Shenzhen and Hong Kong

J Three countries, two airplanes and at least two headaches later we arrived in China, it was late, and we had just jumped in an unmarked ¨taxi¨ with two Chinese gentlemen that seemed to have no English. The day had certainly been a long one, getting up at 5:30 in Phnom Penh, wasting 8 hours at the Bangkok airport with a few games of Monopoly then finally getting into Shenzhen at 11pm. To start the list of weird firsts in China.. as we are about to land the flight attendants on our favorite airline AirAsia started to spray the cabin of the plane with a disinfectant saying it was Chinese law that they do it and they "recommended" we cover our mouths, so we did.

The first taxi we got in was just a car, and the guy who had offered us the ride was a passenger who knew the most English I guess, as there was a different man doing the driving. After pulling out of the airport and taking a good look at where our hotel was the driver turns around and asks for more money, we refuse and so he takes us back to the airport. We had offered a maximum of 100 yuan and now they were telling us they would not to it for less then 150. So we got out of the taxi (one at a time, in case the driver decided to speed away with our bags in the trunk). This may have given them the impression (as one of us was still sitting in the car) that we were rethinking, but we had decided what was fair and weren't about to change our mind, especially since we knew there was a shuttle bus that only cost 30 yuan each. So after getting our bags out and heading back toward the terminal (we were on the sidewalk approaching the door) the driver comes running saying "okay okay 100", and so we got back in the Taxi. Then not 5 minutes down the road he pulls up alongside a row of taxi cabs, and then transfers us to an actual taxi. I guess they were working the system, as either only one type of cab can park at the airport, either way we still only paid the 100 kuai/yuan.

A note on money, just like in Canada, our "dollar" is often called "bux", while in China the currency, although technically known as Renminbi (RMB) the people call it Yuan or the more popular Kuai which is slang. This isn't all that strange if you consider that the brits call the Pound a Quid.

Despite the craziness with the taxis we finally arrived safe and sound at the beautiful Best Western Hotel Felicity. The place was one of the nicest hotels we had ever stayed in, and being in such luxury was a treat as we had stayed in a budget $13 dollar hotel in Cambodia, the bed was also so comfortable, a rarity in China. Having exchanged a bunch of air miles into Best Western gift certificates before leaving on the trip we were glad to finally be at a place with a BW and to be using up a few more of the gift certificates.

The next morning we headed out to a theme park called Splendid China. We spent the whole day there, and saw many sights from all over China that were 1/15 the real size, we enjoyed watching the locals as they trampled all over the place, sometimes even sitting on miniature buildings for a good photo opp. Once, while at the mini-forbidden city a guy on a golf cart yelled at some Chinese tourists while he drove by, but other then that the security was a laugh. We enjoyed seeing the mini-hanging monastery and the mini-great wall. At one point we found the end of the world, and the most fun was when we took a walk to Taiwan! lol

After leaving miniature land, we went to the other section of the park that had displays and shows about a variety of the ethnic communities of China, including a few hill tribes. Each place had people dressed in authentic costumes, and we saw a few performances including the Tibetan one. They had small gift shops with incredibly overpriced items, and at one place the lady was practically holding me (Mich) hostage as we were attempting to leave. The Chinese were obviously aware of the overly inflated prices but when they shop owners saw our skin color and the (imaginary) dollar signs above our heads they almost fell over with glee and ran towards us with goods in hand. lol

Later in the day we rented a small electric boat (the size of a paddle boat) and cruised it along a little canal that weaved through the park, it was good fun, especially when Jesse got the thing stuck sideways and did the old Austin Powers forward-reverse-forward thing for humor. It was good fun. In the evening we watched 2 amazing shows, the first had warriors on horse-back doing tricks and staging battles. The second was a dancing and acrobatics with music, pyrotechnics, lasers and elaborate costumes, it was quite impressive. Then at the end of the night they brought out over 100 couples that had taken part in some massive get-married-at-the-park event earlier in the day, we had seen a few earlier in the day but didn't realize just how many couples there were.

The next morning we slept in, had our free buffet breakfast, and were slowly packing up to head out to Hong Kong when we turned on the news and found that the Olympic torch was currently going through Hong Kong. We would arrive only hours too late to see it unfortunately. From our hotel we literally walked to the border of Hong Kong, which was a painless procedure, but we learned quickly that they would not take the Chinese Yuan, so we hit an ATM for a handful of Hong Kong dollars. From the border we hopped on a train heading to our guest house in the Kowloon area. We were on the part of the mainland that is closest to Hong Kong island.

We made it to our guest house and unfortunately found it to be a complete dive. Then things got really annoying as the receptionist which had very limited English informed us we were in two separate dorm rooms saying there was only one bed left in each and that despite the fact we booked 2 beds at the same time we were not guaranteed them in the same room. This was of course total B.S. as every other hostel we had stayed at booked the rooms in this manner. They agreed to give us (for the same price) two beds in a three bed dorm, so we could be together. This of course meant we may be sharing the room with another person, and indeed before the end of the day there was a young lady in our "3 bed" dorm. Now this wouldn't have been a big problem as we were prepared for a dorm, however the room was TINY. When we met our roomie we discovered she was a fellow Canadian, and apparently they had also accidentally filled her spot in the womens only dorm room which she had booked. Sigh.

Hong Kong was expensive, and although we looked briefly for another place we soon realized we were saving a lot of money by staying there, although after the first night we bit the bullet and upgraded to a private room. Even our double room which we stayed in for four nights was tiny, dirty, smelly and it came with a friend we called Al.

M Al was a cockroach who lived in the drain in the bathroom floor. Jes discovered him when he went to have a shower (no enclosure like most of Asia, you just pull the shower head off the wall and soak the bathroom and water goes down the drain in the middle of the floor) and Al came crawling out to hide behind the toilet. I thought Jes was making it up to scare me until I had my shower the next morning and the same thing happened to me. From then on in I let Jes run the water first then once Al was in his hiding spot I would get in reassuring myself that he is more afraid of me than I am of him.

Our first night in HK we saw the nightly "symphony of lights", which is a light show put on by dozens of buildings on Hong Kong island. It is done to music and lasts at least 10 minutes, for a free show it was pretty impressive, the tall skyscrapers and bright lights lighting up the water between us and the island. It was really neat, unfortunately the pictures don't do it justice. After the show we went for a walk down the avenue of stars, were we saw hand imprints from famous Asian actors such as Jet Lee, Bruce Lee and of course Jackie Chan. We enjoyed playing a game of looking at the hand prints of someone we didn't know (which was about 98% of them) and saying out loud "hey its Jackie Chan!" to see how many silly tourists came running with their cameras. lol We also saw the first of many Olympic characters and signs up as HK is the Olympic "co-host" city, which I guess means they will host some of the events, maybe sailing?

One day we took a ferry boat across to HK island. We then went up a tram to the top of the peak (hence they call it the peak tram) and were rewarded with an amazing view of the harbor, Kowloon and all the skyscrapers. Once at the top we hiked even further up finally getting to Victoria park, and were able to see around down the other side of the island and more amazing views. We hiked down a trail that seemed to be closed, and ran into a beautiful natural habitat for butterflies, there were dozens and a few times we almost walked into them as we hiked down the mountain. After getting back to the tram we did some shopping for little souvenirs before deciding not to take the tram and opting to hike down instead.

Unfortunately we got a little lost (common on this trip) and ended up taking a lengthy detour on the way down, and on top of it the hike down was pretty intense with some steep parts. We did get to see a lot of the locals out for jogs or walking their dogs which was cool. Once to the mid-levels we missed the entrance to the mid-level escalators, but we did get to see some swank apartments and lots of expensive cars driving down the streets. We made it to the area known as SOHO by the time we finally found the famous worlds longest elevators (the mid-level escalators), and boy were we dissapointed when we found out they only go in one direction, yep, up. So we followed them down taking the steps. lol
We spent another day at the national museum. It was very well done and we learned a lot about HKs history. We also spent a morning at the space museum which is very similar to the one we have back home. We watched an imax there on Greece, which was very neat as we had been there earlier in the trip. We also spent a lot of time looking for a laptop as we had heard HK is a great place to buy one as they are on the cutting edge of new technology, although slightly behind Japan, their prices are much more reasonable. Finally on our last day in HK and after much looking and price comparing we decided on one. Then we had more trouble as we wanted a black one which everywhere seemed to be sold out of, finally after what felt like half a day we bought a little white Asus EEE PC. We affectionately call our lap top Al to remind us of where we bought it from, and our friend from the bathroom.

Hong Kong itself is really neat. It reminded us of Tokyo as there were so many people living in such a small space, there are high rises everywhere and the streets are full of neon signs. It is different though as it is on an island with mountains all around, so instead of an open sea of sky scrapers there are pockets of them lining every square inch of possible building space with beautiful mountains behind and water in front. It is quite a thing to see, especially from the top of HK island.

On our last day (one of the highlights) was taking a boat ride out to Lamma island, HK island being just one of many that make up Hong Kong. There are many hikes to do on the island, but we were sore from the previous days hikes and decided to just do a mini hike, then afterward we relaxed by the water and had a fresh seafood lunch. We were surrounded by beautiful green hills and a small fishing village in the calm bay. It was amazing that this quiet retreat was so close to the hustle and bustle of the city. We then took another boat ride over to the south side of Hong Kong island. There we saw more skyscrapers, but they appeared to be more apartments than office towers. We enjoyed taking the double-decker tram around on our own sightseeing tour, before taking the subway back to Kowloon.

So after 5 fun filled days exploring Hong Kong we jumped on a plane heading back into China to the city of Xian. Home of the First Emperor's Tomb and the Terracotta Army.