My latest journey started in Shenzhen, from where we were to catch the thirteen-hour sleeper train to Guilin. This was a Friday, as my plan was to arrive in Guilin on Saturday morning, spend the night, and then take the sleeper train back to Hong Kong via Shenzhen in time for Monday classes. Looking at Wikitravel, it looked like there was about enough in Guilin and vicinity to last for about two full days, though actually being there, it was obvious that this trip could have easily lasted for at least a week.
Like I said, it all started in Shenzhen, land of the Special Economic Zone. With this being my third time to China, I wasn't particularly thrilled about roaming about, but since the train was to leave at 5:25 p.m. and three of my friends had not yet seen Shenzhen, we decided to make Friday before the train a Shenzhen train trip.
Other factors made it desirable to see Shenzhen that day. I was lucky enough to be granted a multiple-entry Chinese visa (meaning I could enter China as many times as I want during my visa's validity for no more than 30 days per entry). I'm not sure whether it's because I've gotten a Chinese visa once before or they've got a soft spot for me because I'm ethnically Chinese, but many of my friends were only allowed to apply for double-entries. Since Shenzhen is Hong Kong's land gateway to Mainland China, it just made sense to see Shenzhen on the same entry as Guilin since they had limited entries.
That day was odd in a couple ways. First, I had never gone long-distance overnight on a train before in a foreign country. I've been on long-distance trains and I've been to foreign countries and I've been on long-distance trains in foreign countries, but never overnight. This teensy weensy fact that this journey was my first sleeper train ever in any part of the world created this sort of aura in my head.
What also made this journey special (and this first Shenzhen leg odd) was that there are certain unwritten stipulations in my study abroad experience set in place by my sponsors--my parents. I am to learn Cantonese to the extend that I can speak decently with my mother. I am to travel as much as especially to see places that I have not yet been too. I am to travel to Guilin, because it's beautiful and easier to get to from Hong Kong than from California. Besides, many a poet over China's several-thousand-year history has posed Guilin as China's national treasure (though not necessarily in those worlds).
So because of that, the day kind of floated by. To start, I forgot my Shenzhen map in my room so we had to get a new one (which wasn't nearly as good) when we got there. I'd only been to Shenzhen twice before this trip, but my natural sense of direction took over as my friends noticed I wasn't even looking at the signs when I went from one MTR line to another and another, and then through immigration, where I knew where the shortest immigration lines were and where to fill out the health forms to enter China, and to crook my neck to the side so they could take my temperature.
In Shenzhen, I took them to the same place that I had street food the time before. We found some good stuff, and I maintain that while I've had my fair share of complaints about not-so-good food at restaurants, I've never felt poorly about street food--plus it's way cheaper.
But before that, we went to two places. The better one (by far) was Lianhuashan (莲花山) Park, which was an easy walk from the current northern terminus of Shenzhen Metro Line 4. There we took a brief-but-enjoyable hike (which was worsened by the heat) to a lookout point. After breaking many points along the way, it probably took us half-an-hour to hike to the that lookout. It was (very recently) paved as an open space, with the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) in the form of an impressive statue looking out at the same view as the people over Shenzhen.
The park was great, minus the speakers that kept counting in Mandarin. It sounded like commands in square-dancing songs, so we figured it must be to facilitate some sort of similar activity. It was nice to get a proper view over Shenzhen though, because down on the ground, it is not nearly as noticeable how developed Shenzhen is, especially if you live on Hong Kong Island, where grass gives way to a sea of skyscrapers.
But before that, we went to the Chinese Folk Cultural Village (中国民俗文化村), which was meant as a showcase for China's fifty-five minority ethnic groups. While interesting as a concept, the way the park was laid out and the fact that the concept is never fully explained to foreign tourists who know little about China's ethnic groups, combined with the price of entry, we probably could have done without it.
As we finished up with our Shenzhen day trip, we made a run from street food to the train station, arriving just fifteen minutes before departure, physically getting onto the train just five minutes before it left the station. The pictures in later posts don't really show the conditions of the sleeper trains. There was nothing wrong with them, but they are very old style and according to what I've read, the trains being put on China's new high-speed rail network are a lot more modern.
I got the hard-sleeper class, as did all but one of my friends, who got a soft sleeper (for nearly double the price) because he got his ticket later than the rest of us. In the hard-sleeper compartments, there were six beds total, with three stacked above each other on each side, illustriously named top, middle, and bottom (上,中,下) on our tickets. The beds appeared clean and we were given linens to stay warm. Though I didn't see it first-hand, I was told that the soft-sleeper compartments had four beds--two on each side--and were equipped with doors that closed. The floor was not so clean though, and when walking from one train car to another, you could see the grime originating from the bathrooms (with pooper stooper toilets). On the bright side, I didn't get sick off of this trip.
The duration was something I was afraid I wasn't going to deal with well, actually. My flight to Hong Kong from Los Angeles happened also to be thirteen to fourteen hours long, and by the time that plane was about to land, I was more than ready to just get off already. However, this trip was quite bearable. For a few hours, I wrote blog posts on my computer while on my bed. (I only brought my computer because I put myself under the impression that I was going to study in some fashion while in Guilin.)
The hours following, the group socialized in the diner car of the train as we winded down for the coming day. Getting to bed a bit before 11:00 p.m., we were due to wake up before the train was to arrive at Guilin at 6:42 a.m. the next day. So we tucked ourselves in and right as we went to sleep, I saw one of the train attendants with a flashlight crouching in our compartment neatly moving our shoes to one side.
After the constant clunking of the wheels on the tracks (especially since I was in the bottom bunk), we woke up at 6:15 a.m. to find the train going seemingly in the opposite direction. While one of my friends thought that we'd missed our stop and were heading back, I assured them all that trains work by turning around at terminal stations, giving the illusion that you're then going in the wrong direction. (Newbs!)
The train screeched to a halt at around 7:00 a.m. and we, in all our lethargic glory stumbled off the train and into Guangxi Zhang Autonomous Region (province equivalent).
To skip all the meat of the story, I'm going to continue by going back to Hong Kong, leaving you watering at the mouth for my favorite trip so far, Guilin.
Sunday night, I found myself in a different train car than the others because of a possible mistake when we bought our train tickets in Shenzhen. It wasn't a big deal though, as the main objective was just to get back to Hong Kong, hopefully in time for my 2:00 p.m. class (as my 9:30 a.m. class was canceled that week). As expected, the train was just like the last with pretty much the same exact ammenities.
That night, I read for a while before going to sleep, and waking up well before when the train was supposed to arrive at 10:30 a.m. (though it arrived closer to 11:30), I did my Cantonese homework. Starving and knowing I wasn't going to get the opportunity to eat before 5:00 p.m., I heard the train attendant selling Guilin noodles (桂林米粉) passing by. I bought it, and though it wasn't nearly as good as what I actually had twice in Guilin, it was fulfilling. I ate with ease as I convinced myself that it had been boiled at some point, because by the time I'd gotten it, it was a bit hotter than lukewarm.
Needless to say, I got to class on time and in one piece, though I actually got lost trying to find the immigration counters getting back into Hong Kong. I blame the signs.
Not yet have I have I ever been late, much less absent from a lecture or a tutorial here at the University of Hong Kong.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Showing posts with label ticket. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ticket. Show all posts
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Taipei: Monuments and Memorials
Friday, we saw stuff on the north side of Taipei; Saturday was for the south side.
We started out walking to the MRT station again and worked our way over to the Presidential Palace. The nearest station was at Red House West Gate (which has a much different name in Chinese than in English). The building itself was not eventful. The shell housed a restaurant and a small exhibit on the building’s history accompanied by a bookstore.
From there we walked to the Presidential Office, which took a leisurely ten minutes by foot. We approached the backside of the building and noticed all the guards around the building were armed with automatics (they looked like AK-47s). On the front side, we took pictures. The layout was quite western I now realized because a large road goes right to the front of the building and Ts off in an intersection. In comparison, the Forbidden City in Beijing is surrounded by water and is flanked with lakes on its west side. At its front gate sits Tiananmen Square, and not a major road.
From there we went to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial. Though by this time it was absolutely pouring, approaching the memorial from the front and seeing the iconic blue-roofed building at the back was breathtaking; it was one of the few monuments that amazed me by its sheer size and imposition. Dodging the rain, we went to the National Theater and Concert Hall, which was halfway to the memorial itself.
At the base of the memorial, we ascended the steps and saw Chiang Kai-shek’s statue. Before seeing it, I’d imagined it would be something like Abraham Lincoln’s memorial in Washington, D.C.—and for the most part, it really was. There was some writing on the walls (headed by “Ethics,” “Democracy,” and “Science”) and the white sun in the “rotunda” area.
On the ground floor of the memorial with its entrance on either side, was a museum including little about Chiang Kai-shek. Instead, there was a ceramics exhibit and a contemporary calligraphy exhibit (in which you signed the visitor log with a brush—though I had a bit of training on the matter, my (Chinese) name turned out pretty bad). Exiting, there was a post office from which I sent off a postcard back to the United States.
From there, we took the MRT to another cluster of sites. We got out looking at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial. It was a yellow-roofed building that impressed much less than Chang Kai-shek’s. That day, there was an exhibition, probably interactive, for children, and as such there were tons of families with young children crowding the halls.
After taking photos in front of it, we walked a few city blocks to Taipei 101. Along the way, there was a fair-type setup in front of Taipei City Hall that we got snacks at. The setup also contained plenty of advertisers as well as a stage being used by advertisers to showcase their products.
On a side note, I’d like to expose the partial lack of common sense of my traveling buddies for this trip. Taipei 101 stands at one hundred one stories tall. From our hotel, Taipei 101 stood at the southeast, whereas our window looked to the southwest. At night, they insisted they could see Taipei 101 out the window. The logic behind this was that the building was pink at night and that Taipei 101 was the only skyscraper in Taipei. My reasoning for it not being Taipei 101 was that it was noticeably shorter than one hundred one stories and bore little resemblance to Taipei 101 (namely they both are smaller at the very top than at the bottom and they are both skyscrapers). In addition, the direction was totally wrong. That building turned out to be Shin Kong Life Tower, and ever after we referred to it as “Fake Taipei 101.”
Walking towards skyscrapers I guess is like walking towards a mountain—it just gets more imposing. At 1,474 feet from ground to roof (and its namesake one hundred one floors), it stood until just recently as the tallest building in the world. The bottom several floors are mall space, with the rest being standard skyscraper office space. Trying to find the elevator to the observation deck, we got lost going through the mall (designed in a more western style with a modern and confusing layout).
Finally we found the express elevator to the top on the fifth floor. The twin elevators, costing $2.4 million USD each, propel passengers up to the observation deck in around thirty seconds and descend back down in a little bit more time. In the elevator, the lights dimmed to a futuristic LED light experience conducted to distract the crowd from the fact that they were squished into the tight space like sardines.
At the top, the view was amazing. The elevator ticket came with an audio guide (I asked in Chinese for mine in English) explaining was being seen, which was basically most of Taipei. Going through the path set up, we saw the damper, which is basically a big ball in the center of the building used to stabilize the building during storms and such. There was an upper viewing floor and a lower viewing floor.
Also on the lower viewing floor was a coral art exhibition followed by coral art vending shops, which we quickly slipped by. At ground level, there was a free shuttle bus (which happened to literally be one bus) to the neared MRT station. Light turned to dark waiting and we ended that day in the hotel, ready to go back home in the evening the next day.
Early the next morning, we went to the central station (appropriately named Taipei Station) to buy High-Speed Rail tickets as part of the journey to get to the airport. After doing that, we ventured over to the Miramar Entertainment Complex and decided to ride on the Ferris wheel, since the area turned out be no more than cheapish shopping. The views from it were okay, though definitely not as good as those from Taipei 101. After having our final lunch in Taipei, we headed back to the central station to catch our train to Taoyuan.
I’d been on trains and high-speed rail before, but my fellow travelers had not. One expected to be pushed against the back of his seat by the shear physics of traveling at high speeds (a fact, which, if true, would render airplanes illogical). The entire high-speed rail line cost a bundle to build for such a moderately populated island, but from what I’ve read the venture has been a success. It took 20 minutes to make the journey to Taoyuan (where Taipei’s international airport is) and two hours to get all the way to the last station three hundred thirty-five kilometers away at Kaohsiung.
From the train station we took a short bus ride to the airport in which we arrived. As airports go, it was as dingy as Los Angeles International Airport, and super empty, which made it creepy to walk around while waiting for our flight. The time to leave though came eventually. Before going through exit immigration, we removed the staples in our passports ourselves so that the immigration officers wouldn’t tear pages or what have you.
In case you weren’t clued in, this post ends my trip in Taipei. Two weeks later (from which I just got back from yesterday) was Guilin. Stay tuned and thanks for reading!
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
We started out walking to the MRT station again and worked our way over to the Presidential Palace. The nearest station was at Red House West Gate (which has a much different name in Chinese than in English). The building itself was not eventful. The shell housed a restaurant and a small exhibit on the building’s history accompanied by a bookstore.
From there we walked to the Presidential Office, which took a leisurely ten minutes by foot. We approached the backside of the building and noticed all the guards around the building were armed with automatics (they looked like AK-47s). On the front side, we took pictures. The layout was quite western I now realized because a large road goes right to the front of the building and Ts off in an intersection. In comparison, the Forbidden City in Beijing is surrounded by water and is flanked with lakes on its west side. At its front gate sits Tiananmen Square, and not a major road.
From there we went to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial. Though by this time it was absolutely pouring, approaching the memorial from the front and seeing the iconic blue-roofed building at the back was breathtaking; it was one of the few monuments that amazed me by its sheer size and imposition. Dodging the rain, we went to the National Theater and Concert Hall, which was halfway to the memorial itself.
At the base of the memorial, we ascended the steps and saw Chiang Kai-shek’s statue. Before seeing it, I’d imagined it would be something like Abraham Lincoln’s memorial in Washington, D.C.—and for the most part, it really was. There was some writing on the walls (headed by “Ethics,” “Democracy,” and “Science”) and the white sun in the “rotunda” area.
On the ground floor of the memorial with its entrance on either side, was a museum including little about Chiang Kai-shek. Instead, there was a ceramics exhibit and a contemporary calligraphy exhibit (in which you signed the visitor log with a brush—though I had a bit of training on the matter, my (Chinese) name turned out pretty bad). Exiting, there was a post office from which I sent off a postcard back to the United States.
From there, we took the MRT to another cluster of sites. We got out looking at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial. It was a yellow-roofed building that impressed much less than Chang Kai-shek’s. That day, there was an exhibition, probably interactive, for children, and as such there were tons of families with young children crowding the halls.
After taking photos in front of it, we walked a few city blocks to Taipei 101. Along the way, there was a fair-type setup in front of Taipei City Hall that we got snacks at. The setup also contained plenty of advertisers as well as a stage being used by advertisers to showcase their products.
On a side note, I’d like to expose the partial lack of common sense of my traveling buddies for this trip. Taipei 101 stands at one hundred one stories tall. From our hotel, Taipei 101 stood at the southeast, whereas our window looked to the southwest. At night, they insisted they could see Taipei 101 out the window. The logic behind this was that the building was pink at night and that Taipei 101 was the only skyscraper in Taipei. My reasoning for it not being Taipei 101 was that it was noticeably shorter than one hundred one stories and bore little resemblance to Taipei 101 (namely they both are smaller at the very top than at the bottom and they are both skyscrapers). In addition, the direction was totally wrong. That building turned out to be Shin Kong Life Tower, and ever after we referred to it as “Fake Taipei 101.”
Walking towards skyscrapers I guess is like walking towards a mountain—it just gets more imposing. At 1,474 feet from ground to roof (and its namesake one hundred one floors), it stood until just recently as the tallest building in the world. The bottom several floors are mall space, with the rest being standard skyscraper office space. Trying to find the elevator to the observation deck, we got lost going through the mall (designed in a more western style with a modern and confusing layout).
Finally we found the express elevator to the top on the fifth floor. The twin elevators, costing $2.4 million USD each, propel passengers up to the observation deck in around thirty seconds and descend back down in a little bit more time. In the elevator, the lights dimmed to a futuristic LED light experience conducted to distract the crowd from the fact that they were squished into the tight space like sardines.
At the top, the view was amazing. The elevator ticket came with an audio guide (I asked in Chinese for mine in English) explaining was being seen, which was basically most of Taipei. Going through the path set up, we saw the damper, which is basically a big ball in the center of the building used to stabilize the building during storms and such. There was an upper viewing floor and a lower viewing floor.
Also on the lower viewing floor was a coral art exhibition followed by coral art vending shops, which we quickly slipped by. At ground level, there was a free shuttle bus (which happened to literally be one bus) to the neared MRT station. Light turned to dark waiting and we ended that day in the hotel, ready to go back home in the evening the next day.
Early the next morning, we went to the central station (appropriately named Taipei Station) to buy High-Speed Rail tickets as part of the journey to get to the airport. After doing that, we ventured over to the Miramar Entertainment Complex and decided to ride on the Ferris wheel, since the area turned out be no more than cheapish shopping. The views from it were okay, though definitely not as good as those from Taipei 101. After having our final lunch in Taipei, we headed back to the central station to catch our train to Taoyuan.
I’d been on trains and high-speed rail before, but my fellow travelers had not. One expected to be pushed against the back of his seat by the shear physics of traveling at high speeds (a fact, which, if true, would render airplanes illogical). The entire high-speed rail line cost a bundle to build for such a moderately populated island, but from what I’ve read the venture has been a success. It took 20 minutes to make the journey to Taoyuan (where Taipei’s international airport is) and two hours to get all the way to the last station three hundred thirty-five kilometers away at Kaohsiung.
From the train station we took a short bus ride to the airport in which we arrived. As airports go, it was as dingy as Los Angeles International Airport, and super empty, which made it creepy to walk around while waiting for our flight. The time to leave though came eventually. Before going through exit immigration, we removed the staples in our passports ourselves so that the immigration officers wouldn’t tear pages or what have you.
In case you weren’t clued in, this post ends my trip in Taipei. Two weeks later (from which I just got back from yesterday) was Guilin. Stay tuned and thanks for reading!
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Beijing: The Northern Capital
Reading week here in Hong Kong is similar to many universities’ fall break back in the States and Revision week here in Hong Kong is similar to many (though declining) universities’ reading week. Reading week was last week, with school resuming just this past Monday, and for about half of that week, I was in Beijing, some 1200 miles north of Hong Kong in Mainland China.
For those of you who don’t know (don’t be ashamed), Beijing (北京) is the capital city of the People’s Republic of China and literally means “Northern Capital” in Chinese. According to my reading, Beijing was named when it was fashionable for capitals in East Asia to be named literally as such. Kyoto (京都) means “Capital City” and Tokyo (东京) means “Eastern Capital” in Japanese. Nanjing/Nanking (南京) in the southern half of China means “Southern Capital” (and functioned as such for some dynasties). Seoul and Hanoi both have previous names that mean capital in some capacity.
My journey in the Northern Capital started in Hong Kong, of course. It was to be my second, the first having taken place in the summer of 2007, when my family and I had a China highlights tour. That was my first time out of North America. Now I was heading back, and while excited, I was of course wondering what to expect.
Having been there before, I expected I would see the normal tourist sites: the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs, the Forbidden City, and Tiananmen Square, to name a few. I wanted to make a point to see some new sites as well. Overall I hoped to get an understanding of Beijing more profound and more refined to surpass my first.
And I knew what I was expecting. Pollution, in a word, I thought—gray skies and spitting people, to name some more. When I went there in 2007, they were preparing for the Olympics by building venues such as the Bird’s Nest, improving and expanding the metro, and relaying many sidewalks around the city.
What I expected and what I saw overlapped to less an extent that what I thought as well. Buildings went from being unfinished concrete to painted; pollution, while still present, didn’t embed myself into my clothes. The lake-side hutong (胡同) that I saw over two years ago turned into a well-appointed bar-side lake district—but more on that later.
My journey, as I said, started in Hong Kong, and a three-hour flight. We took the airport bus from in front of Queen Mary Hospital (whose canteen I frequent). The bus ride took about an hour, ending at Terminal 1. Going through the airport and experiencing the clean design coupled with efficiency that is HKG, I was reminded of the false impressions that the airport gave me when I arrived two months ago on August 21 (that fateful night).
Going through immigration, we used the “Hong Kong Residents” line and proceeded through smoothly. Security was simple and didn’t require us to take off our shoes (as we do in U.S. airports), though everyone’s belts set off the metal detector.
After waiting a couple hours in the airport, accompanied by coffee and expensive duty-free stores filled with elitist junk, we boarded our plane, flying direct to Beijing. The security video was double the length (once in English, the international language of air travel, and Mandarin). We had in-flight entertainment consisting of “The Brothers Bloom,” a recent movie with Adriane Brody and Rachel Weiss (with her good acting but bad accent).
Landing at the new Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital International Airport, we found ourselves walking for ages, passing through temperature checkpoint after temperature checkpoint (Swine flu/H1N1 alert still noticeably present), followed by Chinese immigrations, who let us through without a hitch.
We then had to take light rail to the exit of Terminal 3. The entire terminal was decorated with high red-and-white paneled ceilings supported by tall, cylindrical white columns. I personally like the design of Hong Kong International Airport better.
On the way to the airport express train, I picked up some renminbi (人民币)/Chinese yuan (元) from the HSBC ATM and we were on our way.
The airport express train was partially subterranean, but the parts of Beijing that I saw I didn’t recognize. Admittedly, it was dark, but the only thing that told me I was out of Hong Kong was the use of simplified Chinese characters (which I feel more comfortable with).
After transferring lines and getting off at the appropriate station, we had a bit of trouble finding our hotel. One of my friends speaks better Mandarin than I, but being more inclined to ask for directions that most men, I found myself asking everyone, including a different hotel’s bellhop where our hotel was. Finally, we found it on the backside of a building, still in Chongwenmen (崇文门) district.
Over several posts following this I hope to elaborate on and reflect upon my adventures in Beijing.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
For those of you who don’t know (don’t be ashamed), Beijing (北京) is the capital city of the People’s Republic of China and literally means “Northern Capital” in Chinese. According to my reading, Beijing was named when it was fashionable for capitals in East Asia to be named literally as such. Kyoto (京都) means “Capital City” and Tokyo (东京) means “Eastern Capital” in Japanese. Nanjing/Nanking (南京) in the southern half of China means “Southern Capital” (and functioned as such for some dynasties). Seoul and Hanoi both have previous names that mean capital in some capacity.
My journey in the Northern Capital started in Hong Kong, of course. It was to be my second, the first having taken place in the summer of 2007, when my family and I had a China highlights tour. That was my first time out of North America. Now I was heading back, and while excited, I was of course wondering what to expect.
Having been there before, I expected I would see the normal tourist sites: the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs, the Forbidden City, and Tiananmen Square, to name a few. I wanted to make a point to see some new sites as well. Overall I hoped to get an understanding of Beijing more profound and more refined to surpass my first.
And I knew what I was expecting. Pollution, in a word, I thought—gray skies and spitting people, to name some more. When I went there in 2007, they were preparing for the Olympics by building venues such as the Bird’s Nest, improving and expanding the metro, and relaying many sidewalks around the city.
What I expected and what I saw overlapped to less an extent that what I thought as well. Buildings went from being unfinished concrete to painted; pollution, while still present, didn’t embed myself into my clothes. The lake-side hutong (胡同) that I saw over two years ago turned into a well-appointed bar-side lake district—but more on that later.
My journey, as I said, started in Hong Kong, and a three-hour flight. We took the airport bus from in front of Queen Mary Hospital (whose canteen I frequent). The bus ride took about an hour, ending at Terminal 1. Going through the airport and experiencing the clean design coupled with efficiency that is HKG, I was reminded of the false impressions that the airport gave me when I arrived two months ago on August 21 (that fateful night).
Going through immigration, we used the “Hong Kong Residents” line and proceeded through smoothly. Security was simple and didn’t require us to take off our shoes (as we do in U.S. airports), though everyone’s belts set off the metal detector.
After waiting a couple hours in the airport, accompanied by coffee and expensive duty-free stores filled with elitist junk, we boarded our plane, flying direct to Beijing. The security video was double the length (once in English, the international language of air travel, and Mandarin). We had in-flight entertainment consisting of “The Brothers Bloom,” a recent movie with Adriane Brody and Rachel Weiss (with her good acting but bad accent).
Landing at the new Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital International Airport, we found ourselves walking for ages, passing through temperature checkpoint after temperature checkpoint (Swine flu/H1N1 alert still noticeably present), followed by Chinese immigrations, who let us through without a hitch.
We then had to take light rail to the exit of Terminal 3. The entire terminal was decorated with high red-and-white paneled ceilings supported by tall, cylindrical white columns. I personally like the design of Hong Kong International Airport better.
On the way to the airport express train, I picked up some renminbi (人民币)/Chinese yuan (元) from the HSBC ATM and we were on our way.
The airport express train was partially subterranean, but the parts of Beijing that I saw I didn’t recognize. Admittedly, it was dark, but the only thing that told me I was out of Hong Kong was the use of simplified Chinese characters (which I feel more comfortable with).
After transferring lines and getting off at the appropriate station, we had a bit of trouble finding our hotel. One of my friends speaks better Mandarin than I, but being more inclined to ask for directions that most men, I found myself asking everyone, including a different hotel’s bellhop where our hotel was. Finally, we found it on the backside of a building, still in Chongwenmen (崇文门) district.
Over several posts following this I hope to elaborate on and reflect upon my adventures in Beijing.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Welcome to Hong Kong
I am so utterly confused.
When I landed on Friday, August 21, I just wanted to get to my dorm as quickly as possible. From the airplane Hong Kong looked beautiful, and from the ground it still does. I took the airplane express train to Central Hong Kong, where the taxi pick up area was located underground.
I waited there for half an hour as the taxis slowly came and went. In the meantime, I began sweating up a storm as I realized how humid it really was. Even inside the stations, which I believe were somewhat air-conditioned, I was a precipitating mess carrying around my bags. I just wanted to get to my hall.
Just about 20 hours before then, my parents dropped me off in the airport. We didn’t weigh my one suitcase, so my dad brought an extra duffle bag in case I needed to repack to avoid the $150 over-weight fee. I could bring up to two pieces of luggage weighing less than 50 pounds each, but not one weighing up to 100 pounds. It turned out that my suitcase weighed almost eighty pounds, so it was good my dad brought the extra bag.
Security was on high alert that day, so I had to wait through winding Disneyland-style lines with the other travelers trying to get into the terminal. Before then I said my goodbyes to my parents, and then I was alone and off on my way. The next time I would see home or my immediate family would be in December.
Finally my taxi came up to the gate. I entered after my bags were in the trunk and we were off. He asked where I was headed in Cantonese. I replied “6 Sasoon Road, the University of Hong Kong.” Unfortunately, I mispronounced “Sasoon,” which I said with an “oo” like “moon” as I was taught. However, as Anglicization is an aid more than a solution, the way the “oo” of “Sasoon” is pronounced is closer to the French “u” as in “tu.”
So he misunderstood me. I ended up showing him the cheat card that the university provided me with that explicitly said, “Please take me to the following hall at the University of Hong Kong at 6 Sasoon Road: Lee Hysan.”
Then he was like, “Oh Sas[French “u”]n Road!” As we emerged from the underground pick-up place, I couldn’t help but notice the roads sprawling upwards, the streets visibly twisting back and forth among themselves—and it wasn’t even a freeway. These flights of roads gave me the impression that most of Hong Kong Island was like that, and I quickly became hesitant to go exploring the city by myself. Now most people tell me I have a good sense of direction, but this sight just intimidated the hell out of me and at that point I just wanted to sleep.
We drove from the downtown district up and around the west side of the island, into Pok Fu Lam District where I couldn’t help but noticing the propensity of Hong Kongers to finish their buildings in tile. While not really noticeable in pictures, most residential buildings are covered in small ceramic tile squares of varying colors.
As we approached my hall I was shocked. I was still in a surreal mind state, but the hall was nothing like what I expected. The turn-around driveway was partially under construction and all the buildings surrounded it had bamboo-constructed scaffolding and green covering.
I walked in and found an unexpected language barrier with the woman who was helping me check in. I was under the impression that since classes were held in English, most of the staff would be competent as well. Well there’s an expectation thrown out the window.
I went up to my room on the fourteenth floor, which has great views (albeit covered by green mesh netting) of the west entrance to Victoria Harbor. I also found a couple hall mates to introduce myself to. One was really nice and one was really not so nice (like students elsewhere).
That night, I finished up by calling my mother (at 6 a.m. pacific daylight time) and my HKU exchange buddy, who offered me a tour of campus the day after I arrived. The first picked up, relieved that I had gotten there on time and safely (as there is only one SFO-HKG flight a day and my flight to SFO from LAX was delayed by almost two hours). The latter didn’t pick up, but as I will explain, I still got my tour later.
That night—no air conditioning, fully humid with just a fan and five open windows—I went to sleep, apprehensive about what was to come. My thoughts drifted on, as always.
Lesson learned—pronouncing Anglicized Hong Kong names and places with an American accent won’t get me very far.
Welcome to Hong Kong, James.
When I landed on Friday, August 21, I just wanted to get to my dorm as quickly as possible. From the airplane Hong Kong looked beautiful, and from the ground it still does. I took the airplane express train to Central Hong Kong, where the taxi pick up area was located underground.
I waited there for half an hour as the taxis slowly came and went. In the meantime, I began sweating up a storm as I realized how humid it really was. Even inside the stations, which I believe were somewhat air-conditioned, I was a precipitating mess carrying around my bags. I just wanted to get to my hall.
Just about 20 hours before then, my parents dropped me off in the airport. We didn’t weigh my one suitcase, so my dad brought an extra duffle bag in case I needed to repack to avoid the $150 over-weight fee. I could bring up to two pieces of luggage weighing less than 50 pounds each, but not one weighing up to 100 pounds. It turned out that my suitcase weighed almost eighty pounds, so it was good my dad brought the extra bag.
Security was on high alert that day, so I had to wait through winding Disneyland-style lines with the other travelers trying to get into the terminal. Before then I said my goodbyes to my parents, and then I was alone and off on my way. The next time I would see home or my immediate family would be in December.
Finally my taxi came up to the gate. I entered after my bags were in the trunk and we were off. He asked where I was headed in Cantonese. I replied “6 Sasoon Road, the University of Hong Kong.” Unfortunately, I mispronounced “Sasoon,” which I said with an “oo” like “moon” as I was taught. However, as Anglicization is an aid more than a solution, the way the “oo” of “Sasoon” is pronounced is closer to the French “u” as in “tu.”
So he misunderstood me. I ended up showing him the cheat card that the university provided me with that explicitly said, “Please take me to the following hall at the University of Hong Kong at 6 Sasoon Road: Lee Hysan.”
Then he was like, “Oh Sas[French “u”]n Road!” As we emerged from the underground pick-up place, I couldn’t help but notice the roads sprawling upwards, the streets visibly twisting back and forth among themselves—and it wasn’t even a freeway. These flights of roads gave me the impression that most of Hong Kong Island was like that, and I quickly became hesitant to go exploring the city by myself. Now most people tell me I have a good sense of direction, but this sight just intimidated the hell out of me and at that point I just wanted to sleep.
We drove from the downtown district up and around the west side of the island, into Pok Fu Lam District where I couldn’t help but noticing the propensity of Hong Kongers to finish their buildings in tile. While not really noticeable in pictures, most residential buildings are covered in small ceramic tile squares of varying colors.
As we approached my hall I was shocked. I was still in a surreal mind state, but the hall was nothing like what I expected. The turn-around driveway was partially under construction and all the buildings surrounded it had bamboo-constructed scaffolding and green covering.
I walked in and found an unexpected language barrier with the woman who was helping me check in. I was under the impression that since classes were held in English, most of the staff would be competent as well. Well there’s an expectation thrown out the window.
I went up to my room on the fourteenth floor, which has great views (albeit covered by green mesh netting) of the west entrance to Victoria Harbor. I also found a couple hall mates to introduce myself to. One was really nice and one was really not so nice (like students elsewhere).
That night, I finished up by calling my mother (at 6 a.m. pacific daylight time) and my HKU exchange buddy, who offered me a tour of campus the day after I arrived. The first picked up, relieved that I had gotten there on time and safely (as there is only one SFO-HKG flight a day and my flight to SFO from LAX was delayed by almost two hours). The latter didn’t pick up, but as I will explain, I still got my tour later.
That night—no air conditioning, fully humid with just a fan and five open windows—I went to sleep, apprehensive about what was to come. My thoughts drifted on, as always.
Lesson learned—pronouncing Anglicized Hong Kong names and places with an American accent won’t get me very far.
Welcome to Hong Kong, James.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
My Nervousness
Recently, I hypothetically asked my mother what she thought of me driving down to San Diego from Thousand Oaks, some one hundred fifty miles, by myself. I will be turning 19 in less than two months and like to feel as though my maturity exceeds my years. She told me that she was unsure, and still felt that it was still too early. While I understand that she’s just being a protective mother, inconsistencies arise, such as the fact that she knows that I take rides back to UCSD with other students around my age with less driving experience than me. I suppose this exception is to make sure I get to school, seeing as the alternatives would be either a three-and-a-half-hour train ride (costing $27) coupled with a half-hour bus ride to campus, or they drive me to school (two-and-a-half hours optimistically) and then back. Anyway, I help pay for my friends’ gas and carpooling is good for the environment, right?
There is one big hurdle that one needs to get over when studying abroad—leaving home. I guess it is a fairly straightforward process that everyone goes through when they leave the nest. Unfortunately for me, I, as well as most of my suitemates (whom I dorm with), have not really left home. We all go home for breaks, most of us have gone home more than once during each of our three quarters (each quarter consisting of eleven weeks), and first and foremost, we refer to our former domiciles as “home,” and refer to the act of visiting as “going back [home].” Last quarter, my roommate went back to Glendale six or seven weekends out of the ten, and another suitemate went home every weekend until just a month ago and still goes back frequently. I really am no different. Fall quarter, my family visited me once, and I went home once. Winter quarter, I went home twice and my family visited me once. This current spring quarter, my mother has visited me once, and my family plans to visit me the weekend after next, both occasions regarding orientation for study abroad.
My home is in Thousand Oaks, where I was born and raised. I can point to minute landmarks and show whoever cares to where I reached milestones in my life, just the way my parents intended. Don’t get me wrong—I love La Jolla. The weather’s great and insects are few; there is much more diversity here than the suburban community close to my heart, and I can see the blue Pacific from by window. In fact, the similarities between La Jolla and Thousand Oaks, particularly around Westlake High School (where I graduated), are plenty. In a sentence—it’s full of old rich people. There are many nice cars, crime is low, and drivers are bad. It reminds me of home in my own personal way and I’m glad to have it. So in a different way, I have not yet left home. My new town is reminiscent of the old and I have yet to start seeing my family any more than three times a year. Therein lies my stage in life.
Well, I purchased my round-trip ticket from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) a couple weeks ago, and ever since my nervousness has been building steadily. I told my mother of this increase when she was here the other weekend. I received the response, “Why?” Simple and succinct, her one word said a thousand. Did you do something wrong? Did you miss a deadline…oh no, did you miss a housing deadline? It would have been a good thing she didn’t say it out loud, but her intonation gave her utterance meaning, possibly including meaning she didn’t mean to give.
My mother used to live in Hong Kong during her early childhood back in the day, so I’m not sure she understands the full gravity behind my nervousness. Previously, my family visited China for two weeks with a tour group. We visited Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Suzhou, all of which in central and northern China. Hong Kong, on the other hand, is in southern China (along with the good food, my mother tells me!). It was a good experience in every sense. Not only did we experience a slice of culture, we also got too see the developing country in development. There were construction cranes everywhere, and unfortunately the cities were masked in pollution. My brother and I realized the extent of our language barriers (my brother’s more than mine).
Will Hong Kong be enshrined in smog? Will it be hot and humid like the rest of China during most of the year? I already know I will have to give up my California weather—but to what extent? I suppose I will find out soon enough. How will the people be? Will the people spit all over the ground like they did in Beijing? Will the people lift their shirts halfway up their chests so as to mitigate the heat as the men did in Xian? Only time will tell I guess.
And back to my family—I will not likely see them during the four-month semester, nor will they likely see me. Whereas I do not think this is going to be a problem on my end, I know my mother has different feelings, to which I answer, “Well at least I’m not leaving for the whole year.” Little consolation, I know.
Recall that she is currently against the idea of me driving to San Diego myself—a distance of one hundred fifty miles. Hong Kong is seven thousand, two hundred miles away (or forty-eight times the distance), on a journey I will be taking by myself, crowded onto a Boeing 747 “Jumbo-Jet” with some four hundred fifty other people. I know that she will be worrying about me and my safety, and while I tell her that I’ll be okay and there’s nothing to worry about because I’ll watch myself, I know that she will remain worried until the whole episode is over and done with.
This is evidenced by the first time I came home by train. I had a 6:35 p.m. train from Oceanside going north to Los Angeles Union Station; and from there I had a bus leaving at 9:30 p.m. for arrival in Simi Valley at 10:40 p.m. Now, I am confident in my directional bearings more than the average bear, and my parents know of my keen abilities (such as being nocturnal). Nevertheless at 6:15 p.m. my father called me to see if I was at the train station yet. On a side note, I realize this whole time I’ve been focusing on my mother. That’s not to say that my father doesn’t care, I just don’t know if in his silent ways he worries about me in the same way. Because of this, I do not know whether he called me on his own accord or whether my mother had him call me. My parents claim to put up a unified front, so I’ll treat this matter as such.
Anyways, I told him yes, that I am at the train station, on the proper platform, and I will call him when I board the train. The train was late by five minutes. At 6:40 p.m., as I was entering the train, my father called me worried because I did not call him shortly after 6:35 p.m. I cleared things up, but before we hung up, he made sure I was on the correct train (keep in mind that trains don’t come any more often than three or four in any given hour on one of two platforms) and that I had my ticket still.
At Union Station in Los Angeles, I boarded the bus and called my parents again to update them. My father wanted to make sure I was on the correct bus again. I told him I was sure because it had the correct number on it as well as the destination Santa Barbara, along which was Simi Valley, the driver accepted my ticket without a problem, and the bus-loading lot was populated with one bus—the one I got on.
In Chatsworth (one stop before Simi Valley), I texted him to tell him of my whereabouts. I didn’t call because there were people on the bus sleeping.
“I’m in chatsworth. I should be in simi by 1045”
I was texting my brother’s phone, which my parents borrowed to pick me up. My parents, having never owned a cell phone personally except for a short stint in 1994, much less one with texting abilities, made an attempt to reply.
“O 2 n i k 2 m m m” I read it and lol-ed.
Anyways, I got there and saw my parents a couple hundred feet away. I began walking to them when I saw my mother flaring her hands about to get my attention, for fear that I may go the wrong direction, though I was clearly going towards them. It was like a corny movie, a scene that was bound to happen. In the car during the ride home they told me how they were so worried because the bus was fifteen minutes late and that it was night, to which I smiled.
Multiply that by 48 for the difference in distance and 4 for the difference in time gone without seeing each other, and we’ll see where we are then.
*
There is one big hurdle that one needs to get over when studying abroad—leaving home. I guess it is a fairly straightforward process that everyone goes through when they leave the nest. Unfortunately for me, I, as well as most of my suitemates (whom I dorm with), have not really left home. We all go home for breaks, most of us have gone home more than once during each of our three quarters (each quarter consisting of eleven weeks), and first and foremost, we refer to our former domiciles as “home,” and refer to the act of visiting as “going back [home].” Last quarter, my roommate went back to Glendale six or seven weekends out of the ten, and another suitemate went home every weekend until just a month ago and still goes back frequently. I really am no different. Fall quarter, my family visited me once, and I went home once. Winter quarter, I went home twice and my family visited me once. This current spring quarter, my mother has visited me once, and my family plans to visit me the weekend after next, both occasions regarding orientation for study abroad.
My home is in Thousand Oaks, where I was born and raised. I can point to minute landmarks and show whoever cares to where I reached milestones in my life, just the way my parents intended. Don’t get me wrong—I love La Jolla. The weather’s great and insects are few; there is much more diversity here than the suburban community close to my heart, and I can see the blue Pacific from by window. In fact, the similarities between La Jolla and Thousand Oaks, particularly around Westlake High School (where I graduated), are plenty. In a sentence—it’s full of old rich people. There are many nice cars, crime is low, and drivers are bad. It reminds me of home in my own personal way and I’m glad to have it. So in a different way, I have not yet left home. My new town is reminiscent of the old and I have yet to start seeing my family any more than three times a year. Therein lies my stage in life.
Well, I purchased my round-trip ticket from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) a couple weeks ago, and ever since my nervousness has been building steadily. I told my mother of this increase when she was here the other weekend. I received the response, “Why?” Simple and succinct, her one word said a thousand. Did you do something wrong? Did you miss a deadline…oh no, did you miss a housing deadline? It would have been a good thing she didn’t say it out loud, but her intonation gave her utterance meaning, possibly including meaning she didn’t mean to give.
My mother used to live in Hong Kong during her early childhood back in the day, so I’m not sure she understands the full gravity behind my nervousness. Previously, my family visited China for two weeks with a tour group. We visited Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Suzhou, all of which in central and northern China. Hong Kong, on the other hand, is in southern China (along with the good food, my mother tells me!). It was a good experience in every sense. Not only did we experience a slice of culture, we also got too see the developing country in development. There were construction cranes everywhere, and unfortunately the cities were masked in pollution. My brother and I realized the extent of our language barriers (my brother’s more than mine).
Will Hong Kong be enshrined in smog? Will it be hot and humid like the rest of China during most of the year? I already know I will have to give up my California weather—but to what extent? I suppose I will find out soon enough. How will the people be? Will the people spit all over the ground like they did in Beijing? Will the people lift their shirts halfway up their chests so as to mitigate the heat as the men did in Xian? Only time will tell I guess.
And back to my family—I will not likely see them during the four-month semester, nor will they likely see me. Whereas I do not think this is going to be a problem on my end, I know my mother has different feelings, to which I answer, “Well at least I’m not leaving for the whole year.” Little consolation, I know.
Recall that she is currently against the idea of me driving to San Diego myself—a distance of one hundred fifty miles. Hong Kong is seven thousand, two hundred miles away (or forty-eight times the distance), on a journey I will be taking by myself, crowded onto a Boeing 747 “Jumbo-Jet” with some four hundred fifty other people. I know that she will be worrying about me and my safety, and while I tell her that I’ll be okay and there’s nothing to worry about because I’ll watch myself, I know that she will remain worried until the whole episode is over and done with.
This is evidenced by the first time I came home by train. I had a 6:35 p.m. train from Oceanside going north to Los Angeles Union Station; and from there I had a bus leaving at 9:30 p.m. for arrival in Simi Valley at 10:40 p.m. Now, I am confident in my directional bearings more than the average bear, and my parents know of my keen abilities (such as being nocturnal). Nevertheless at 6:15 p.m. my father called me to see if I was at the train station yet. On a side note, I realize this whole time I’ve been focusing on my mother. That’s not to say that my father doesn’t care, I just don’t know if in his silent ways he worries about me in the same way. Because of this, I do not know whether he called me on his own accord or whether my mother had him call me. My parents claim to put up a unified front, so I’ll treat this matter as such.
Anyways, I told him yes, that I am at the train station, on the proper platform, and I will call him when I board the train. The train was late by five minutes. At 6:40 p.m., as I was entering the train, my father called me worried because I did not call him shortly after 6:35 p.m. I cleared things up, but before we hung up, he made sure I was on the correct train (keep in mind that trains don’t come any more often than three or four in any given hour on one of two platforms) and that I had my ticket still.
At Union Station in Los Angeles, I boarded the bus and called my parents again to update them. My father wanted to make sure I was on the correct bus again. I told him I was sure because it had the correct number on it as well as the destination Santa Barbara, along which was Simi Valley, the driver accepted my ticket without a problem, and the bus-loading lot was populated with one bus—the one I got on.
In Chatsworth (one stop before Simi Valley), I texted him to tell him of my whereabouts. I didn’t call because there were people on the bus sleeping.
“I’m in chatsworth. I should be in simi by 1045”
I was texting my brother’s phone, which my parents borrowed to pick me up. My parents, having never owned a cell phone personally except for a short stint in 1994, much less one with texting abilities, made an attempt to reply.
“O 2 n i k 2 m m m” I read it and lol-ed.
Anyways, I got there and saw my parents a couple hundred feet away. I began walking to them when I saw my mother flaring her hands about to get my attention, for fear that I may go the wrong direction, though I was clearly going towards them. It was like a corny movie, a scene that was bound to happen. In the car during the ride home they told me how they were so worried because the bus was fifteen minutes late and that it was night, to which I smiled.
Multiply that by 48 for the difference in distance and 4 for the difference in time gone without seeing each other, and we’ll see where we are then.
*
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
