Hong Kong...beyond anything I imagined

Landed at Lantau Island...international airport there...drove through Kowloon to Hong Kong...never have seen so many roads and vehicles: cars, busses trucks...no bikes. 65 minutes ...two thirds of which was bumper to bumper gridlock. Roads to the hotel narrow, bus is extra long, sidewalks teeming with people, mostly much younger than us.

The Harbor was filled with boats, the container side was an immeasurable size. The density of EVERYTHING is not to be explained by anything in our American experience.



Apartments/condos in background



Storage containers in front ( small segment of them). Hi rises in background

We were so tired! And ready for American food: Outback,,,it worked for us.
Restaurants are often up at least one floor above streets. If you look out of

Had a very nice morning tour in the tiniest minivan you've seen. Up to Victoria Peak on an 108 year old tram that has never had an accident...hmm.
At the top we say views of the harbor that defy description






The jade factory was not nearly as informative as the one in Longchau and we escaped without buying anything, but we did find this GREAT sign! Enlarge it and read it...


The Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon lived up to its elegant reputation and we had an elegant hi tea there...we had missed lunch so Tom bypassed the cute sandwiches and tiny sugary treats and had their Giant Hot Dog...we gave him a little grief, and then tasted it...it was good and definitely an experience not to be missed


Friday we got Ferry tickets and went to a fishing village on the island of Cheung Chau.

This outlying island approximately a mile long and quite narrow is inhabited by 40,000busy people. We walked to the highest point ( naturally)




Where we joined the kids from the British International school on their field trip.
Had lunch...prawns/fried blue crab AND a whole fish...quite the messy finger food and a lot of work for dabs of fish. Those are working/living boats behind us.


Met the wedding party on the Ferry back




More to follow...

Location:The Excelsior Hotel

Shanghai Day 2

First day of inclement weather in three weeks...not bad.
Took the very clean, very stylish underground four stops from our hotel to the new side of the Bund...all built in the last 20 years. Talk about "power building!!!"



Ever the Dragons...always the flowers...





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Merry Christmas...


The Convention Center

Then to a lovely little (5 acre) park/ temple in the heart of the re- built old town



















THEN we found the birthplace of the Communist Party in China...no photos allowed...



Lunch on our own found most of us looking for western food....we opted for pumpkin soup and spaghetti...

Not finished yet...
The Shanghai Planning department has the largest scale model/detailed model of a city in the world...every building there...it is only the CENTER of Shanghai:






You basically cannot take a photo of it...I don't think the video will transmit here.

Nearly EVERYONE ready for a nap. Our last event with Road Scholar is this evening's dinner. Some are worrying about returning to Connecticut with the Storm Sandy pummeling the East Coast...some are going on for another 6 weeks ( really!). One has already left for Toronto, others leave for California during the next few days...We leave for Hong Kong tomorrow for 4 more days and our Excellent Guide Kehue Zheng will be most happy to return to his home and new baby!

Location:Rainy Shanghai

Shanghai in depth

Shanghai ( the "a" pronounced like awesome, not like amiable...) is incredibly architecturally diverse...not so old...built by all the european invaders in the 1800s and early 1900s and re-built in space age shapes and heights since the 1980s. We went to the Bund ( the old riverfront) this morning...So did lots of Chinese, we were ALL taking pictures..It was warm and sort of clear...well maybe not so much...


- but it was fascinating. Hearing about Opium wars...Boxer Rebellions...the wicked Dowager Empress and the invasion by to English, French, Americans Germans...on and on...it seems quite reasonable that the Chinese became a bit wary and mistrustful of " everyone else"


Just look at all those Red Flags ....
Looking across the river give the "rest of the story"...walls of flowers...and space needle restaurants...that used to be undeveloped farmland






Convention center with glass globes as bookends.
From there we explored the incredible Shanghai Museum...incredible ceramic collection, bronzes...Ming and Ching dynasty furniture...even a Russian loaned collection of Faberge...eggs, jewelry, furs, crystal...iwas admonished not to take pictures but others in our group didn't get caught and will email me theirs!

Our lunch was THE most amazing vegetarian meal at a restaurant at the back door of the Longhua Buddhist temple










We went on into the Temple...on this the Full moon day of the 9 th month...it was very sacred and very busy for the worshippers...didn' t see any other foreigners there...












The eleven head/ thousand arm goddess is there to help you for anything you need...roughly goddess of compassion...many hands, many eyes to be helpful and watchful for your safety and needs...even has eyes in her hands...an important lady.

Some of us explored the world os silkworms and products thereof...hand-weaving is a dying art, but the silkworms are still intriguing.



Who knew that you have silk comforters??


A pretty interesting dinner was followed by a spectacular Shanghai Acrobatic Production!

In old days the children were trained as toddlers on and were poor kids . These days it is prestigious and pays well...still need to begin training at a very young age. It was absolutely spellbinding to watch...balance, strength, grace, ballet, humor...no photos. Funny thing: the LAST act turned out to be motorcycles circling inside a huge globe...which we saw at the circus 4weeks ago...but the rest was nothing short of inspirational

We are getting tired...


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Location:China

Tibet

Tibet is amazing. It is also cold, and hot. I was surprised that the altitude got to me even though we are acclimated to mile hi...12000+ feet walking still was felt in legs and lungs..but we all survived.
Our Tibetan Guide is passionate about her country and a good historian and we saw palaces and Monasteries dating back to seventh century...the 5th Dali Lama...many Tankas painted and many representations of various Buddhas...many steps up to the palaces and monasteries..

The bus north to the Nomads showed us cropland, power ststions, Chinese flags on every house. The Chinese govt wants to remind everyone that this is China. Tibet is one of the five autonomous regions. We had yak butter tea in the home of a woman who


has two sons and a daughter. The daughter in law lives there with her with the grandchildren.


As we left our guide explained that there is a nomad custom that perhaps two brothers might marry one wife...the older brother is always the father of the children and the younger is the uncle...when the older brother might go to Lhasa to make money the younger is in charge...when the older returns all can know he is back because he puts his shoes at the bedroom door...this also happens with two or three sisters and one husband...


Yak dung is dried , collected and used for fuel...we saw it stacked neatly and we saw it in disorderly piles...but it is the fuel of choice.





The entire group was huffing a bit being at 12500 feet...but we went to 14500 to meet the nomad woman and her family





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The children are beautiful and shy but all the neighbors appeared from nowhere to greet us. I haven't mentioned that we have seen no diapers...all the toddlers have little trousers with the seat seam split...they simply squatin the street...i am not sure just when or how they transition...but we have all been taking photos of the babies!


Next we moved on to the public kindergarten with 15 students. Were they ever adorable ! They sat " very disciplined" with their hands behind their back. They sang for us and their question for us was " do you have Yak meat"? We took big long picture with them and sang "You are my Sunshine". Their teacher is barely out of high school and their cook made us more Yak butter tea...more tasty than the previous one


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This was a very special time. I am going to include a video clip not knowing if you can open it .

Day 1 in China

Just wrote a few sentences and then promptly lost it!

5am in Beijing...3 pm in Denver. I slept a solid 7 hours,
disturbed only by occasional turbulence from which I fell right back asleep .
Watched The Flowers of War about the 1937 Japanese invasion of Nanking. Perhaps not the best cultural introduction, buy certainly explains good reason for some cultural animosity over the years!

Now I just need to clear customs and make my way to a cab and with my yellow instruction paper, get to the hotel.


Quietist airport i have experienced. Huge and dome like. Of course i got in the slowest line. ... I said "gracias" to someone
in the airport
It took three money machines to figure out the system and which one takes my card and THEN I didn't get enough money even for the taxi to the hotel which is an hour way!!!! He takes $$ too.

It is misty...and I could be driving in northern California for the freeways and the trees...
Busy downtown...driver says that the traffic is good at this early. McDonalds...bikes ( no helmutz)
Lt hour
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Location:Beijing

Going to the Great Wall of China

Driving out of Beijing 2.5 hours to a section of the Wall that is not so often visited....because it is so far! The weather is lovely and clear. It is quite hilly, some small towns along the way.


Our guide is very thoughtful about the growth of China over the past 30 years...there is great disparity between the very poor and the very rich. Overall tho he feels that life is better for most people, at 42 ish he has watched firsthand as the changes evolved.

At Tien an man Square yesterday he noted that he grew up in the days of admiring Mao as the savior of the Chinese, but the younger people of China now don't think he was as great and they have all only in recent years understood the dark side of the man and his ways

The Square itself IS monumentally huge...it has historically been the place to dissent: unions, students, everyone. It was festooned with gigantic flower arrangements/sculptures in honor of the National Day October first..if we had come next week, I think it would have appeared more spartan.

There is concern that the government for the past 20 years has only considered the GDP and not the well being of it's people


Our tour of the Forbidden City showed us all that we had not known it was truly a city...most os us thought it had been a building or two...amazing and interesting...we want to see The Last Emperor again...it will have new meaning. The poor guy lived int the 1960s and endured tremendous change that must have been as heart wrenching as physically difficult





One of the museum pieces of the Forbidden City

The Wall is Great in every way...it is steep, the stairs are often shallow, you can see it rambling from you in many directions. The local farmers come to "help" you up and down the rail less, skinny, steep stairs






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We went to a lesser traveled section of the Great Wall, fewer "foreigners"
But there were still a large number. The sheer numbers of people, everywhere, is overwhelming.