China - Day 1; Hong Kong to Beijing

China Day One – Hong Kong to Beijing

 

We arrived in Hong Kong at 8am.  The view from the ship was incredible.  High rise buildings scattered around the base of beautiful mountains.  If I had one word to describe the city, "modern."  Familiar electronic company's buildings strung as far as the eye could see.  Unfortunately it was an extremely overcast and rainy morning so the view wasn't as clear as it could have been.  It was extremely humid and in the mid 70's when we arrived.  The ship was docked right alongside the most expensive mall in Hong Kong, and in order to leave the dock you had to go directly into the mall and through it.  My trip was the first trip to leave the ship, since we were the only trip that was flying out of Hong Kong on our first day.  It was kind of sad that we didn't have any time to explore the city, as it looked absolutely incredible.  I will have to add that to my list of places to go back to.  My trip left the ship directly after the diplomatic briefing, around 9:30.  We headed through the mall and straight to the buses.  About 50 students/staff/life-long learners in all, we fit into two buses comfortably and drove 45 minutes to the Hong Kong airport.  The drive was fascinating.  We passed around the mountains on a windy road, over bridges, under gondolas strung around the mountains, and then we finally reached the airport.  Check-in was relatively easy, and we had about an hour of free time before our plane was to board.  The airport was huge, and wasn't broken up into terminals as we are used to.  There are 80 gates, and they were organized by number in ascending order.  PJ and I grabbed snacks (him at BK and me at a cookie shop and then Starbucks) and then we headed to our gate.  There was free WIFI in the airport so I took advantage of that to check my Temple email and my Facebook.  The flight started off normal.  We got free soda!  But then, it started.  The turbulence.  I have never been so terrified in my life.  The flight attendant got on the loud speaker, panicky, and almost screaming in Chinese to put on your seat belt and put up your tray.  Turbulence normally doesn't scare me, but it didn't feel like normal turbulence.  It felt like we were loosing altitude quickly.  We were all scared, looking around, and wondering what was going on.  After about a minute it stopped, but we did have mild turbulence for the rest of the 3 hour trip.  I don't know why, but it was the roughest flight ever!  We were given a meal, which I haven't had on a flight forever.  It was really good: a noodle and carrot salad, pasta with shrimp and fish, a roll with butter, and an ice cream cup.  So good.  I could get used to that again.  When we got to Beijing we were all so shocked about how cold it was.  They warned us on the ship that it would feel like winter, but after being in the warm weather for months we couldn't really expect it.  BUT, it is freezing.  You can see your breath, during the day . . . AH!  We had a 40 minute ride to our hotel.  I was amazed that most of the high rises that you could see were all residential.  There are just so many people, you have to see it to believe it.  Beijing is extremely modern as well.  The architecture of some of the buildings is just so cool.   Geometric patterns, buildings that protrude out past their bases, different colors, shapes and sizes.  Our hotel is extremely nice:  comfortable, down comforters, flat screen TV's with HBO (English movies, hurray), and nice wood furniture.  After checking in we had about an hour until we had to meet the bus for dinner.  I got roomed with a girl named Taylor.  We had met on the plane because she sat two seats away from me, so I was happy that she will be my roommate for this trip.  As we drove to our restaurant we passed Tiananmen Square which was all lit up for the night.  It was incredible.  There were also various other building strung with lights that illuminated their distinct classic Asian style.  Dinner consisted of many, many courses.  There was a spring green salad with ginger, a spicy peanut salad, chicken and peppers, sweet and sour shrimp, soup, rice, and then the main course Peking duck.  Peking duck, prepared correctly, has a crispy skin.  The skin is extremely oily and fatty and tastes like the fat on bacon.  The duck itself has the taste of funky chicken.  I don't know if I liked it or not, I still haven't decided, but I ate it regardless.  They eat the Peking duck in tortilla like flour cakes, and stuff them with vegetables, onions, and sauces.  I tried this out, but preferred to eat my tortilla with sauce and rice instead.  For desert we had fruit.  Oh yea, I forgot to mention, we also had a mystery dish that we think was duck tongue.  This was actually my favorite dish!  It was extremely tender and full of great flavor.  After dinner we took the bus back to the hotel.  Many people headed out for the night, but I joined a group of 5 people who were going to walk around the block and come back.  We found a McDonalds and indulged in some fries dipped in chocolate shake.  So delicious.  I crave ice cream so badly, it is inhuman.  There were weird things on the menu such as Red Bean Pie!  It actually looked good, and probably was very sweet.  I tried to take a picture of the McDonalds menu but the cashier yelled at me.  They warned us about stuff like this . . . communist country.  They are weird about things like that, and are on constant look out to protect their system from whatever they appear to be a "threat."  Oh well.  After our American food we headed back to the hotel where I took a shower and then laid in bed watching Stomp the Yard.