Hilo

Honolulu

89th Floor of Taipei 101

Taipei 101

Wu Lai

Taiwan National Palace Museum

China

Can’t believe that it is actually April. I remember getting on this trip and thinking that April will feel like years from now, but it really flew by. China was unforgettable. The first day we got into Hong Kong at around 10 in the morning. it was a little later then what we expected because the seas were really rough the prior few days. Once we got in, I could tell what my professors were talking about when they said that the smog would limit visibility. I could see the other side of the harbor, but down farther was so clouded in smog. I’d say I could see about two miles or so before it became completely white.

I decided to tag along with Mike, Paige, and Jess. We took the star ferry across the harbor to the main island of Hong Kong. The first thing I noticed was the amount of luxury cars. Every other car seemed to be a Mercedes, Lexus, or BMW. There were also a good amount of Porsches and I saw three Bentleys and two Ferraris. The four of us ended up going to this restaurant where a lot of SASers went to because they heard from people who had been and said it was great. The servers would walk around with trays of all kinds of interesting stuff and you just waved them down if you saw something you wanted. It was relatively cheap for the kind of atmosphere they had.

After lunch, we decided to try and find this huge escalator to go up, but when we got there, it was just a series of escalators. Mike and I thought it was cool, but not something to spend forty fives on. Once we got to the top, Paige insisted on going to the zoo and tea museum. We got a little turned around and found the botanical gardens, which was also a bit of a snooze. We cut through those and then into the zoo. At this point, Mike and I were bored. I mean we were in Hong Kong and Paige wanted to spend time looking at lemurs and orangutans. After that, we thought the museum would be a little cooler, but we were wrong. The museum was a bunch of different kinds of tea and different cups of historic value. Good thing the museum was in Hong Kong park, which was a nice place to wait while Jess and Paige went through the tea museum.

After we split up with them, Mike and I got a taxi to the shopping district so Mike could get a bigger backpack for his independent travel. After getting that, we decided to head back to the ship for dinner. We waited until 8 to see the light show that the buildings of Hong Kong performed every night. It wasn’t anything spectacular, but it was neat to see. Because it was earth hour, at 8:30 all of the lights of the buildings turned off which I thought was something cool to see. After watching the skyline, Mike and I met up with Steph and Katie and we decided to walk a few blocks away to check out the night life, until we discovered how expensive everything was. We got back to the ship at around 2:30 after Mike and I decided to sit and watch the skyline by the harbor. The next day, we left for Beijing. The Hong Kong airport wasn’t anything special. They had American stores and American food. Our flight was at 1:55 and I ended up sleeping the whole way, which was about 3 hours. Once we exited out of the terminal, we didn’t find a person waiting for us. Turns out the university completely forgot about our trip so we spent the next 3 and a half hours in the airport. It was surprising how everyone was as patient as we were.

Finally at around quarter to nine, a guide that ISE had booked picked us up from the airport. We were taken to the Jade Palace hotel where we stayed the night. I ended up going down the street with Lee and Russ in order to find some food since we didn’t have too much to eat at the airport. We found a place that was very Chinese. Never before did I have trouble with a language barrier but here, it was almost impossible. I tried to make a hand gesture for drinking while saying coke, and the waitress started cracking up hysterically. So much so, that she had to turn away and a second waitress had to take my order. This didn’t really give me a good feeling about mandarin. The next day, we were picked up by the same tour guide that brought us to the hotel and she told us that we were going to the Great Wall. It was about an hour ride outside of Beijing. I slept a little on the way and once we got there, it was kind of cool and deserted. The hike itself was a lot harder than I anticipated. The stairs were very uneven too. One would be a baby step while the next would be almost waist high. There were a surprising amount of older people climbing the wall too, it was a workout. Once we got to the top of the section, the view was breathtaking. Of course I took pictures, but it doesn’t do the scene real justice. The walk down was a lot easier.

Once we got back on the bus, we went to lunch/jade jewelry dealer. I think they anticipated on us buying things, but not many of us did. After lunch, we went to the Summer Palace. The palace was built on a pear-shaped lake which was huge. There weren’t too many interesting things to look at, but the general setting was very peaceful. After the summer palace, we went out to dinner. That night, we were informed that we would be moving to the university guesthouse. The guesthouse actually turned out to be cooler than the hotel. Oh, the one thing I found in common about all Chinese beds, is that they are ROCK hard. I jumped on my bed at the guesthouse hoping that it would be softer than the one at the Jade Palace, but I was wrong.

But anyway, the next day we went to the Forbidden City, which was cool. It did become repetitive though. We kept passing through sections that looked the same as the previous. Even the professor leading the trip made a comment about the similarity that each section had. It was also very crowded. The guide said they could have up to 50,000 people a day. Once we made our way through, we went across the street to Tiananmen Square. This also wasn’t so eventful. I kind of thought of it like going to Washington D.C. At first, everything you see is cool to look at and take in. As time goes on, it gets boring. After you leave, you realize what you just saw is something amazing that someone, somewhere in the world won’t ever see. So I tried to appreciate the moment as much as I could while it lasted.

After we left Tiananmen Square, we got lunch and then went to the Temple of Heaven. It was kind of embarrassing to see the other SAS kids doing handstands and making a big commotion while some Chinese people were on their knees praying. The temple itself was beautifully colored with reds, greens, and blues. It was pretty cool to be able to see where the emperor of China would once go to pray. After the temple, we went to a Chinese acrobatics show. T his show was great, but no one was allowed to take pictures or video. Some of the acts included men jumping through hopes that were near ten feet high, a guy juggling ten or eleven balls, women with extreme flexibility, and men flipping between two poles. T he whole show reminded me of Cirque De Solei. After the show, we were taken back to the guesthouse. Lee, Russ, and I decided to wander out around the university to try and find something interesting. I ended up trying this amazing skewer of some kind of meat, but it was great. A fter that, we all headed to bed.

The next day, we went to the Zoo to see the pandas. The panda actually looked like a man in a bear suit, but it was awesome to see. The rest of the zoo consisted of some nocturnal creatures, a fat lioness, and some elephants. After South Africa, I think I was a bit spoiled with the creatures. When we left the zoo, we got to see the Olympic Village. The Bird’s Nest was pretty cool see. I never realized how close it was in proximity to the Water Cube. Both were cool to see. After spending about half an hour there, we headed to the airport for our flight. That night, Lee, Russ and I decided to walk around Shanghai for awhile before we all headed to sleep. It was a long couple of days.

The following day, I met up with Mike, Kyle, and Erica. Mike and Kyle had just come back from their independent travel to Beijing. They had seen the same things I had, for about a third of the price. We all decided to check out the Shanghai World Financial Center. Once we got to the foot of the building, we realized it was around $25 American to go to the top, so we all decided to try to go to the top of the Pearl Tower but when we got there, we found that it was the same price. The one thing I noticed about walking around Shanghai during the day was the amount that people spit. Even on the Great Wall, people would hawk lugies left and right like people didn’t care. I mean it was gross, but people there believe that it is a healthy habit and completely acceptable. Another observation I had was how short everyone was, but I kind of expected that. We all ended up having dinner at this awesome place a few block away from the ship. It was about $2.50 American for a hefty portion of some real Chinese food, and the menu was English too! After we ate, we decided to hit a bar that was on the same block. There, the bar owner took a picture of the four of us and put it on the wall of his bar along with other Americans. It was pretty awesome to be immortalized on the wall of a bar in Shanghai.

The next morning, I met up with Kyle and Mike and we went to the market. The process of getting there took about two hours though. We ended up walking in a different direction from the subway stop and took the wrong train. In the ended, we gave up and got into a taxi. The market itself was huge and confusing. If you wanted something, it could be bought here. There were people selling all kinds of things, more so then in Vietnam. There were place I thought were stores that turned out to be malls. I think I counted three Dairy Queens and Two Starbucks just within the vicinity of the market. After the market, the three of us went onto the boardwalk and sat for about half an hour before we left to get back on the ship. The whole experience of China was great, I wish we could have stayed longer.