Nihao all,
I think the next lesson that Heidi and I need to learn is how to tell
time in Chinese. We just got off of a train bound for Chengdu, China
with the understanding that we would be trapped in our hard, middle,
sleeper berths for 20 hours, not bargaining for an extra 12! Luckily,
the space available checks in just above the bus sleeper berths, so
that I didn't have to fear falling out if I had decided to switch
sides.
Some of you may know that my friend, Heidi, and I decided to spend a
month traveling around SW China. We flew into Hong Kong a couple of
weeks ago and fulfilled my girl-in-the-city fantasy with the neon
lights and being able to find anything you had ever asked for. We
should have taken the men up on their plentiful "custom-made-suit"
offers so that we could have fit in a bit more with the business crowd
in town.
We didn't last long there, and with our newly acquired, expensive,
Chinese Visas in hand we were off to Yangshou. I thought I would find
the images of my Chinese dreams there. And I did. As I mentioned to
Heidi and Thomas, our new Czech friend, I felt as though we were in a
fairy land. Or in a movie, as we lazily floated down the river on
bamboo rafts, bikes on board, surrounded by the karst limestone
scenery. It even stopped raining long enough to fit in a day of
climbing. I realized that fewer hands have gripped the limestone here
than compared with Thailand as my shredded hands proved evidence of.
Now we find ourselves in a Chinese comedy. As Heidi and I have
managed to pick up a phrase or two (ie I don't want that, hello, thank
you), we are constantly in search of the right phrase to get us by in
our Mandarin phrasebook. We are usually at our wit's end when someone
responds in words, or better yet, in symbols, and we are left looking
at each other in despair, and at them in looks of wonder trying to
figure out what help or humility has been given to us.
Throughout our confusion, we have been biking and hiking and enjoying
saying "hello" to every person we see on the streets. The babies are
adorably wrapped up in every piece of clothing they own to resemble
min-marshmallow men, and they must learn how to say "hello" in English
before Chinese. They certainly reeled me in though with their rosy
cheeks and dark eyes.
The sights and smells are as amazing as the scenery and we have been
able to see everything from caged birds, skinned rabbits, and swimming
carp, to the most delicious smelling lilies, sweet mangoes, and
pineapples cheaper than Thailand! I am in heaven! I would kill to
have fruit like this everyday back home!
Next we head north to Juizhaighou where we hope to be surrounded by
trees and alpine scenery, and promises of some warmer temps! I am
also hoping to manage to steel Andrew's camera cable so I can finally
add some pictures to this journey!
I hope everyone is happy and healthy and enjoying the year of the pig!
Love to everyone!
Em
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Chinese Robot Performs Opera
I have the best sister anyone could ever ask for. I am visiting Minneapolis where my sister lives. We drank Chinese tea for the better part of an afternoon. Then we spent a lot of time biking around the city (she does not have a car)--Big epiphany, I realized that I could like cities, love cities (at least for awhile), if it did not involve driving in them. It was a totally new experience to use a bike for transportation rather than recreation. On bike, we caught hefty delicate whiffs of the fruit trees blooming, saw a marching band practicing, caught a peek at a shooting star, watched the almost full pumpkin moon rising over the Mississippi with the city sky line in the background and caught glimpses of multiple Prince (the singer) look-a-likes. It was fun to actually experience the city and hear/feel the heartbeat of the neighborhoods while we biked through instead of just cursing out belligerent drivers.
After biking 12 miles round trip to a movie my sister had a surprise that she had been working on. She had spent a couple hours that afternoon working on it and had been teasing me about it for some time. My sister is a Chinese Robot but with amazing ideas, lots of creativity and graphic design skills. I was directed to sit down on the couch, her boyfriend (Brady) turned up the music and she began to perform Chinese Opera, complete with cooking pot lids as props for cymbals. The clock struck midnight and the cymbals crashed in Chinese fashion; Brady and I laughed and she had a hard time not laughing herself. Then she brought out a beautiful delish cake for her 1/2 Ukrainian, 1/2 Chinese sister. The opera story continued with her cutting the cake in the performance and eventually us eating it. The cake was a checkered cake with jello in it (although I never would have guessed). The jello was not the secret to making the cake checkered and after much guessing, the secret was eventually revealed to me. The performance was complete with a flyer that she had made advertising her debut.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Tibetan Recipe for Jiouzha/Momos/Steamed Dumplings
Ok found this great book--actually my sista found this great book --"The Lhasa Moon Tibetan Cookbook" and here's a recipe for momos. The book says it is the single dish that represents Tibetan food. Also says that momos are never eaten on the first day of the new year, because the meat closed up in the doug would signify a shutting off of good luck. Also the book says that the main thing is trying to keep the ingredients inside the pocket moist. There are apparently also subtle techiniques involved in eating momos. One should first bite a small hole in the dough and suck out the juices, then spoon chili sauce into the hole and eat the rest (no I did not make this part up).
Enuf said, here's the recipe and good luck!
BASIC MOMO DOUGH
This amount will serve 4 as a main course or 8 as an appetizer
2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup water
Mix the flour and water into dough, and knead it well. The amount of water needed may vary slightly depending on the age of the flour. The dough should be as moist as for ordinary bread. Cover the dough and set it aside to rest while preparing the momo filling.
Knead the dough until it becomes elastic, Keep the surface of the dough, your hands and the work table well floured. Roll the dough under your palms to a long cylinder about one inch in diameter. Break off balls of dough, each about one inch in diameter. Roll each ball in your palms to make a smooth sphere and then press to flatten it into a small circle. Use a floured rolling pin to enlarge the circle, working in a circular motion around the edges so that the middle remains slightly thicker.
If you are using more than one filling, use different shapes to tell them apart (clever!).
For all shapes, begin by holding the circle of dough in your left hand and place a tablespoon of filling in the center. Vegetable momos especially should be filled quite tightly, as the filling will shrink when it cools. Also you don't need to moisten the edges of the dough to make them stick.
HOW TO COOK MOMOS
Arrange the momos on a lightly oiled steamer tray. You can fit them as close together as you like, so long as they do not touch. Bring water to a boil before placing the trays of momos in the steamer.
Steam meat momos for 10 minutes at most and vegetable momos for 5-7 minutes. Spinach momos need only 4 minutes as filling is precooked. Test them by opening the steamer and touching the dough lightly with a fingertip, the dough will no longer be sticky when done.
BEEF MOMO FILLING
1 lb. beef
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 inches fresh ginger finely ground
4 cloves garlic finely chopped
1/2 tsp ground emma (sichuan pepper)
1/3 c. green onion or chives
1 tsp. oil
1/4 cup water
3 stalks celery chopped
1/4 tsp salt.
CHICKEN MOMO FILLING
1 lb. boneless chicken
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
2 inches fresh ginger, finely choped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 tsp ground emma (Sichuan pepper)
1/3 cup chives, chopped
1 tsp oil
1/4 cup water
3 stalks celery, finely chopped
1/4 tsp salt.
VEGETABLE MOMO FILLING
1/2 bunch celery, finely chopped
1/2 small cabbage
1 bunch spinach
1 bunch onion greens
1 T oil
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
1 1/2 tsp garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp fresh ginger, finely ground
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp emma (Sichuan peppper)
10 mint leaves
1 T soy sauce
1/4 tsp salt
Saute the onion til brown and then add garlic, ginger, paprika, emma and mint. Cook the spices briefly, then remove from heat. Add the soy and salt. Add cooked mixture to raw mixture. Toss lightly.
Enuf said, here's the recipe and good luck!
BASIC MOMO DOUGH
This amount will serve 4 as a main course or 8 as an appetizer
2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup water
Mix the flour and water into dough, and knead it well. The amount of water needed may vary slightly depending on the age of the flour. The dough should be as moist as for ordinary bread. Cover the dough and set it aside to rest while preparing the momo filling.
Knead the dough until it becomes elastic, Keep the surface of the dough, your hands and the work table well floured. Roll the dough under your palms to a long cylinder about one inch in diameter. Break off balls of dough, each about one inch in diameter. Roll each ball in your palms to make a smooth sphere and then press to flatten it into a small circle. Use a floured rolling pin to enlarge the circle, working in a circular motion around the edges so that the middle remains slightly thicker.
If you are using more than one filling, use different shapes to tell them apart (clever!).
For all shapes, begin by holding the circle of dough in your left hand and place a tablespoon of filling in the center. Vegetable momos especially should be filled quite tightly, as the filling will shrink when it cools. Also you don't need to moisten the edges of the dough to make them stick.
HOW TO COOK MOMOS
Arrange the momos on a lightly oiled steamer tray. You can fit them as close together as you like, so long as they do not touch. Bring water to a boil before placing the trays of momos in the steamer.
Steam meat momos for 10 minutes at most and vegetable momos for 5-7 minutes. Spinach momos need only 4 minutes as filling is precooked. Test them by opening the steamer and touching the dough lightly with a fingertip, the dough will no longer be sticky when done.
BEEF MOMO FILLING
1 lb. beef
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 inches fresh ginger finely ground
4 cloves garlic finely chopped
1/2 tsp ground emma (sichuan pepper)
1/3 c. green onion or chives
1 tsp. oil
1/4 cup water
3 stalks celery chopped
1/4 tsp salt.
CHICKEN MOMO FILLING
1 lb. boneless chicken
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
2 inches fresh ginger, finely choped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 tsp ground emma (Sichuan pepper)
1/3 cup chives, chopped
1 tsp oil
1/4 cup water
3 stalks celery, finely chopped
1/4 tsp salt.
VEGETABLE MOMO FILLING
1/2 bunch celery, finely chopped
1/2 small cabbage
1 bunch spinach
1 bunch onion greens
1 T oil
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
1 1/2 tsp garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp fresh ginger, finely ground
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp emma (Sichuan peppper)
10 mint leaves
1 T soy sauce
1/4 tsp salt
Saute the onion til brown and then add garlic, ginger, paprika, emma and mint. Cook the spices briefly, then remove from heat. Add the soy and salt. Add cooked mixture to raw mixture. Toss lightly.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Top 10 Things I Enjoyed Most
- HUGE thermos of hot water--You get the thermos of hot water at the hotel or at the tea houses. The water stays piping hot over night. In general there is an abundant supply of hot water for tea. In fact in the airports and bus stops and train stations, you can get hot water for free. You may not be able to get hot water for a shower, but it is certainly available for tea.
- The Tea--It is very refined, smells good and l
ooks wonderful. I realized once I got back to the US, that I was more interested in the visual stimuli of the re hydrated floral bouquet in my tea glass than the taste sensation. You can have your own bouquet of flowers everyday. Yesterday I had four different plant families (Aster, Pink, Rose, Unidentified family) in my tea; staring at my tea was a pleasant distraction from work. Although not a green tea fan, I wished that I knew more about green tea because there was lots of variety. The tea balls that opened up into a beautiful flower were my favorites. The rose bud tea is also divine. - Tea Houses--YES they are a smokey haze unless they are outside on a patio and even then sometimes they are smokey. YES they are generally messy and every one's snack refuse is scattered hinder and throe on table and floor. And NO there are not dainty tea cookies (what I envisioned) that you can order, only sunflower seeds and other nuts. The essence or the idea of the tea house though should be part of every ones core existence. I like the idea of kicking back and taking time to talk to your friends family/play card games or just enjoy the day over a cup of tea.
- Tea shops--The Chinese will stand outside the door with little dixie cups of tea and lure you in. Once in, they have a proper table that includes a tea board, tea cleaning instruments, tiny tea cups, slop buckets (sometimes they poor the slop water over stone frogs and Buddhas that absorb the water and then it drains into a bucket underneath), and chairs. You sit down and they make you tea properly. The tea is necessarily a delayed pleasure.
- Tiny glass tea thermos (sooo cheap, can buy them for 25Y or about a little more than 3 US dollars!!)--everyone in China carries around a glass thermos (sometimes they are steel)that can be refilled during the day. Some people even have knitted thermos holders (I want to make one so if anyone has a pattern I would appreciate it). I like the glass ones because you can see what everyone else is drinking.
- Jiozha or steamed dumplings...most things were fried in lots of greased but the steamed dumplings had vegetables and a little meat in them and were steamed. They were similar to peroigies but smaller. You ate them by dipping them in a soy sauce with some hot pepper paste. I thought the true tests of ones chopstick skills was there ability to eat dumplings without resorting to their fingers. Some steamed dumplings are rice balls--Emily liked these but I thought they were blah.
- The hot podge of all kinds of transportation--bicycles (woman riding in heels or side saddle behind her husband), motorcycles, ricochets, diesel trucks, vendors pushing/pulling their wares on carts while talking on cell phones, goats, old buses, new luxury tour buses, carriages--all in the city streets together.
- Pineapple already peeled on a stick--Peeled pineapple ranged from 2-1Y. However the best deal was found by Emily who bought two whole pineapples peeled and quartered for 5Y (less than 1 dollar). She found this great deal in Chengdu.
- Bathroom sinks are functional!! The drain is a large coin the pivots. I'm told you can find these nifty drains in the US in cheap hotels but I've never seen them so t
hey were a novelty for Emily and I. - The bathroom stalls, yes not pleasant but they surpassed my expectations. Often there are no doors, but when there are locks present on the stalls, they are plastic. They fold up and down and are never broken. Maybe less vandalism than in the US but they were simple and very minimal.
Runners up included--very cheap cut flowers, the impressive light shows in the city, the amazing flora of Jiuzhaigou (if I had actually known what species I was looking at this would have been number one for sure), bicycle riding (even if it was scary at times), stairs!! (you not only go up stairs for the hotels--sometimes 7 floors, but also many hiking opportunities seem to involve stairs.
Back on US Soil
After many hours on the plane and in the airport and five security checks later (even though they were concerned about my shoes on the US side and my empty nalgene in Tokyo, neither of them found my glass thermos that had broken. To my chagrin I discovered it in Denver)I was back on US soil. While Emily lamented being back (I told her soon she would be in Canada anyway), I celebrated!
The plane rides were comfortable enough, although I did notice than since the last time I was on a plane at Christmas, they had become much more detailed in what one should do in the event of an emergency exit--they went into great detail on how the plane wings could be used as rafts but certain parts of the plane wings could only be used if you were instructed by the flight attendant to use them (the possibilities of the flight attendant finding me in a crash seemed slim), all the extra instruction made me wonder if they really were planning on using them and if they really did believe that if we went down these measures were going to save us. At Christmas when I sat by the emergency exit they seemed satisfied that I could just open the 45 pound door.
In Seattle, I sadly said goodbye to my traveling buddy, my appendage for the last month. I just had three plane rides left before arriving in Bozeman and then having a 1.5 hour drive to G town. In SF I watched a mother leaf through a magazine with her daughter pointing out the various beauty products she needed. Her daughter who looked very young to me, said she didn't need to wear make up. Her mother ignored this and moved on to which sweaters she was interested in and I tried to ignore them but it was hard since the mother said a 170 dollar sweater was a great price and would look fabulous on this girl. The girl again expressed disinterest. I felt so happy to live in Gardiner and be at least a bit removed from the superficial world of products. I thought how sad it was that women have enough other sources telling them they need beauty products that they certainly don't need their mother doing so. In Tokyo and Seattle I couldn't wait to get home and shower and put something besides quick-dry clothing and tennis shoes on but I suddenly felt proud to be in my unshowered, unfashionable, and uncombed state.
In Denver I found a seat that had the arm chairs removed and took a nap. I set my watch but slept through it and nearly missed getting on the last flight out (over booked of course as the earlier flights had been canceled) to Bozeman (I took a tylenol PM to put myself to sleep). I prefer not to talk to the people sitting next to me on the plane but on this ride I got lucky with an interesting seat mate. The man had just returned from visiting Israel with his family. His wife is Bahi and needs to make a pilgrimage once in her lifetime. She wanted to take the kids and he didn't want her to go by herself.
We immediately hit it off as he was originally from Wisconsin but now living in Livingston. We waxed on about Wisconsin and how much we missed it. Anyone who knows me very well at all knows how I love to romanticize Wisconsin, my homeland (although Yellowstone has now wormed its way into my heart) and I love talking about the deciduous forest, fall color change and mostly WATER. Then I discovered that we had another thing in common, neither of us like flying. Since flying was required, I had quit worrying about terrorist sitting by emergency exits and pulling the doors open, bringing the plane down (really silly). Now with this guy I could see how funny all these worries were. The pilot told us that we were the last flight out and so needed to wait for a party with a family emergency and then we would need to de-ice the plane again AND they would have to go through the FDA seat belt, emergency evac stuff again. Some time passed as he told me about how wonderful the international flights were (it was his first time out of the country and he liked the free drinks, warm handi-wipes, and meals). The flight attendant merrily bubbled out the FDA requirements again and then the engines started to fire up. We moved towards the run way. We both looked nervously at our icy wings that we had a good view of from our seats. He wondered if we should ask the flight attendant about deicing and finally said he was going to say a prayer and put it in someone elses hands besides his own. He commented that when they tell you they need to deice but don't do it, it's worrisome. I agreed. Finally, much to our relief, we did actually stop to do the deicing. He commented that he wished he could do the deicing but it looked like they had done a good job. Finally we were cruising down the run way. He chomped on his gum, saying, "Come on, get this plane in the air, when are we going to get off the ground?" Once off the ground, he questioned "Do you think it's really loud? Can you hear that noise?" These are all the things I usually listen for but for some reason it just seemed funny so I tried to be reassuring and say, "I think these small planes are really loud."
Although we both really enjoyed our visits to foreign countries, we commiserated in probably a non PC fashion on our experiences in foreign countries and remarked on how happy we were to be back in our country. On the landing, he fretted over how quickly we were going down, the quieting engine and how long it took for us to hit the run way. It was a really smooth landing for a little plane. I barely felt us hit the run way (although this might have had more to do with the amount of tylenol PM I took than the skill of the pilot). He shared with me that he confessed to his son, but wasn't going to tell his wife that he was going to kiss the ground once we landed in Bozeman. It made me laugh to think that in accordance with the country song, although I doubt he knew the lyrics to the song as his music taste wasn't country (he liked Pink Floyd), he was going to "kiss the ground when the plane finally landed". I did not kiss the ground when I got to Bozeman but I was thankful to not hear honking, be drinking water out of the faucet that came from the sewage stream, have people respect my hula hoop space and be breathing smoke free air amongst many other things.
The plane rides were comfortable enough, although I did notice than since the last time I was on a plane at Christmas, they had become much more detailed in what one should do in the event of an emergency exit--they went into great detail on how the plane wings could be used as rafts but certain parts of the plane wings could only be used if you were instructed by the flight attendant to use them (the possibilities of the flight attendant finding me in a crash seemed slim), all the extra instruction made me wonder if they really were planning on using them and if they really did believe that if we went down these measures were going to save us. At Christmas when I sat by the emergency exit they seemed satisfied that I could just open the 45 pound door.
In Seattle, I sadly said goodbye to my traveling buddy, my appendage for the last month. I just had three plane rides left before arriving in Bozeman and then having a 1.5 hour drive to G town. In SF I watched a mother leaf through a magazine with her daughter pointing out the various beauty products she needed. Her daughter who looked very young to me, said she didn't need to wear make up. Her mother ignored this and moved on to which sweaters she was interested in and I tried to ignore them but it was hard since the mother said a 170 dollar sweater was a great price and would look fabulous on this girl. The girl again expressed disinterest. I felt so happy to live in Gardiner and be at least a bit removed from the superficial world of products. I thought how sad it was that women have enough other sources telling them they need beauty products that they certainly don't need their mother doing so. In Tokyo and Seattle I couldn't wait to get home and shower and put something besides quick-dry clothing and tennis shoes on but I suddenly felt proud to be in my unshowered, unfashionable, and uncombed state.
In Denver I found a seat that had the arm chairs removed and took a nap. I set my watch but slept through it and nearly missed getting on the last flight out (over booked of course as the earlier flights had been canceled) to Bozeman (I took a tylenol PM to put myself to sleep). I prefer not to talk to the people sitting next to me on the plane but on this ride I got lucky with an interesting seat mate. The man had just returned from visiting Israel with his family. His wife is Bahi and needs to make a pilgrimage once in her lifetime. She wanted to take the kids and he didn't want her to go by herself.
We immediately hit it off as he was originally from Wisconsin but now living in Livingston. We waxed on about Wisconsin and how much we missed it. Anyone who knows me very well at all knows how I love to romanticize Wisconsin, my homeland (although Yellowstone has now wormed its way into my heart) and I love talking about the deciduous forest, fall color change and mostly WATER. Then I discovered that we had another thing in common, neither of us like flying. Since flying was required, I had quit worrying about terrorist sitting by emergency exits and pulling the doors open, bringing the plane down (really silly). Now with this guy I could see how funny all these worries were. The pilot told us that we were the last flight out and so needed to wait for a party with a family emergency and then we would need to de-ice the plane again AND they would have to go through the FDA seat belt, emergency evac stuff again. Some time passed as he told me about how wonderful the international flights were (it was his first time out of the country and he liked the free drinks, warm handi-wipes, and meals). The flight attendant merrily bubbled out the FDA requirements again and then the engines started to fire up. We moved towards the run way. We both looked nervously at our icy wings that we had a good view of from our seats. He wondered if we should ask the flight attendant about deicing and finally said he was going to say a prayer and put it in someone elses hands besides his own. He commented that when they tell you they need to deice but don't do it, it's worrisome. I agreed. Finally, much to our relief, we did actually stop to do the deicing. He commented that he wished he could do the deicing but it looked like they had done a good job. Finally we were cruising down the run way. He chomped on his gum, saying, "Come on, get this plane in the air, when are we going to get off the ground?" Once off the ground, he questioned "Do you think it's really loud? Can you hear that noise?" These are all the things I usually listen for but for some reason it just seemed funny so I tried to be reassuring and say, "I think these small planes are really loud."
Although we both really enjoyed our visits to foreign countries, we commiserated in probably a non PC fashion on our experiences in foreign countries and remarked on how happy we were to be back in our country. On the landing, he fretted over how quickly we were going down, the quieting engine and how long it took for us to hit the run way. It was a really smooth landing for a little plane. I barely felt us hit the run way (although this might have had more to do with the amount of tylenol PM I took than the skill of the pilot). He shared with me that he confessed to his son, but wasn't going to tell his wife that he was going to kiss the ground once we landed in Bozeman. It made me laugh to think that in accordance with the country song, although I doubt he knew the lyrics to the song as his music taste wasn't country (he liked Pink Floyd), he was going to "kiss the ground when the plane finally landed". I did not kiss the ground when I got to Bozeman but I was thankful to not hear honking, be drinking water out of the faucet that came from the sewage stream, have people respect my hula hoop space and be breathing smoke free air amongst many other things.
Scramblin' to get out of HK
Despite my general uneasiness in cities, I found myself liking the city--it had rolly lush terrain and HUMIDITY and a ferry system that was so much fun that I didn't ever want to get off. On our last night at 10:30 PM after a very long day (we had been to a tea shop, a tea museum, an aviary, up the world's longest escalator, through a conservatory and eaten dimp sem), Emily and I contemplated how we could become stow aways on the Star Ferry. The light show from advertising and buildings was amazing and we just wanted to rest our weary feet while feeling the ocean breeze on our face. We lamented that we didn't know why the ferry went so fast (only 10 minutes between Central and Kowloon). Exclaiming mournfully, "What's the rush?" Unfortunately the ferry afforded few places to hide besides under the sitting benches or hanging over the edge. Giggling with tiredness we brainstormed up the possibilities for a stow away adventure. Regretfully they all would have costs more energy than we would have gained in the renewal from another ferry trip. The ferry trip was only 1.7 HK.
The HK lights were amazing. Whole advertisements were done on skyscrapers. The ads had motion and went in circles--script in English, then Chinese and then pictures would circle twinkle around the outside of a building. Leaving Central, we were sad. Central had a blue collar streak, hills like SF and not as many people trying to sell you suits, food, etc. Central had the world's longest escalator and a tea museum. Back on Kowloon, the night life was awake. We managed to push our weary selves through all the masses and the people trying to lure us into their store to buy various items till we reached the Mirador Mansion. Our room was on the 13 floor. We both realized that our elevator shut down at 10PM. With no other choice, we started the 13 flight climb to our room, joking that it was a good thing we had already been doing stairs up temples in China. We were tuckered, so even though the next day we had lots of time sitting on the airplane and the exercise was probably good, neither of us shed any tears to be on our floor.
6:00 AM We had our bags, our deposit and knew where the bus stop that would take us to the airport. The double decker bus arrived and another wave of relief washed over me as now we had not overslept and were on our airport bound bus. At the next stop, the driver motioned for us to come pay. I handed him my 100HK bill (the tickets were 33HK each), expecting change. He told me that he could not give me change and to go and ask others on the bus if they had change. Well of course they all looked at me like I was nuts because no one carries that much change. We didn't have any small bills either. Additionally, we had bought from every vendor on the street the night before, given to the poor and used our change for the ferry trying to get rid of all of our coins or artillery. At the next stop, the bus driver apologetically informed us that we would need to get off the bus. Emily and I quickly concurred that we didn't need the change (a little more than 2US dollars each). I asked the driver if we could just give him our money and the HK bus could keep the change. To our chagrin he said no and kicked us off. I realized it was China after all. The day before I couldn't find a place open before 8 so at 6:30 I didn't think we were going to find change.
My always energetic eagle-eyed travel partner Emily spied a 7-11 and made a run for it--she really ran, while I watched our bags, prayed it was open and tried to come up with a plan B. We hadn't wanted to exchange more money so I didn't think we had enough HK dollars for a taxi ride. I didn't think the exchange counters were open. Emily returned with the exact change but in paper not coins. Apparently there was some confusion over the teller not being able to open a drawer with coins??
We didn't know if we needed coins or if paper money worked. We thought surely they could not expect us to have 33HK in change but then again it was China. Fortunately the bus came every 15 minutes so we waited for the next bus to try our luck. It arrived and I stuck the money in wondering if the bus driver was wondering what I was doing or if he was wondering why I was trying to gauge his reaction. It worked! Another huge wave of relief washed over me. We got rid of our bags on the luggage racked and went to the top of the double decker bus to enjoy our last ride through HK.
The HK lights were amazing. Whole advertisements were done on skyscrapers. The ads had motion and went in circles--script in English, then Chinese and then pictures would circle twinkle around the outside of a building. Leaving Central, we were sad. Central had a blue collar streak, hills like SF and not as many people trying to sell you suits, food, etc. Central had the world's longest escalator and a tea museum. Back on Kowloon, the night life was awake. We managed to push our weary selves through all the masses and the people trying to lure us into their store to buy various items till we reached the Mirador Mansion. Our room was on the 13 floor. We both realized that our elevator shut down at 10PM. With no other choice, we started the 13 flight climb to our room, joking that it was a good thing we had already been doing stairs up temples in China. We were tuckered, so even though the next day we had lots of time sitting on the airplane and the exercise was probably good, neither of us shed any tears to be on our floor.
6:00 AM We had our bags, our deposit and knew where the bus stop that would take us to the airport. The double decker bus arrived and another wave of relief washed over me as now we had not overslept and were on our airport bound bus. At the next stop, the driver motioned for us to come pay. I handed him my 100HK bill (the tickets were 33HK each), expecting change. He told me that he could not give me change and to go and ask others on the bus if they had change. Well of course they all looked at me like I was nuts because no one carries that much change. We didn't have any small bills either. Additionally, we had bought from every vendor on the street the night before, given to the poor and used our change for the ferry trying to get rid of all of our coins or artillery. At the next stop, the bus driver apologetically informed us that we would need to get off the bus. Emily and I quickly concurred that we didn't need the change (a little more than 2US dollars each). I asked the driver if we could just give him our money and the HK bus could keep the change. To our chagrin he said no and kicked us off. I realized it was China after all. The day before I couldn't find a place open before 8 so at 6:30 I didn't think we were going to find change.
My always energetic eagle-eyed travel partner Emily spied a 7-11 and made a run for it--she really ran, while I watched our bags, prayed it was open and tried to come up with a plan B. We hadn't wanted to exchange more money so I didn't think we had enough HK dollars for a taxi ride. I didn't think the exchange counters were open. Emily returned with the exact change but in paper not coins. Apparently there was some confusion over the teller not being able to open a drawer with coins??
We didn't know if we needed coins or if paper money worked. We thought surely they could not expect us to have 33HK in change but then again it was China. Fortunately the bus came every 15 minutes so we waited for the next bus to try our luck. It arrived and I stuck the money in wondering if the bus driver was wondering what I was doing or if he was wondering why I was trying to gauge his reaction. It worked! Another huge wave of relief washed over me. We got rid of our bags on the luggage racked and went to the top of the double decker bus to enjoy our last ride through HK.
HK at 2nd Glance
First impressions on our initial arrival to Hong Kong was that HK was a foreign country. Double decker buses zooming by, the presence of street vendors selling fruit/food, lots of beautiful people that weren't like us speaking foreign languages with accents, signs in Chinese, and boat rides taking you from one island to the next. Now after being in China and crossing back to HK, I realized how much HK was different from China, how westernized it was. It didn't seem like a foreign country at all. Things were orderly in HK. Vehicles stopped when the lights turned red. China brought a whole new meaning to slow and go on red lights. The crosswalks in HK were fun instead of an adrenaline rush to get across the death zone. In HK, when the light was red on the crosswalk, the tempo was slow while you waited. Then when the light turned green, the tempo sped up (although no one else generally did while crossing the street!). The toilets were clean, equipped with paper and soap, abundant and few of them were squatters. In HK, the dogs were leashed, not pregnant and didn't look starved. People were not constantly spitting up phlegm balls and to prove this there were not signs at the train stations saying, "no spitting.". There was no smoking on the buses. The signs were in English and Chinese, not Pinyin (A form of Chinese for Westerners I guess--Actually, Pinyin uses Roman letters to represent sounds in Standard Mandarin Chinese). In China, we were lucky to have the street signs in Pinyin as well as Chinese. Food in HK was expensive and the vendors less frequent.
But in other ways HK was a foreign country just not like China. Since it used to be a British colony they drove on the wrong side of the street. I'd find myself looking at cars wondering where the driver was and then remember they were on the right side of the car. One night we walked down the street with an English man from our hostel; as we passed all the stores, people asked us if we wanted to have suits tailored. He told us that this would be illegal in his country. Emily does a really great imitation of him saying this.
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