UH OH! Border Snafu!

(Emily and Cady)

Greetings to America from Em and Cady,

Well, today was very eventful to say the least. By eventful, in this case, I don't mean in an entirely good way, though it was one of those days that will probably be very funny to look back on AFTER the trip. Besides, there are good things to tell as well!

Anyways, we got up by about 7:30 for our last morning in Hong Kong. We decided to go searching for tai chi by the harbor before breakfast, though we never actually found anyone practicing tai chi. It was a gorgeous morning, the nicest we've had yet- there was no fog on the water, and the sun was even out! That made the walk by the water front absolutely beautiful and a perfect ending to our time in Hong Kong. The area around the water front is a lot like the Hollywood walk of fame- there are handprints and names of many different famous chinese actors (including Jackie Chan...and Sammo Hung!!! that one's for the Ahn family...) and a big bronze statue of Bruce Lee. Hong Kong is very glitz and glam which is probably why Ella (an exchange student who came from China last year) compared it to our Hollywood.

So, after our escapades around the harbor we were all rather famished and excited to eat. Ok, enough about that. To the train station! Train ride was pretty uneventful, nice watching out the windows... reading, journaling... and now for Emily's train thoughts:
hi everyone. i don't use caps so just bear with me. viz: this is evidence that i didn't fall asleep on the train! the train ride was really interesting. besides going backwards (more on that later) we got to see a really nice view of rural parts of china. the abject poverty of some parts was emphasized by the backdrop of developing high rises, which i thought was pretty interesting. picture rice paddies with little tin shacks and farm fields with an urban skyline as its backdrop. the dichotomy of the two was really interesting to see. the sight of the yards of cloth draped over the walls of the tin shacks was thought provoking for me because in ds and even hong kong, we haven't seen this type of life, especially one that coexists with such projected luxury (skyscrapers). ok those were just some ramblings from me and cady's bored so now we will tell you the real reason as to why we're writing and why you aren't hearing from terry (who was next in line for the blog writing) or nick (who was second in line). this is all very gov- line of succession esque.

soooooo. after the train station, nick, drew, cady, and i went through customs no problemo. then after waiting for terry and ric for some time, we realized that something was up. cady went investigate.
(back to proper capitialization). It seemed like Ric was having difficulty getting through customs, and upon further inspection it was discovered that he indeed no longer had a visa to China. The problem was actually that he was technically supposed to be in China yesterday (Hong Kong doesn't count unfortunately) and since he wasn't, the visa expired. UH OH. So Terry is trying to stay calm while the customs guy, who was actually very nice all things considered, was telling her that her husband had to return to Hong Kong and re-apply for a visa. All said and done, Ric did have to go back to Hong Kong, where I assume he is now, and we continued on into Guangzhou, which is where we are now.

hi, emily again. after the whole fiasco with the ric not being able to enter the country, we decided to go on with the day. rosie, our lovely and very knowledgable guide met us at the trainstation and in a matter of minutes i had learned that guangzhou has 9 million residents and 3 million migrant workers/foreigners, so there are 12 million people in the city altogether. however, guangzhou has a 15 million person cap, so the city is close to its limit. canton is not a city, it is a mispronounciation of the word guangdong, which is the province that guangzhou is the captial of.

Ok, cady here. Rosie took us to a traditional Chinese restaurant for lunch. The food itself was delicious. We got to eat in our own room (the foreigner zone!) and had a whole array of dishes served to us. One of which were oil fried prawns which stared up at us with beady little fried eyes and we, being the gallant adventurers that we are, gobbled them up (maybe a bit of an exaggeration...) with Viz in mind the whole time. Actually, we were quite proud of ourselves because we all tried everything that was presented to us, even those who aren't big seafood eaters (snaps for Drew!). Nick, on the other hand, wasn't feeling great. He got pretty motion sick from the train ride, and took drammamine way too late to save him, so he didn't eat anything except for soup. The meal went well, and we were all quite full when Nick began to look a little pale/green. Well, he didn't actaully appear green, but looking back now it would have been a very appropriate color for him to be. As we're finishing up- popping a few last prawns into our mouths- Nick gets sick. Bummer. Ask him about the story, it's really very funny. Don't worry parents of Nick, he's fine, and getting some sleep now.

back to emily for some info about the tour and whatnot after lunch:
ANYWAYS, we went to the dr. sun yat-sen memorial where we learned about the revolution that took place and the beginnings of the kuomintang (KMT/nationalist party). i was amazed to hear that dr. sun yat-sen was indeed pro-communist and that he was all for cooperation, unlike his successor chiang kai-shek. the memorial itself is a huge theater housed in an ornate traditional pagoda shaped building complete with a 5 meter bronze statue in front. inside, the theater was painted in only blue (representing the sky), red (people's color), and yellow (emperor's color) to symbolize the things he stood for and what he was to the people (a leader/emperor).

after visiting the memorial, we went to the chen family temple, which was a nondenominational house of worship that was donated (cady and i are suspicious that donated could be a double entendre for seized, but this is all conspiracy theory) in 1949 to the government. i didn't find it very interesting but it was gorgeous with many ornate wood, ivory, and stone carvings. i thought that it was a little too touristy for me (there were trinket shops inside the temple, which kinda ruined the ambience...it's one of our words of the week).

cady's turn

Speaking of the temple, I thought it was so beautiful, it reminded me a lot of being inside of the Alhambra in Spain. Just the attention to detail inside, combined with the sunny day made for a really nice scene. Lots of good angles- yes, I have been taking good care of the camera mom.

Alright, this has actually gotten very long. Internet is going to be the first thing in mainland China we spend RMB on! Can we just turn this entry in as our position paper? Well, that's it for now. Oh wait, impressions of Guangzhou real quick:
Contrary to Hong Kong, the urban parts of Guangzhou seem to exist because cities need to. Hong Kong is all about show and excess whereas Guangzhou is a little more laid back, and a little less chic (let's you breathe a little more... no irony intended). Old Guangzhou is very romantic (Emily thinks it's like Moulin Rouge- romantic in a grungy way with laundry hanging out the windows to dry and vines growing on the apartments) as we have decided to deem it, and pleasant to walk around. Actually, Em Drew and I went for a walk and found men selling many a live sea critter. Again, we thought of you, Viz.

OK OK OK we're done!! Much love to you all!

Toothbrushes and Lantau Island

(Drew)

I woke up at 6:30 to take a shower before heading to our breakfast in the hotel. The view from the breakfast room is absolutely breathtaking. As we sat and devoured our western style breakfast we overlooked the channel between Kowloon and Hongkong. Massive cruise ships and barges passed through the narrow channel.

During breakfast Ric had some news for us. A sigh of relief followed by a celebration with fireworks and a marching band (slight exageration) came when team China heard that Mitt Romney had dropped out of the Presidential Race. Nick and I have clearly not adjusted to the water situation. Everything must be bottled water. After Breakfast i heard a loud yell from the bathroom in our hotel room as nick announced that he had forgotten to use the bottled water to wet his toothbrush. Nick then rinsed his toothbrush again with bottled water. I commented how bad we are at remembering to use the bottled water. Nick nodded in agreement as he proceeded to put his toothbrush under the tap water again... another loud yell of frustration from nick and i was on the ground laughing hysterically. Only 5 minutes later i used the tap water on my own toothbrush. We have work to do.

We took the MTR to Lantau to take a lift up into the hills and see the "Big Buddha". The ride up gave us a panaramic view of all of Hong Kong and Kowloon. We arrived in the village at the top that was more of a
tourist attraction than a real "village". The "Big Buddha" was biggerthan i even imagined it to be. Many flights of steps led up to the Buddha which towered over its observers at least 40ft. At the base insence filled the air around Po Lin Temple. Many worshipers lit insence of all shapes and sizes. The outside of the temple was covered in stone work of what looked like chinese scholars and dragons. The trip was very well documented on the cameras the group brought. Unofortunatly the temple and the large Buddha seemed to be more of a tourist attraction and a good photo than a place of real worship. I found my self being rather hypocritical when i commented on everyone taking pictures of everything rather than really enjoying what was there. Of course that was what i had been doing the entire time.

We entered a tea shop before departing from the village. The tea shop showed us the traditional way of serving tea and all the items needed to prepare for it. We were given a list of many different types of tea to choose from. Our group was split in two, our group (me,nick and emily) ordered the famous Dragon Well Tea from Hangzhou. The cups given to us were similar to the size of thimbles so we must have gone through about 25 cups of tea each. It goes without saying, it was delicious. Team China are tea addicts.

We took the cable car back to the base of the hills on Lantau. The group decided that taking the ferry back would be more fun than the MTR so we preemtively boared what we thought would take us back to
Hong Kong. Unfortunatly we were quite far away from our intended destination and had ended up traveling north to the western part of Kowloon.

By the time we got back to Hong Kong we were absolutely starving and some of us (not mentioning names) were grumpy. Some honey glazed pork, garlic chicken hot pot and noodles quickly fixed that problem.

Our adventures in China have been everything i expected so far. Hong Kong is so full of life but enough places speak english so the culture shock has not killed me yet. My legs are completely dead after each day, but the girls just keep going and going. Our hotel room can be a relief at the end of the day.

Jetlag? Ha! Team China scales Victoria Peak on the first morning!

(Cady)

Ni hao and hello to everyone!

I am currently sitting in an internet cafe in Kowloon with Em enjoying some hot tea. Actually, I don't have much room for the tea because we had such a huge lunch, but I'll get to that. Well, we have been in Hong Kong for less than 24 hours, which quite frankly is amazing because it feels like it's been ages. We seem to have already accomplished so much. Come to think of it, we've spent more time traveling to China thus far than we have actually experiencing it! Now, I'm sure you folks at home are all wondering how the excruciating total of 21 hours in the air turned out. Truth be told, it wasn't so bad. I believe Terry is going to write an entry tonight about our day(s) of travel, so I won't get into the gory details of the flight. All I can say is thank god for sleeping medication- Heath Ledger here we come. Not to worry though one and all, we are all quite well and not dead in any way shape or form. Actually quite a bit of today was spent improving our form, but I'll get to that as well. We finally arrived in Hong Kong at around 6 pm last night, Wednesday, February 6. We were all, not surprisingly, quite energetic and eager to walk around once arriving at the YMCA, which is where we're staying. The hotel turned out to be very nice, and once we spent twenty minutes or so settling in we set out to find some sustenance.

When we first arrived in Hong Kong it struck us as being much like NYC: lots of skyscrapers, people, and lights. Upon walking around however, we discovered that Hong Kong is far more eclectic than New York, and much more neon as well. Not to mention, full of exceptionally trendy people. We have spotted more amazing boots here than is believable, but leave it to Em and myself to notice that. Really though, Hong Kong is vibrant and modern- very East meets West. The architecture is amazing too, I find myself snapping photos right and left because all of the buildings have so much character. Anyways, we ended up settling on a little upstairs Szechuan restaurant, whose neon sign must have particularly caught out eye. The food was excellent, taking a page out of the book of Viz we ordered a vast array of food and shared everything. It turned out that we were quite hungry and fish (yes, Nick and Drew both tried it!) szechuan beef, scallion rolls, and very spicy chicken were all devoured. First dining experience in China: success!

After filling of travel weary bellies we decided to visit the night market in Victoria Park. It seemed like literally every extremely trendy young person, group of people, or couple had come out to the night market. We waited in line for a good half hour, which served for an excellent people-watching experience. Once we actually got into the market though it was so packed that we couldn't even move! We were basically forced to surge with the crowd, it was much like a crowded concert or the opening of the first Ikea in Massachusetts... So, we decided to head back to the YMCA, but the journey was good overall because it prepared us to use the metros today. Once returning to our rooms we journaled a bit and fell into bed. Amazingly enough we all managed to be down for breakfast by eight this morning. In fact, despite the fact that we didn't end up going to bed until about 3 am, we crawled out of bed with relative ease at 7:15 this morning. So much for jet lag. The buffet breakfast at the hotel was further proof of Hong Kong's eastern and western influence as I had dumplings, steamed pork buns, scrambled eggs, and toast all on a single plate. Quite delicious. It was a bit misty in the morning, but we decided to tackle Victoria Peak, and I mean that quite literally.

First though, the metros- they are absolutely wonderful. Efficient and extremely clean, the metros are great for getting from one place to another in Hong Kong. Rick said that being in the metro here (which they call the MBT I believe) looks like an asian version of the London tube stations. I find it very comparable to the metro in Rome as well. I guess that's what a hundred years under British rule will do to a place; give it good public transportation. We've taken the metro quite a bit not, but have yet to take the Star Ferry, though I believe we plan on doing that tomorrow. This morning we took the metro over to Hong Kong Island and walked from Central Station to the Peak Tram. Seeing Hong Kong during the day was awesome, lots of hustle and bustle. So we get to the Tram and Team China decides that we'd really like to walk up Victoria Peak. It sounds easy enough- walk up past the botanical gardens, find Old Peak Road, and follow it to the top. Rick and Terry stick with the tram and we arrange to meet at the top. Team China then sets off on our adventure. The first people we asked for directions literally told us to turn back, I think they thought we were a little bit crazy for wanting to walk up the peak when we could take the perfectly good tram. Crazy? Ha! So we continue on, meanwhile the roads are getting steeper and steeper. Wow, it's just like being in the Andes Mountains again. The roads eventually give way to a concrete path that winds up the forested peak. The road was beautiful- the best word that I can think to use for the trees is craggly, which isn't even a word according to Yahoo spell check. Actually, just think Lord of the Rings and you can have a pretty clear picture of what the area was like. Of course, ascending the peak turned out to be a bit more physically draining than we anticipated, but arriving at the top, all of us quite a bit more sweaty than we were at the beginning, was a fantastic feeling.

Once we reached the top, quite a feat indeed, we relaxed for a bit in a coffee shop, and then the six of us took a walk around the top of the mountain, which to our delight was flat contrary to the vertical nature of our precious "stroll." We decided to take the tram down the mountain, and visit the Manmo temple. The walk there from the tram station was nice- it took us through the "SoHo" area of Hong Kong, which is where much of the international population comes to play. We saw the outdoor escalators and every type of international restaurant we could possibly imagine. The temple seemed very preserved, considering that everything outside of it was several stories higher and much more modern. The air inside was thick and smokey with incense and the floor was packed with people, mostly of the older generation, looking for a blessing on the New Year. We didn't do the whole routine, but we did donate some money, beat a drum, and ring a bell. Afterwards it was scrounging time again and we settled on a Greek and Mediterranean restaurant called Olive. We decided it wasn't cheating not to eat Chinese food since the international food in that section of Hong Kong is such a part of the culture. The food was excellent- complete with pita, babaganough, and olives (as the name would suggest). After lunch we were ready to return to the Y and hunt down a source of internet.

So now were we are. Nick has joined us here, so you should all be able to see the pictures he uploaded from today. Tonight is the New Year so we should be seeing a parade and fire works in about two hours. Anyways, this has gotten long enough, so zai jian everyone!

Gung Hay Fat Choy! (Happy New Years! in Cantonese)

[and here's what they'll be seeing tonight! .... Ms. Viz]

China Bound!

(Ms. Viz)

As always, the morning of departure comes with excitement and a bit of apprehension that things go smoothly and the group gets off without a hitch. Compared with the major snowstorm and the delays of last year, this morning was a piece of cake, until we noticed that Emily's name had been misprinted on her ticket! At least 10 people must have proofread the ticket before departure but never caught it. Luckily she was able to fly but will have to undergo special security searches. With her backpack filled to the brim it will make life a bit more interesting! Nevertheless, this group's good spirits could not be daunted by such a minor glitch. Their enthusiasm and excitement are unmatched. It was with a mix of joy and sadness that we said goodbye at the gate; they have been a pleasure to work with and Dover-Sherborn is very lucky to have them as this year's exchange group.