Hong Kong (June 2018)

Posted on August 4, 2018 by drbonnieanderson under Asia, China

We arrived in Shenzhen by high speed train. A bit of a hassle and two bus rides to get through the border into Hong Kong–Chinese Special Administrative Region.

The girls and female chaperones stayed at the L’Hotel Island South. The boys stayed at the Andersen’s house. After getting settled, we walked to the Andersen’s house (mostly—Allen Andersen picked us up in his Mini Cooper to take us up the mountain, 4 people at a time), Jill Andersen was very sweet. She had been preparing for weeks to have all the food ready. We had sloppy joes, green salad, chips and salsa, baked beans, watermelon. Also chocolate chip cookies and ice cream for dessert. They have a very nice house. Jill also obtained octopus cards (for all purchases in the city) for the whole group.

The next day we took the subway (MTR) to the Deep Water Bay and took junk boat out to Bluff Island in the South China Sea (1.5 hr ride).

Most of us jumped off the roof of the boat several times.

Lauren went in the motor boat to the island since she didn’t want to swim (but she got stranded there and soaked in a rainstorm before we were able to get her picked up again).

The water seemed very salty. Amy, Stephanie, and I got to ride on the banana boat (inflatable). We got dumped a few times, but were laughing most of the time.

There had been some light rain a few times, but then a huge storm hit. It was so bad with lightning that the boat captain made everyone get in the boat for a while. The rain was pretty cold. Lots of people with stomach illness today (some more with motion sickness). Lunch on the boat was great US fare—Jill Andersen made sure of that. Back on shore we walked to the mall and got food for dinner from the City Supermart. Then we took the Star Ferry to Kowloon Island (ICC) so we could look back at the Hong Kong skyline and watch the laser/light show. Quite a walk to get back to the hotel using the subway.

The next day we went all over Hong Kong. Periodic downpours didn’t slow us down. We took the subway, then a double-decker bus up to Victoria Peak. Hiked around then took a funicular tram down—it was so steep in places we were standing at a steep angle.

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These squares are indented for a better grip on the steep ride.

I’m standing upright–the tram is at a steep angle.

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Walked through some interesting local food markets on our way to a dim sum lunch.

We took a double-decker street car and subway to get to the Sky 100 Observation Deck at 393 meters. The rain limited the view somewhat—but still very interesting.

We walked through the jade market, then a series of touristy market streets.

We enjoyed Italian food at Amaroni’s for our farewell dinner.

Some went to see the Hong Kong temple; sick kids went straight back to the hotel.

We left for the airport early the next morning. Several people sick, some really ill in the airport. We waited as long as we could to decide if they needed to stay longer in Hong Kong. Ended up boarding everyone.

Lots of pepto, Imodium, cough drops, ibuprofen on the 12-hour flight to Seattle. One student even fainted in the aisle, making for a bit of drama including paging the whole plane for a doctor on board. Lauren and I were glad that we didn’t catch whatever was going around.

A few other random photos from Hong Kong:

China-Yangshuo (June 2018)

Posted on August 4, 2018 by drbonnieanderson under Uncategorized

We took a scenic Li River cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo.

There were beautiful landscapes (including the image on 20 yuan bill), some rain sprinkles. It was relaxing being on the top deck. I even saw some cormorants with local fisherman.

Lauren was impressed with the bathroom on the boat.

Our hotel was on West Street which is the main night market and shopping street. It was a little confusing finding our room (when we didn’t read the top part of the sign).

We went cycling in the countryside by a river and through rice paddies, blazing hot and sticky (93 and 90% humid).

We stopped at a 500-year-old farmhouse and got to learn from the family that lives there.

We ordered four custom Chinese name stamps (chops).

Sarah (born in the year of the dragon) is the top left stamp–An Yueqin

Lauren (a sheep) has the bottom left stamp–An Yili

Emily (a pig) is the bottom right–An Xinyi

Rachel (also a pig) is the top right–An Xinrou

They turned out really nice. Emily and Rachel can use them on their homework at school because those are the names they use in the Chinese part of their classes.

In preparation for our cooking class, we walked through a local market with live and butchered animals. They even had sliced up dogs and other animals hanging up. There were bags of live frogs. Some of the kids were really bothered. In addition we saw all sorts of spices and vegetables.

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Bags of live frogs and a bowl of live eels

Then we got a cooking lesson at Cloud 9 with each of us making jiaozi dumplings, egg rolls, and chicken/veggie stirfry. Tasty! There was a time when we all had our woks and spicy food smoking so all of us started coughing and had a hard time breathing.

We went to a rural family farm where we did some farming (hoeing and planting sweet potatoes) cooking rice flower cakes, and small basket weaving.

Then we went on a tour of Silver Cave.

I got Lauren to join me in “fish therapy” foot massage.

China-Guilin (June 2018)

Posted on August 4, 2018 by drbonnieanderson under Uncategorized

Guilin.

We spent most of the day at the Longji Village and rice terraces. We had to switch to smaller park busses to drive the windy potholed roads. We had to hike up windy steps for so long to the restaurant. About 10 of our group got left behind and we didn’t realize until we were at the restaurant. They didn’t have tickets, so An Laoshi had run all the way down to get them, then come back up. Lunch was good. The view from the top was great. We saw local women who cut their hair for the first time when they are 18–then never again. They wear the cut hair, and the hair the falls out (pulled from the hairbrush) all wrapped together with their current hair.

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“Bacon rock”

Dinner at the Left Bank Restaurant included French fries, pizza, and battered fries bananas. People were really happy. The Hotel Guilin Universal had soft beds! But window into bathroom (with a blind).

Several of us walked to the waterfall show to see the largest man made waterfall in China (water cascading down the side of a hotel, with lights to make a rainbow and music—underwhelming. We also walked to Fir Lake and took pics of the gold and silver (Sun and moon) pagodas and Elephant Trunk Mountain.

It was pouring rain when we arrived at the Guilin train station to head to Hong Kong.

The safety sign on the escalator in the Guilin train station.

Unfortunately, there (temporarily) wasn’t any running water in the train station, so the bathrooms were beyond disgusting. Too gross for photos. We took the high speed train to Shenzhen.

China-Zhangjiajie (June 2018)

Posted on August 3, 2018 by drbonnieanderson under Uncategorized

We arrived in Zhangjiajie pretty late and tried to figure out the light switches.

One funny thing about breakfast at the hotel was a woman frying eggs outside and setting plates through the window.

The passes to Zhangjiajie National Forest Park were pretty expensive (245 RMB ~40 USD) and ensure we didn’t transfer them, they were paired with our thumbprint. We also had to show them our passports. Like Zion National Park, they have shuttle busses to get tourists to the various areas. Our first stop was the Golden Whip Brook. Our first encounters with the monkeys. The mountains here are famous for being the mountains in Avatar (the movie).

Some bumpy riding in the little tan busses over rough road was kind of crazy.

Ate lunch at an interesting restaurant. We had battered and fried tiny fish, giant salamander soup with tofu, misc other.

After lunch we walked to another park entrance and took a purple bus to the cable car station. Nice ride up between some of the mountains. Walked around and got some great views.

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Also fed some monkeys. Some got aggressive.

A cable car and three busses later we made it to the Grand Canyon Glass Bridge-just before closing. We had to wear booties over our shoes.

Something crazy for dinner. It looked too much like teeth for me to eat.

The next day we visited Tianmen Shan. It has the longest cable car ride. Check out the ladder on the face of the cliff.

They have several walkways that are along the cliff face, including another glass walkway.

The have a transmountain escalator, which is twelve long escalators that can take people down (or up) through the mountain from the top (where the cable car goes) to the famous hole in the mountain–Heavenly Gate Tianmen. It’s huge.

Then we got to walk down 999 stairs, lots of twitchy legs at the bottom.

We rode a teal park bus down the windy road–99 curves and switchbacks. The driver went fast and we were sliding all over the seats. Then we took a different teal bus back to cable car station and the tour bus to lunch.

Then on to train station for another sleeper train. I’m on the top bunk this time. The students tried to all fit in one compartment.

We arrived at Liuzhou on our way to Guilin. We had to take a bus between train stations in Liuzhou at 5 am.

China-Xi’an (June 2018)

Posted on August 3, 2018 by drbonnieanderson under Uncategorized

We took an overnight sleeper train from Chengdu to Xi’an. The train cars were pretty warm most of the time, but the bunks were softest beds so far. I had a bottom bunk and Lauren had a middle. You can tell there’s not much room in a top bunk–but they are the closest to the ventilation.

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The bathroom was locked at stations so people couldn’t use it (because it dumps directly onto the train tracks.)

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We arrived in Xi’an around 7:30. It was already shaping up to be a very hot day (it ended up getting to 100 degrees). We rented bikes and biked along the Xi’an city walls—oldest and best preserved in China. Really wide and decent to bike on.

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We went to the Muslim Quarter. This was historically the end/start of the silk road, so there are still lots of Muslims here. We tried the dragon’s breath treat (puffed cereal soaked in liquid nitrogen). There were lots of food stalls and knick knacks.

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We had some interesting food for lunch including noodle soup (tastes like somen) but also had tiny shrimp.

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Then we went to see the Terra-cotta Warriors. We (and thousands of Chinese tourists) saw the rows of statutes in Pit 1. We saw fragments and weapons in Pit 3, and the wholly intact kneeling archer in Pit 3 and metal chariot in the museum. Everyone was sweating like crazy. It’s hard to tell how huge these pits are.

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For our flight to Zhangjiajie we had extra security at the airport. I liked the sign about getting up slowly after squatting in the restroom. I also loved the nap pod.

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Arrived in Zhangjiajie.

China-Chengdu (June 2018)

Posted on August 3, 2018 by drbonnieanderson under Uncategorized

We spent 10 days at Sichuan University in Chengdu. Chengdu has 18 million people (compared to 8 million in New York City.)

We stayed in the International Students Dorm. The students had Chinese class every morning and we went on outings in the afternoon. We ate breakfast and lunch everyday in the International Student cafeteria (just across the street) each day.

It was nice to get fairly settled. We had little stores nearby for buying water (all the time) and other items. A free washing machine in the dorm too.

Some highlights of the ten days:

Sichuan Province is famous for spicy food. We had a fancy hot pot dinner. The hot pot had a small mild corner, and a bigger hot one. We cooked meat, noodles, kelp, lotus roots, etc. The power went out (no AC) for a while so it was hot in many senses.

Another famous thing in Sichuan is the face changing opera. We went to a performance in an outdoor theater in the park.

Another afternoon we went shopping at the Jinli Old market, and ate dinner there.

The next day’s outing was to the New Global Center indoor waterpark. The New Global Center is the world’s largest building in terms of “floor area.”

Some interesting things about the water park: they only had about half of the slides open at a time, so lines were long. They had elevators to get to the top of some of the rides. They had a loop-de-loop slide (which I went on). I won the mat slide race and had fun on Flowrider (but they only had boogie boards). They were very particular about rules like no metal allowed on the slides. Life jackets required for the wave pool. Very cool tech for the wristbands for lockers and other purchases.

Lauren was pretty tired of Chinese food, so she researched the best burger place in Chengdu: Red Beard Burgers. It took some effort to get there (busses and lots of walking). But the burgers were great and Lauren loved it. We also stopped at a Carrefour store and bought a bunch of American food (Frosted Flakes, Oreos, Lays, Skittles, Pringles) for Lauren to eat later.

On Friday nights the university hosts English Corner where people wanting to practice speaking English with native speakers come. We met lots of nice people and stayed for four hours (until 11 pm).

We had an outing to the People’s Park. They have a match making alley with profiles (mostly sons). Most of us went to a tea house and got our ears cleaned ($5)–it made my ears feel itchy, they use a tuning fork for some reason, some got cleaning and massage too. We rented a motor boat on artificial pond for 30 min–some rented boats with oars. Lauren and I went to rinky dink amusement park including “pedal coaster”, flat track, but we could spin our little car around, then swing ride like Turn of the Century at Lagoon, nice breeze to cool off, relaxed in shade near lots of old people playing cards.

We had a full day outing to the Chengdu Panda Research Base and Leshan Buddha. We were able to see about 14 pandas including two babies in incubators, then we walked to red panda area and saw several active red pandas.

DaFuo 大佛 is the biggest old Buddha statue–completed in AD 803. Most of our group went on a he boat ride to see it. Ten of us wanted to hike around it. Quite a few stairs to get to the main line if people. We had to wait about an hour to start going down 330 stairs, really crowded and slow going down. We took photos at the base and got to go back up the steps at our own (much faster) pace. Saw several cool buildings too but got very sweaty. Still sweaty after two hour bus ride.

We had a scavenger hunt which took us all over campus, as well as on the subway, and trying to convince strangers to use their app to unlock a bike for us to ride. The subway is only a few years old so it is very clean and nice (but high security–even your water bottle is scrutinized before boarding). And why the emphasis on not littering packaging materials on the subway?

We also had karaoke night. Lauren was feeling pretty sick so we didn’t stay too long (only 2.5 hours).

For a special treat, the parent (and aunt) chaperones went to lunch with their kids at Peter’s Tex Mex restaurant. The door is pretty heavy, so it has some funny signage.

Lauren and I also went to Red Beard Burgers one more time (and Carrefour again). She bought a t-shirt to take home.

The next day our groups got assigned local families to spend time with. We had Dawn, a Chinese/English professor at Sichuan University help us get to the family, they were very rich and lived in the south part of town, they have 3 cars (including a Tesla) and a driver. We ate snacks and played with the baby (and the caregiver who turned out to be the grandma). They also had a cook. We all rode to pick up the 10-yr-old son Ian from his private international school and his friend David. We took two DiDi (like Uber) cars to get back to their apt. We all made jioza together. It was pretty fun. They also gave us a bunch of other food. We gave them taffy and an adult coloring book. The driver and Dawn gave us a tour of town on the way home including the wedding pavilion where two rivers meet.

After the last morning of classes we headed to the train station. Our bus didn’t have enough room, so some luggage got put in the bathroom.

I got some black sesame ice cream at the McDonald’s at the train station. It tastes like ashes to me.

Some other random photos:

The small north gate 小北门 Xiǎo běi mén is barely wide enough for a person to walk through.

Lots of rental bikes everywhere.

Some serious security fencing at an apartment complex.

A portable toilet seat to wheel over a squatter toilet.

The toilet “trough” in the women’s bathroom at train station.

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We took a sleeper train to Xi’an.

China-Beijing (June 2018)

Posted on August 3, 2018 by drbonnieanderson under Uncategorized

Our first night in Beijing we were surprised at how hard the beds were. They kind of feel like an ironing board. We started our site-seeing in Beijing at Tiananmen Square.

It was a hot day for a long walk through the Forbidden City.

A top-notch bathroom in the Forbidden City.

We took a walk through the Hutongs (narrow streets/alleys/homes). They have communal bathrooms. This photo is of the neighborhood women’s restroom:

Temple of Heaven was interesting to see.

Lunch had some unique items:

HongQiao Pearl Market shopping area was fun for Lauren to bargain. We bought “sunbrellas” to use more for shade than protection from rain.

We had dinner at a famous Peking Duck restaurant.

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Fortunately, it cooled down a little (even rained overnight) for the next day. It was overcast and only 85 degrees instead of 95 degrees like the day before. We rode a chairlift up to the Great Wall of China at Mutianyu. After hiking for a few hours, we took the toboggan (alpine slide) down.

A funny thing at the base was a man who would carry people up to the chairlift in his rickshaw. He played a pop song the all of the high school students knew and sang along.

That evening we had fun at a Peking Acrobat show. Photography is not permitted (but someone in our group took these two pictures).

On our last day in Beijing we went to Beijing Normal University. we spent about 3 hours interacting with HanBan teachers headed to the US to teach Chinese. They were very concerned about rowdy US students.

After lunch we flew to Chengdu, in Sichuan Province.

herdaughteranderson

Monthly Archives: August 2018

Hong Kong (June 2018)

China-Yangshuo (June 2018)

China-Guilin (June 2018)

China-Zhangjiajie (June 2018)

China-Xi’an (June 2018)

China-Chengdu (June 2018)

China-Beijing (June 2018)