iSeeVines.com

Thanks for the comments to my last post! I’m trying to figure out how to reply to them because I’ve seen blogs that do that. For now I can’t do that when I’m here since I can’t spend that much time on the computer – I’m still at my uncle/aunt’s house. Not counting today, I only have 8 days left in Hong Kong before I head back to Vancouver! Kind of disappointed that it’s ending so soon already. Luckily I’ve visited almost everywhere I wanted to go. Before I didn’t want to go to places because it’s way too hot (32C does that to you) and now it’s just thunderstorms and pouring rain. Great.

Since this trip, I have taken over 1,200 pictures and already filled up my 2GB memory card. Not to mention the 256mb of my backup camera because I forgot to charge the battery of my main camera. Thanks to my uncle who “lended” me his 8GB memory card, I can take more pictures in my last week here in Hong Kong.

HK Harbour (to Central)

On Wednesdays, the museums in Hong Kong are all free, meaning we all went to visit the ones that were interesting. And this meant us walking for 5+ hours non-stop until dinner time. While I thought it was worth it, my feet surely don’t. It’s getting bumpy down there and hurting too. We took the tram to Shau Kei Wan to visit the Coastal Defense Museum, had lunch, then MTR down to Tsim Sha Tsui for everything else. We went to the Science museum, History museum, Chinese Arts museum and Space museum (lame) while walking along the broadwalk of the harbour. This is the rare instances where the fog (or smog?) doesn’t overwhelm the view!

We're from Canada!

On Friday, we headed to Macau for a visit. I haven’t visited there since I was a child, so I was due a visit to Hong Kong’s neighbour – an hour boat ride via TurboJet. Luckily I still had Gravol from the cruise to Mexico of last year; I was too lazy to take them out, or you can call it just in case. The boat ride was pretty rocky for me – a easily motion sickness person. We were in luck because while the weather was hot, there was no rain or storm as predicted. Macau’s main revenue stream is of casinos and it has over 30 of them already and 3 more are opening next month. I’m not sure where all these people come from who have the money to spend like that. Or that one person and his family own a lot of the casinos and buildings in Macau. I even got carded once even though the adult age is 18… not 21 like in US. Yay for me looking young? We also went to the Macau Tower, which was definitely less scary when standing on the semi-glass floors since we already got frightened from the Shanghai one.

Bungee Jumper from Macau Tower

But this tower does hold the Guiness World Record for highest bungee jumping place ever. And several tourists did try it out, for a price of $2,100 (MOP/HKD) each and it lasts for 4 seconds. I’d do it if I had that kind of money to spend, and wasn’t wearing my glasses that day.

That’s all for now as I look into how to book our seats because now apparently you can only do it online and 48 hours before your flight. And since our flight is at 12:05am, where are we going to find a computer to do so?! This does not make sense. It’d be easier if I was travelling by myself and it was one seat! We’re figure it out, there are free computers at the MTR stations and the last train is way past midnight… so we’ll pay to go in and get out, I guess!

As I sit in my uncle/aunt’s house again for the third time, I finally have time to blog about my visit to Hong Kong. I’ve been here for a week and a half now and half of that had been in China. We joined a local tour to Suzhou, Hanzhou, and Shanghai for 5 days. It was pretty interesting, but a lot of it was looking at lakes and trees – which we have plenty in Vancouver.

West Lake in Hanzhou

So that didn’t really make much difference other than the sheer size of the lake. We went on a boat tour (the first of many) and the sun was unkind to the Hong Kong older ladies as they all pulled out their umbrellas to shield them away from the sun.

Shanghai was pretty special though since it is supposed to take over Hong Kong as China’s main financial district within 10 to 20 years. As we travelled either by foot or in the coach bus, we can see that there are construction sites everywhere for not only office buildings but also condominiums. Everywhere there are lands, there are cranes in place. These buildings also are growing taller as they all try to reach for the tallest thing around. The most famous of the buildings is the Shanghai Oriental Pearl TV Tower. We witness this in the boat tour (the third and final one) to watch as the Shanghai skyline light up as the sky darkened.

Shanghai Oriental Pearl TV Tower

As for the Tower, at first we didn’t want to go on it because it seemed like it wasn’t worth it as the admission now both cover going up and the museum, but since we weren’t going to come back to Shanghai any time soon, we decided to go for it. The view is pretty nice up at 241 feet but the best part was a few feet under in the level under. It was another platform that just opened May 1, where there are glass floors as the extension so you get a chance to stand on the glass and look down. Holy that was a different view. Pictures to come later because they ended up on the other camera as I forgot to charge my camera’s battery. (Grumbles)

But as I have guessed, 90% of the places in my trip had ‘hole in the ground’ for toilets. This is everywhere other than the hotels (room and lobby) and some places in Shanghai where the buildings are newer. It’s still pretty nasty, especially when some people don’t flush. Ugh, so I ended up holding my breath and kept my wandering eyes ahead and nowhere else.

Right now my parents and uncle/aunt are outside playing MahJong as usual, much like they did yesterday. And I’m totally having trouble changing the keyboard back to English instead of typing in Chinese, even though I pressed the EN key on the taskbar. Hmph. I wonder when they’re going to end because it’s already 10pm and they have work/school tomorrow while we don’t. And this isn’t Saturday back home where they end up playing until 4 in the morning!

That’s all for now. Hope to travel to Macau soon! I haven’t been there since I was about 4 years old.

DAY THREE, what up (or down). I said in my last post that I should go pack. Well, I’m putting it off until the weekend at least since I still gotta wash a bunch of stuff before packing ‘em in. So today is another less than interesting post about what I like and don’t like about Hong Kong. Woo, stay in your seats everyone.

Up

Traveling to Hong Kong means that I will be needing to read Chinese and speak Cantonese 24/7. That is totally different than what is going on here. The only time I speak or read either is when I’m with my parents; the rest of the time is me reading, speaking, and writing in English. So yes, my level of fluency in Chinese deteriorated immensely since the last time I went back. This will be interesting. My relatives at least weren’t going what the beep when talking to me. More than likely my Chineseness will come back out when I get back and get used to thinking of words in Chinese instead of translating it from English back to Chinese.

Chinese Neon Light Banners (from muddum27)

I remember last time I was even watching the English channels (and got yelled at by my grandma) just to get some English in me (or that there weren’t anything else good that was on after the drama shows were over). Or that was when I finally watched an episode of Doctor Who then got sucked into it after I went home. Good times.

Down

The only time you would see a lot of high-rises and skyscrapers is when you head to Downtown Vancouver. Condominiums only started to shoot up in the sky in recent years, and even then their heights are limited to 20-30 (rarely up to 40) levels. And considering the amount of two-level housing in Vancouver, its sightline is plentiful.