one of the local clubs. On our way, the boys spotted a Hooter’s, so of course, they wanted to stop and “Get hot wings”, I was hungry and didn’t really care, so we made a pit stop. We got a few drinks and some wings and I even bought a shirt, and then we headed back out to the club. We went to the club, but the drinks were really expensive and we were tired as it was, so we only stayed for a little over an hour and then headed back to the hotel for the night.

 

Day 4

Now, this day was pretty interesting. We woke up at 8, and got breakfast and then headed out to the Tiananmen Square. It was really cool and had a lot of interesting buildings. Then we headed for like a 5 minute walk to the Forbidden City. I felt like such a tourist when we got to the Forbidden City because they gave us headphones and a tape to walk around with, like our own personal tour guide. But I’m not going to lie, the lady had a very soothing voice and she gave a lot of information which was good. But sometimes I got really caught up in what she was saying, and wasn’t paying attention to the stones underneath me, and yes, I did trip a few times. No, no face plants, just a few stumbles here and there.

 

We were given a little over an hour to walk through the Forbidden City and then we had to meet at the North Entrance, apparently. Well, I thought that our tour guide said to meet right where we were standing. We walked through the palace for about a half an hour or so and then I decided that I wanted a bottled water and a little snack, so we went right outside to grab a snack and a drink. Our meeting time rolls around, and we go to the supposed meeting place and nobody is there. So we are wandering around for about 20 minutes or so, walking up and down the Palace and looking for our group, and cannot find them for the life of us. So we figure, okay, they’ve been saying the whole time if you’re late, then you get left behind. So being that neither one of us have a cell phone, we decided to do the only thing we knew and go to the hotel and use their phone to call them. It took us another 30 minutes or so to get to the hotel because hardly any of the cab drivers spoke English, which is to be understood, being that we were in China. But it makes for a hard time getting to places in a timely manner. So we got to the hotel and asked the front desk to use the phone and we made the call and nobody picked up. So we went back up to the hotel room and after about 5 minutes, were greeted by a phone call from our trip leader, basically telling us that they waited for us for 45 minutes and they even announced our names over the P.A. system. I felt horrible for making them wait, but at the same time, we are adults, and had been told the whole time that if we were late, we’d be left behind, so I thought we did the best thing possible in the situation.

 

The group had a few other things planned for the day and they told us that we should meet up with them, but to be honest, if I would have waited for somebody for 45 minutes while I was hungry in the cold, I would have been upset, and so we decided to explore on our own for the day. We walked along the streets of Beijing, and decided to see the cultural things as well. We walked down one street and saw everybody just sitting outside of their homes, cooking food and eating together. Everybody looked so happy and we even tried some of the local food. It was really good.

 

We continued to walk down the streets, looking in all of the local stores and meeting the local people. We decided to go to a tea house and get some tea and just relax and try not to worry about the previous events. They refilled our teapot at least 5 times, and by the end of the time at the tea house, I was sweating out caffeine. But I usually don’t like tea, and I still drank so many glasses of it, it was really good tea.

 

Then we went to the place next door for dinner. We walked in and it smelled delicious. The people were so friendly to us, despite the fact that they didn’t speak much English. We got the menu and all of it was in Chinese. One of the nicest ladies there came over and she spoke English very well. She was nice enough to help us with the menu and helped us over. We ordered chicken wings, oysters and fried rice. The food there was probably one of the best meals I have had throughout the whole trip. The oysters were absolutely unlike anything I’ve ever tasted and the chicken wings were seasoned with some of the best Chinese spices.

 

After dinner we went back to the hotel and I decided to use the internet for a little while and then was so exhausted from the days events that I decided to watch some TV and go to bed.

 

Day 5

This was our last day in Beijing and we had a wake up call again at 730 am. Then we headed back onto the bus to set out for some more sightseeing. The first stop was the Temple of Heaven. We stopped here for about an hour or so. It was probably one of the other highlights of the trip. At the Temple of Heaven, a lot of elderly people come in the morning to work out. But it is not just a normal work out; they had every single type of thing that involved physical activity. We walked in and we saw them doing ribbon dancing, and they were all really good and it was actually really cool to watch. It wasn’t just a bunch of random people throwing ribbons around and clumsily bumping into each other, which is probably what you imagined. No, they were all coordinated, they all did the same moves and didn’t even think twice about it. You could tell they really enjoyed things like this.

 

Next, we continued in, and right next to the ribbon dancers was couples dancing. They had couples of men and woman and couples of woman who were best friends dancing together. And this was really similar to the ribbon dancing. Everybody knew the same dance and they were all in sync. It was even relaxing to watch. It was so early in the morning, and they had so much energy. Next to the couples dancing was sword dancing, which was really cool too, and everybody was, once again, really good at it. Then we walked up the corridor to get into the temple and one corridor had a whole row of older men and woman playing cards and dominos. I don’t think I saw a single person without a smile on their face. They were all laughing and smiling and enjoying themselves. It really hit me; these people were perfectly satisfied with playing cards with some of their oldest friends. I guess you figure, they work so hard their whole lives, going to school over 12 hours a day for 16 years, just to work in a stressful job for 16 hours a day; they deserved the relaxation. I thought of Nanna playing Bingo back in the States. You would have loved this place, Nanna, and would have fit in perfectly.

 

As we started to walk up into the temple, I saw some more people singing, in groups and solo. Also, people were dancing in small and large groups and some other people were just simply relaxing and talking with friends. Then we got into the temple. It was a beautiful place. The main temple was decorated with so many colors and this place was truly amazing and I felt so happy just to be in the presence of these people.

 

Next stop was the market. Bad news. China is known for its knock off things that look so real. And they gave us a whole 2 hours there. And people in China are VERY persistent when it comes to buying their things. They promise you the best price and best quality. Michael warned us that when we went in, the quality got worse and worse the further down in floors you went. So we started at the top floor, with pearls that were 23,600 Yuan ($4300), and worked our way down to the bottom. I bought a lot of stuff on the third floor which was shoes and handbags. Some for myself, and others I bought as gifts.

 

The bottom floor had ipods, Wiis, Nintendo’s, and other various electronics for sale. My ipod has broken on this trip, but I figure, if I can barter the price of my ipod, it is probably not the best quality. I knew better than to go for the electronics. Michael said they usually last about an hour or so and then die, well at least the watches. Because most of them are made out of plastic.

 

After the market, we headed to lunch. Lunch was good and they even served us French fries which was refreshing to eat some American food as well. After lunch, we made our last stop at the Lama Temple. This place was really cool too. They had one of the largest Buddha’s in the world. It stood 26 meters tall. It was so enormous, and it was carved out of a tree hundreds of years ago. We walked through the temple for about an hour or so and then headed back to the bus to head to the airport.

 

Once at the airport, a lot of people had to check their luggage because they had bought so much at the market (including myself). So it took a little longer than our first flight. We waited at the airport for about an hour and a half. We all got some snacks and waited at our boarding gate. At about 500, we boarded the plane. We sat on the plane for about an hour so because I guess there was a little bit of a delay. But we finally lifted off around 6 and the flight was about 2 hours to Shanghai. Once we finally arrived in Shanghai, we found our bus driver and we boarded the bus to head back to the ship. The drive was about 20 minutes, and the city was amazing. It was so beautiful. The lights were all so colorful and bright. The architecture was so amazing too. I saw some of the coolest buildings ever.

 

We got to the ship, and the line to have our bags checked was so long, so that took about another half an hour to actually get our bags checked and get back on the ship. So by that time it was around 9 pm. I wasn’t going to go out, but I was hungry so Jaclyn and I decided to go and grab some food somewhere. There was a really cool restaurant at the top of one of the buildings that had really awesome lights and the top was a ball, which was a rotating restaurant. We decided to go there. Anders came with us and we grabbed a taxi. We told the man where we wanted to go, and after about 5 minutes of hand gestures, the man got the idea of where we wanted to go. When we finally got there though, the restaurant and building was closed. We were so hungry and the language barrier was so hard, we stopped and asked several times where we could get food. But nobody really understood, so we just settled for McDonald’s.

 

After McDonald’s, we went next door to a place called KTV karaoke. We got to rent out our own Karaoke room for 36 Yuan an hour (about $5) and we got some drinks and we sang our hearts out. It was a great time, but after three hours, we were exhausted and decided to head back to the ship. That took about another hour or too. We got lost and trying to communicate with our taxi driver was a struggle. But we made it to the ship and went to sleep pretty late, but still made it nonetheless.

 

Day 6

Last day in China. We awoke later and I had a trip to go on at 300 for one of my classes. So Jaclyn wanted to go to a market, and I decided that I would go with her for a couple hours. She googled a placed and we got it in Chinese writing so that it would be easier to show the cab driver and we wouldn’t have any problems. So we got in the cab and he took us to where we wanted to go and it ended up being the local museum. We were kind of confused, but there was a lady waiting outside of our cab who kept saying, “Market?” We looked at her a little strange, and Jaclyn showed her the paper with the name of the market and she nodded and seemed like she knew where to go. So we walked through the museum and downstairs and outside behind the museum and it was market galore.

 

The lady was like our own personal market tour guide. She took us to a purse shop and the lady took out a wall and took us in this back room. They had so many purses, and as we were going into the little room, the lady goes, “Hurry, before the police come”. I couldn’t tell if she was kidding or serious. But we looked at the purses for a little and we bargained and I got a nice purse for Yuan and a cup of coffee. They were really nice people. We continued through the market for Jaclyn to look for shoes or whatever her heart desired, I had done way too much shopping the day before. We walked around for about another hour or so and then decided to head back to the ship because I had to be back by 3 for a day trip for one of my classes.

 

We hailed a cab right outside of the museum, and we showed him the address of the ship in Chinese and of course, he didn’t know where it was. So he called his friend to find out. We headed back to the ship, and Jaclyn and I decided that we wanted to stop at a supermarket to get some snacks for the room. We decided to stop at a local convenience store, nothing too special, and got a few snacks. Our taxi driver waited for us and then we headed back to the ship. The taxi driver got a little confused I guess because he took us the opposite direction, away from the ship. We tried to tell him to make a U-turn and turn around and go the other way and he just smiled and nodded. So I let Jaclyn take the reins and he turned around and we got dropped off near the ship.

 

We got back with a few minutes to spare before my trip, so I grabbed a snack and my backpack and headed out to meet my group. We had two buses and we were heading to the Children’s Palace. This was like an after-school daycare, kind of like Bar-T in the U.S. We got there at about 345, right when the kids began to show up. We toured the facility and saw all of the different kinds of rooms. They had rooms for dancing, ballet, sketching, piano practice and other random interests. We sat in on an instrument recital of a 16 year old boy and girl. They played two different instruments that I had never seen before, but it was so amazing to watch them play. They were some of the most amazing musicians that I have ever seen, and they were only 16 years old. Then we moved on to see some of the younger kids dancing. They were probably around 6 or 7 years old and they were so cute, but so nervous. But once they started performing, they were so enthusiastic, and so in sync. It was a really fun experience to see all these kids.

 

After about an hour of visiting the palace, we headed back to the ship. Our on ship time that night was 6pm, so I got on the ship at about 5pm, and ate dinner and then did a little homework, and fell asleep pretty early. China was so exhausting that I needed as much sleep as I could get. I really enjoyed seeing all of the things that we did.

 

Our next stop is Japan and we arrive there tomorrow morning. It is the same thing that we did in China. We are sailing to two different places. We arrive in Kobe tomorrow morning and have two days, and then we have one day of sailing to Yokohama, where we will be for another two days. Three more ports and a little more than a month left. The ship life is still pretty consistent, nothing really new going on here. Still having an amazing time and miss everybody at home.

 

Love,

Caitlin