The Great Adventure

The Great Adventure that is China. Where can I begin?

The ship docked in Hong Kong on day 1. Actually, we were docked off of the island of Hong Kong in the island Kowloon. Of course, we all immediately wanted to go shopping! We rode the longest escalator in the world! It goes through the entire city of Hong Kong and it is hop-on-hop off. The escalator to nowhere truly exists!!! After some Thai food (LOL--Hong Kong IS an international city, after all!) and some more shopping, we headed to Victoria's Peak, which boasts spectacular views of all of the Hong Kong island chain. We had drinks at the Bubba Gump's at the top of the Peak Tower! Yes, this landmark was a shopping center. In China, every store is a mall.

Later that day we all went out to the social area of Hong Kong. It is the nightlife capital of the world! I had so much fun experiencing this exciting city. We had heard that there was an ice bar in Hong Kong. We really wanted to go to because there are ice bars all over the world and they are really famous and popular because, hey, everything in the bar is made of ice! Well, this ice bar in Hong Kong was certainly not an official ice bar! It was just a room that had ice in it! It was hilarious so of course we hung out there all night!

The next day I went on an SAS trip. We did Tai Chi with this little old Chinese man! It was actually really difficult, but maybe because it was really early and I had been out all night in Hong Kong the night before! I realized the key to successfully traveling: do not sleep. Stay out all night and wake up early the next day! It works... sort of...

The trip continued with some dim sum and then a tea ceremony. I love tea so this was really enjoyable. It was like wine-tasting, but with tea! Then we went to a water village. All these house-boats just chill in the river water and entire villages live on them! It was so beautiful. The highlight for me was the little dog, Rose, who helped drive our tour boat! She was the cutest dog in all of Hong Kong!

That night I met up with my friend Becky so we could venture forth to our hostel. Instead of staying on the ship as it sailed to Shanghai, we decided to independently traverse China and meet the ship later. Our hostel was in Hong Kong. We miraculously found it, even though it was literally inside of a mall (because every store is a mall). It was certainly not the worst hostel in the world, but it was certainly not the best. It was hot and sticky and dirty, but nothing was stolen from us and it cost about $5 each. That night we hit up a night market in the city and had a blast bargaining for dresses, souvenirs and gifts.

The next day we got up early and took the MTR (subway) to the Tian Tan Buddha, which is the largest outdoor Buddha in the world! It is made entirely of bronze. Even though it was foggy and FREEZING at the top of the enormous mountain we cable-cared and then hiked up, the Buddha was so beautiful and grand and magnificent. The only part that really sucked was we were carrying our backpacks with us and had to lug them all the way up to the top of the Buddha!

Next, we took the MTR to the Hong Kong train station where we hopped on our sleeper train for Shanghai. Have you ever ridden a sleeper train in China? Let me describe it for you. Your journey begins with 400 Chinese people pushing you onto the train because pushing is perfectly acceptable, and, in fact, expected in China. Then you will hopefully claim one of the bottom bunks in your cabin because there are no ladders and there are three stories of bunk beds! (Becky and I got the bottom bunks thank goodness!) Then, a Chinese woman who speaks English will yell at you for quite sometime. Then you will be pointed at, laughed at, and starred at by everyone on your train car. This all will be followed by some loud Chinese music coming from the cabin over. Oh, and who could forget your box dinner that consists of... well, I ate it, but I honestly couldn't tell you what it was! If you cough (which I certainly did--I think I have a sinus infection) your train-companions will freak out, convinced you have swine flu. Then at 10pm everyone will go to sleep, and at 6am everyone will wake up for some... delicious... rice porridge. Oh, and who could forget the squatter toilets and lack of both toilet paper and showers?

The truth is, it was one of the most fun and exciting 20 hours of my life! Becky and I passed the time playing card games with her South African card deck, which I found to be most telling of SAS as a whole. Oh, and we slept. A lot.

After my lovely awakening on the train by the sound of high-pitched Chinese singing and the smell of rice porridge, we got off the train and headed to our next hostel in Shanghai. OMG this was the most amazing hostel I've ever seen. It was like out of a dream! The workers spoke English, there was a bar and restaurant inside the lounge, there was a lounge!, our rooms were amazing, the door locked and there were even safes to put your stuff in! I can't wait to show pictures, this place was happening! And nearly everyone staying there was young, mostly European, and really cool for the most part.

We dropped our stuff of at the hostel and then headed for Shanghai's Old City. It was beautiful! Lots of old architecture and, of course, stores that were malls. In the Old City we found a tea shop and had tea samplings and ended up buying loose jasmine tea and some mugs. It was hilarious because China is famous for its bargaining, but one would not think to haggle in a nice tea shop! The woman, who kept insisting that I MUST be half-Chinese, brought the tea mugs down from $128 to $20. In a very nice tea shop! It is insane! You can walk into the equivalent of Nordstrom's and bargain. Which is what we did!!!

After some amazing dumplings, Becky and I took a cab to an acrobatic show! It was actually really cool. Some of it was so ridiculously unsafe it wasn't even fun to watch, but there was at least one dance that really stuck with me. Then we headed back to the hostel that had basically become a bar because they had happy hour! All the guests came down and it was so much fun meeting other travelers. The best part of the night came when I was reading some advertisements put up on the community board in the lounge. I saw an ad for a tour agency in Shanghai and in the picture in the ad was a tourist wearing a Semester at Sea sweatshirt! It was so crazy to think how much this program has left its mark. It probably was only super exciting to me and the other SAS people who were staying at this hostel. There was actually a pretty big group of us, even though only Becky and I had planned it together.

The next morning we woke up and went to an antiques market. The only problem was I felt really really sick. The sinus infection mixed with lack of sleep and China's air quality, not to mention its in the 50 degree range right now, just made things horrible and I had to go back to the ship, which was now docked in Shanghai. After a five hour nap, I headed back out. I can't be stopped--we're in China! Becky, Rachael and I went shopping on the famous Bund. It is like New York City on Asian steroids!

Today a bunch of us went out shopping at this huge indoor market. There were a ton of things we wanted to do outside, but its pouring rain and FREEZING!!! I spent way way way too much money on fakes so good you seriously don't know if they're real or fake. I bought some Uggs for $20, several Marc Jacobs bags, and more Louis Vuitton! It is seriously out of control. Katie, Rachael and I have decided that we can no longer shop together anymore because we are really bad influences on each other when shopping! Vietnam already killed us and now we were doing it again in Shanghai!

I had an amazing time in China. It is a country that will stress you out to no end as you fight crowds, constantly have Chinese screamed at you, and push your way through shopping centers as shop keeps battle for your Yuan. Traveling independently was one of the best decisions I have made on this whole trip so far. I can, with only one other girl with me, travel hundreds of miles across China with nothing but my backpack! I can do that! It was spectacular and we kept nervously commenting that nothing had gone wrong. One might expect that at least one travesty would occur on such an ambitious trip, but nothing bad happened. Now my ego is just at insanely high levels. I'm unstoppable! ; )

I was so happy to get back onto the ship a few hours ago and snuggle in my bed because it is so rainy outside. We were supposed to leave for Japan tonight, but for some reason the ship is now leaving tomorrow afternoon. There are a ton of rumors circulating as to why the ship is delayed, namely because we are supposed to have a huge guest speaker soon. It is just too convenient for the rumor mill that Obama is currently only a few miles away from the ship in Shanghai... I'll keep you all posted.