Emily Gets Lost

Hong Kong in more detail

So after a sad farewell with my family in China, I boarded my flight to Hong Kong, marking the commencement of travelling solo. Sitting next to me was a wealthy, middle-aged couple from America who confirmed the widely known fact that all Americans speak with a slow, Texan drawl. However surprise surprise, these two were from LA and were leaving Shanghai (China’s most modern city) early to seek some place more metropolitan (HK). They did, however, have only positive things to say about Hangzhou, and in particular the amazing light/water show on West Lake. I agreed and said how great it was to see such an awesome display every night for free, when usually everything tourist-y costs you money. This awkardly revealed that the couple had in fact paid a rather large sum of money to view the show from a special window rather than from the free seats right on the lakeside. So this made me realise how important it is to travel with locals you can trust (ie. In China, my family) and how easy it is to get ripped off as a tourist in this part of the world.

My 6 day stay in Hong Kong confirmed the advantages of travelling with ravel when I couchsurfed with two Hong Kongnese hosts. It allowed me to meet 8 locals (between 19-25yrs) and learn all about life in HK and also hear their different perspectives on the political climate there. I was taken to all their favourite places to eat or have a beer, where I was always the only foreigner. But they also showed me around the big tourist spots (like Kowloon, LFK, the flower street, the ladies markets..) so I really got to see it all. The big day trips were Ocean Park, Lamma Island and Macau. Ocean Park was so much fun of course, I don’t think you can go wrong at a place with giant roller coasters, pandas, dolphins and seals. At the top of the scariest ride I’ve ever been on, “The Hair Raiser,” there’s even a second before a huge drop to take in the beautiful view of HK and it’s outlying islands. Visiting one of those islands (Lamma Island) was also a fantastic experience. I don’t think many people realise how much opportunity there is for some great hiking around HK, but their missing out because the scenery is lovely, the water is bright turquoise, and there’s even beaches. Lamma Island is only a 40 minute ferry away from Central and it’s really worth a visit. Lastly, I visited Macau with my second host, Jackie, and we had such a fantastic time: visiting old churches, exploring the Guia Lighthouse, scamming heaps of free food near the St Paul’s Ruins, chilling at Hac Song beach, seeking out the famous Lord Stowe’s Bakery and indulging in a dozen delicious egg tarts and of course, checking out the casinos. Macau is the only part of China (including HK) where it’s legal to gamble, so everyday there are thousands of mainlanders flocking there to try and make it lucky. Once you get inside one of the casinos, you completely lose any sense of the outside world… they’re brightly lit all day and night, waiters walk around with free coffee and tea on tap in case you’re feeling tired and even the air smells really expensive, so I’m sure it’s also spiked with something that makes you lose money. Jackie and I didn’t really feel like losing thousands of dollars, so we didn’t gamble, but we did take a piss in the world’s most lavish bathroom.

My trip to Hong Kong ended with a flight to Delhi, where I would have a 7 hour layover before flying to Kathmandu. The flight itself was fine, but I was sitting next to a creepy guy who woke me up for no reason other than to ominously inform me that “Delhi is full of rape, even in the airport…” Yeah, thanks buddy, I know who I’ll be identifying in the line-up. During my layover, I realised it was Good Friday, so I celebrated by eating a Toblerone in the international transfer lounge of Delhi airport.

Quasi Update

I realised it’s been two weeks since I last updated my blog. It’s currently 5am in Hong Kong and I’ve been awake for 20 hours, so I’ll keep this short and sweet. This time tomorrow I’ll be in Delhi airport, finding ways to entertain myself during a 7 hour layover. Maybe writing a proper blog entry will be one of those ways. So my time in China (I’ll include Hong Kong in that for now) has almost come to an end, and I’m feeling pretty mixed about it. Today I found myself happy and feeling ‘at home’ to be hearing people speak Mandarin (rather than Cantonese) around me, which has freaked me out to no end. I have to be awake in 4 hours, so I’m thinking I’ll try this again tomorrow. Maybe the scattered dysfunction of this post is intentional, in that it depicts a metaphor for my life in its current state. Alright, definitely time for sleep.

Hitchhiking in China

So, if you look at the Beijing photo post it’s pretty clear that the weather at the Great Wall wasn’t ideal. Visibility was about a 5 metre radius, on the wall and on the roads leading to it. I would say for most people (my cousin and I included), that after a few hours walking through the freezing, windy and wet mist, it was enough to call it a day. So when it reached about 1pm, everybody had the same idea, let’s get out of here!

Oh wait, we’re in China, things are never that simple…

So we’re met with this scene, a huge line of cars backed up honking at each other and a crowd of hundreds freaking out… we think a fight even broke out judging by a lot of yelling and people taking photos of the centre of the crowd. 

Video of the ruckus: http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg587/emilygetslost/Beijing/?action=view&current=MVI_0568.mp4 

Basically, all the roads have been shut, the buses aren’t running and neither is the railway. We’re all essentially stranded at the Great Wall with hundreds of crazy people, although I also saw a few terrified faces of foreigners within the mob, which was kind of funny. A man announced that in the next few hours they were going to be running one train an hour… can you imagine trying to get a place on that first train? They weren’t even sure when that would be.

After walking walking around for about 20 minutes unsuccessfully trying to find any way to get back to Beijing, my cousin spontaneously decided to knock on the window of one of the waiting cars and ask for a lift. Amazingly, they agreed right away, insisted we give them no money, and invited us into their toasty, warm and roomy SUV. I couldn’t believe our luck! Of course we were still stuck in traffic for about an hour and a half, but the highway eventually reopened and we made our way back into Beijing in comfort! The couple was insanely generous, giving us food, recommending their favourite restaurants and telling us how to get to them and dropping us right near a subway station. The man, who was the driver, was also amazingly skilled and he is what I based my ‘advanced driver’ thing on in that last post. 

So hitchhiking in China is very possible! And it makes you feel really warm and fuzzy about the human race, when the experience is positive of course! Later that night another couple went really out of their way to guide us to the relocated position of the restaurant we’d been recommended. So despite how crappy the weather was, it turned into a pretty good day, and my faith in human kind was restored etc.

Driving in China

Signs of weakness:

*  Driving with 4 pumped up tires 
* Driving with 4 tires at all - there’s heaps of 3 wheeled cars around, like this
* Acknowledging lanes
* Honking less than 3 times a minute
* Having 2 working headlights/indicators/break lights/high beams
* Driving without your high beams on permanently at night
* Ignoring phone calls or texts and concentrating on the road 
* Having no dangly thing from your rear view mirror or plush seat covers
 

Signs of an advanced driver:

* Creating a new third lane in between your lane and the oncoming lane when the traffic is backed up
* Driving next to the road when the traffic is backed up 
* Leaving your car in park and going for a walk when the traffic is backed up, and making it back in time for when it starts moving

Irrelevant, but this is what all babies in China currently look like:

Language Quirks

So, the Chinese “filler” word (like their equivalent of “um”) basically sounds like, to put it delicately, “ngga”. And really, it’s hard not to feel pretty ghetto when your grandma starts all her sentences with “Ngga…” and repeats it at least three more times throughout. 

Eating corn like the gangster she is

First day in Hangzhou

I made it!

My official first day of my travel consisted of airport security pat downs, surprisingly tasty airplane meals, a confusing and frantic layover at Guangzhou airport and a man who thought my seat was his extra elbow room. But hey, I made it!

This morning I was woken by my Grandma, who was so excited she came bounding into my room speaking fast Chinese, it was really quite cute. Speaking with my family has been a challenge made easier by technology. My Auntie and I both communicate through the translators on our iPhones and if that fails, the only phrases I really need are ‘Ok,” “I like/I don’t like,” and “No, I’m not cold.”

Beautiful West Lake

After lunch I met my Auntie’s neighbour, a 21 year old girl named Ying Ying who can speak English, yay! Together we walked around West Lake and its many surrounding pakrs. The beautiful views were coupled with many beautiful (and shivering) couples taking their wedding pictures. Ying Ying told me that most couples had these professional shots taken before they are actually married, so they can show them off during the ceremony. She also noted that it isn’t unheard of that a couple breaks up between taking the photos and getting married. 

The lovely couple in red (and 5°C)

Ying Ying and I

The commercial part of West Lake felt more Americanized than even Sydney, with a Starbucks literally on every corner. There was also a Dairy Queen, Subway, Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut… and most importantly I saw my first Macca’s since starting the trip. I knew it couldn’t evade me for long!


 
Never too far from “home”

On the way home from West Lake I got to experience Chinese buses (and traffic) at peak hour. I now understand the reason behind the small Asian build is to provide for the efficient transport of their enormous population. Pushing and shoving is considered a national sport here. I realised I was handling it all fine after noticing an american couple jammed up in the corner of the bus muttering the unofficial mantra of white people tourism over and over, “It’s the experience, It’s the experience…”

So, I’m one day in and so far so good. Bring on day two!

More photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/emilygetslost/sets/72157629525294281/