Hong Kong, Shanghai, and the wonder that is the Great Wall

So, I wanted to start off by apologizing for not having this one done yet. We have had so much to do, and the entire ship is exhausted, trying to chug along to Hawaii, so it’s extremely hard to sit down and write a blog when we really just want to sleep. But here is the blog on our adventures in China….enjoy!

The first day, March 28th, we docked in Hong Kong at about 8 am. We got cleared to get off the ship around 10, after the diplomatic briefing, and we went out with the twins, Pat, Kevin, Amy, and Ellie. It was very surreal to see the skyline after seeing it in pictures so many times and hearing about it from Grandpa. It’s a beautiful skyline with the coolest architecture! We walked around for a while, had lunch at a restaurant called the Red Ant (very good Chinese food and watermelon smoothies!). Then Ellie had to go take a nap, so they left, and the rest of us went to walk around. While we walked on the “Avenue of the Stars”, we literally had a photo shoot. One person asked to take a picture with us, and it turned into a 15-minute long extravaganza of flashes and peace signs. It was quite entertaining and we had a good time hamming it up! After we escaped, we decided to see the rest of Hong Kong on a bus tour. Now, normally, I hate these busses because it’s so touristy, and you feel as though you’re looking in at a museum and taking pictures of things people probably don’t want you taking pictures of. But since we only had one day in Hong Kong, we figured it was the best way to see a major part of the city, so we did it. We took the bus around the Kowloon side, and I’m really glad we did! We got to see the whole side and were told what everything was and what we were looking at along the way. Plus, we were really hyper so it made it so much fun. After we got off there, we got ice cream  and met Kevin, Amy, and Ellie again to go up to Victoria Peak on the Hong Kong Island side. We heard it was a must see, so we took a ferry across the river and then hopped on a double-decker bus to go up the mountain. It was quite an experience. I swore I saw my life flash before my eyes several times…the bus driver had a tire over the cliff at least a few times, and it was really scary. But we made it up there in one piece and got to see the view, which was amazing! You could see everything from up there! We even saw the MV- a tiny speck in the vastness of the harbor. We took a few pictures, and then Kate and I realized we needed to get back because we had promised Luke (the asst. dean) that we’d baby-sit for him that night (there were a lot of big shots on board for a reception that night because they were going to announce the plan for a Sino-US university and other big steps for SAS. The captain for the old ship, Captain Chang, John Tymitz, and C.H. Tung, whose father came up with the idea of SAS, were on board, so it was a big deal). So we took the tram down the mountain and Kate and I hopped in a cab to get back to the ship. It took us about 20 minutes to make it across because of traffic, and we literally sprinted through the terminal (we were attached to a mall, so we ran through that and got some very strange looks!) and made it on, only being 7 minutes late. We baby-sat Abi (3) and Lily (1) from 6:30 until about 10:45, and we watched the Lion King, played “jail” and “house” and had a great time. By the time we were finished, we realized we had missed the light show, which we were really bummed about it because that’s one of the things we were really looking forward to, and we only had one night in HK. Oh well- next time, right?! Victoria, Stephanie, Pat, and us went out to the waterfront to try and find dinner. We went to a really expensive hotel and had dinner at their restaurant/lounge overlooking the harbor and the HK skyline. It was so gorgeous at night, and we all felt very surreal that we were there at all. We had a great meal, listened to some jazz music, and walked back to the ship around 1 am, exhausted! We packed for our trip and fell asleep at 2.

The next morning, we said goodbye to everyone, boarded busses, and drove to the HK airport. It was the biggest and most beautiful airport I’ve ever seen! There were something like 40 terminals- just on our side of the airport- and every restaurant, souvenir shop, Starbucks, and bookstore you could think of! We got to hang around there for a little over an hour, and Kate and I got Starbucks’ hot chocolates and waited for our flight. After boarding, everyone fell asleep, which was perfect because we had a little over 3 hours until we got to Beijing. After landing, we transferred to our hotel in one of the hutong neighborhoods near the Forbidden City, went to dinner with Kara, Danielle, and Brittany, and ate pineapples that someone had just peeled for us- right off the stem. It was great. Then we went back, watched some Chinese Soap Operas, journaled, and went to sleep. The first full day in Beijing, we had continental breakfast, met our awesome guide, Tony (more on him later), and visited the Ming Tombs. On the ship, I’ve been taking a Chinese History Class, so it really fascinated me to actually be in China looking at the wonderful sights and relics I had been reading about. The tomb was huge, and the grounds were so pretty. We even got to walk down the Sacred Way, lined with stone statues and animals (about 1 km), which was really cool! Then we drove about 2 hours to the part of the Great Wall we would be visiting, hiked up to the top of one of the towers, and watched the sunset for an hour. It was absolutely breathtaking. Much like the Taj, it looks nice in pictures, but when you’re actually there, it is awe-inspiring and beautiful in a way you can’t describe in words! From where we were, we could see mountains and valleys, and the Wall built all along it, almost like a snake crawling through China to protect it from enemies. The sunset was amazing, and being there was something we never thought we’d get to do, so we were speechless. We all just sat there in silence watching the sun drop lower and lower until it disappeared behind the mountains- coming up on the other side of the world to wake everyone with dawn. After it was dark, we walked back down the mountain, had dinner at the bottom, and went to the bus to change (aka put every layer of clothing on that we own) and get our stuff ready for the night, and we walked back up to a different part of the wall. After hiking, we set up camp- a mat and a sleeping bag- and just hung out on the Wall for the next couple of hours. We played cards, danced and sang, explored creepy ruins in the dark, and made a really funny video where we jumped out and scared people. Good times. Eventually we had to go to the bathroom, and it was a pickle because there were no bathrooms on the Great Wall, so we found a bucket, went up to the top, and did our thing. It’s interesting because not many people can say they used the restroom on the Great Wall of China. We are truly lucky. Haha. It was an adventure, anyway. Eventually, it was time for sleep, so we all went and snuggled up in our sleeping bags, and tried to fall asleep. That did NOT happen. I’m pretty sure we slept no more than 40 minutes that night. It was FREEZING! I think Tony said it was below 0 and cold is an understatement! My toes hurt so bad- even after I had put on two pairs of socks and my shoes- that at about 2:30, tears were coming out of my eyes, they hurt so bad. I can’t even describe to you how cold and uncomfortable it was! We are never going to complain about it being cold again! We were all counting down the seconds until 6 o’clock when we could get up, and when it came around, we all jumped out of our sleeping bags and started walking/running around trying to warm ourselves up. It was definitely an experience- and one that I’m glad we got to take part in- but also one that I know I’ll never do again!

As we were eating breakfast (moon pies and apple juice), we watched the sunrise, which was just as beautiful as the night before. This time, though, it was amazingly serene and quiet, and because we were on a part of the wall where no other tourists were, it was so quiet and peaceful, you could practically hear the sun whispering as it came over the Wall. As soon as the sun came up, we packed up our camp and headed out for our 6-mile hike to another part of the Wall. This is definitely one of those moments on the trip that we will never forget, such a defining “how-the-hell-did-we-get-here” moment that we were truly blessed to have. The hike was brutal- climbing along the ruins with no handles to help, and sometimes not even stairs. It took us about 3 hours, and we all had backpacks on that slowed us down and made our legs feel like they could give out at any moment. We talked the whole time with Tara, took a bunch of great pictures, and just kept walking and climbing, struggling to make it to the end. We finally reached the end, where we were surprised to see a zip line off of the wall! We waited in line, and then got to ride a zip line from the Great Wall, across a river, to the bottom, where a little boat was waiting to take us to lunch. The zip line was the perfect ending to an amazing day, and I still can’t believe we did it all! We went to lunch and had dumplings, rice, pork, chicken, vegetables, and much-needed hot chocolate, and then got back on the bus and passed out for the ride back to Beijing. Once we got there, we went on a hutong tour, which is the traditional neighborhood in China. We rode rickshaws around, visited a kindergarten (so adorable!), a temple, and a man’s house where we saw newborn puppies and a couple kittens! It was all very interesting, but at this point, we were not even coherent, we were so tired, so we were excited to get back to the hotel. We ended up stopping at a silk marker later that night, where Kate and I haggled for coats, dresses, skirts, and a couple t-shirts before heading back for dinner. That night, we slept like babies, in our warm hotel beds, sheltered from the piercing Beijing winds outside.

The next morning, we got up at 8 am, had breakfast, and took a bus to Tiananmen Square. It was, again, very surreal to be standing somewhere I had learned so much about and seen on the news so much. We took pictures, discussed what the square meant, both historically and now, and even got to walk inside and see Mao’s tomb! It was really creepy to see his preserved body, but it was interesting at the same time. After exploring the square a little more, we visited the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace. Both were beautiful, in their own, contrasting, ways. The Forbidden City was majestic and huge- very imposing and packed full with the history of rulers and dynasties that came before us. We got to see where the last emperor sat, with his mother behind the curtain, ruling until the beginning of last century, and we learned all about the different building strategies that protected the center of the city from attacking enemies. It was very cool. We took a break for lunch where we ate at a fabulous restaurant inside a mall. Tara ate 23 dumplings by herself, we paid a girl 30 RMB to eat the eyeball of a fish, and we made an awesome video that includes Tony drinking beer and yelling, “I’m a ninja. I’m a ninja!” It was one of the funniest times of the trip, and we all had a blast! After lunch and a stop to get a McDonald’s hot fudge sundae, we went to the Summer Palace, and it was gorgeous. It was such a pretty day, and not too hot, so we walked around the gardens and took in the beautiful lake in the middle and the palaces and temples sitting like thrones on top of the hills. We even walked the entire length of the “long hallway”, which was neat. We stopped at the little souvenir shop, ate some authentic Chinese candy and headed back to the busses. The driver took us to a famous pearl market that was 5 floors of souvenirs, clothes, shoes, and of course, pearls. I bought a strand of pearls to wear at Chi O events (they have red pearls in the middle of white pearls accented with gold- how perfect is that?! We bought a bunch of souvenirs for our friends and then it was time to leave and go to the train station. When we got there, we hung out and got snacks, waiting for our turn to board. We talked to Tony for a long time. He was the BEST guide we’ve ever had, and one of the nicest, funniest guys we know! Tara, Kate, and I really clicked with him, and he became a friend throughout the course of our time in Beijing. He kept saying he didn’t want us to leave and how much he was going to miss us, and we all did not want the trip to end. When it was time for us to board, he came with us and we took a picture together. He then snuck onto the train, like the little ninja he was, so he could make sure we got on and settled okay. He stayed in our cabin for a while, and we all talked, and then all of a sudden the train started moving! He jumped up, yelling something in Chinese, and ran and jumped off the train. We all stood at the window, waving, as he ran after us, and we all thought we were going to cry. We really are going to miss him, and hopefully one day we can see him again! The train was so nice!! Chris, Tara, Kate, and I had a compartment to ourselves that consisted of 4 beds and a little table in the middle. Tara and I took the top bunks, and after reading for a while, drinking some cheap “Great Wall” wine, acting like we were in Harry Potter (we kept asking the snack lady if she had chocolate frogs…I think she hated us after a while. hahaha), we finally fell asleep and slept straight through the night. The rocking of the train reminded us of being on the ship, so we were all very comfortable!

The train pulled into Shanghai at 7:15 am on April 3rd (the ship sailed for two days without us, from Hong Kong to Shanghai, while we were in Beijing, so we met up with it in Shanghai), and we all packed up our stuff and got busses back to the ship. There were 159 of us, so when we got back, we waited for more than an HOUR to board the ship! The gangway was on the 5th deck, and they only had one person searching our bags, so the process took forever and it was really cold outside! Once we finally got on, we headed straight to breakfast, only to find everyone else on the ship at breakfast, too. So we ended up standing in yet another line to get cereal for about 45 minutes. It was a long morning. Then we got ready and headed out with Tara, the twins and Pat, and Kevin, Amy, and Ellie. We got off the ship and just started walking along the waterfront. It was a ridiculously long walk, but we enjoyed it, and we all shared stories along the way about the different trips we had taken. It was great to reunite with everyone- it’s so weird not seeing them at least 3 times every day! After a long walk (and about a million games of “1-2-3”) along the way, we arrived in Old Shanghai. It was packed with people shopping and eating, and we made our way through the chaos to enter the garden in the center. It was beautiful, and it was exactly what you think of when someone talks about old Chinese gardens/architecture. We had a lot of fun looking for fish and taking pictures. As we were about to leave, we were told to move out of the way because someone important was coming. It turns out it was the former president of Pakistan, and we got to see him, flanked by all of his secret service, walking through the gardens. We felt really cool. Haha. After being allowed to leave, we ate lunch at a famous restaurant that Bill Clinton ate at once, and we ended up running into Captain Chang and his wife. They came over and ordered for us, and we had the best tasting food we had had all trip! We split up after lunch, Tara going back with Kevin, Amy, and Ellie, and the twins and Pat came with us. We took the weirdest ride through a tunnel across to the other side of the river (ever seen Willy Wonka- the part on the river with all the lights? That’s exactly what it was) It was quite strange, but fun as well. Our plan was to go up to the top of the TV tower, but when we got there, we realized we didn’t have enough money or time, so we looked at it from the bottom, and then went to Subway and blew the rest of our money on cookies and soda to bring back to the ship. We made it back across the river and to the ship just before on-ship time, and we sent some postcards and had dinner. We were so tired, we didn’t go to post-port reflections, but went straight to sleep.

The next two days on the ship were somewhat uneventful, albeit a tad stressful with all the work we had to do. We had cultural pre-port with the most adorable inter-port students from Japan, and they showed us a traditional tea ceremony, which was a lot of fun. We watched Mulan , talked a lot about the North Korean missile exercise and how I was affecting Japan, and planned what we were going to do once we docked in Japan. We got pizzas from the 7th deck, listened to Jordan and Bob jam in the piano lounge (Dad- they played “Give me one reason” by Tracy Chapman and we sang it and thought of you!), played with Ellie, and got our temperatures taken for the Japanese Immigration officers.

Hopefully, in the next couple of days, I can finish the Japan blog and post that as well. Miss you all and love you!!!

K & S