Nothing to see here

Wednesday was a busy work day. I felt bad because I woke up to see my dad off but did not accompany him to the airport. He just got a ride with Henry the driver from the previous day. Other than that Wednesday was pretty inconsequential. I started packing and did some laundry.

Embarrassingly slow

Tuesday was another fun hooky day. I got to go to the Great Wall one last time with my dad before leaving. The driver we stumbled on was great and ended up taking both my dad and I to the airport later. He spoke good English and knew a lot of cool things about the area we drove through.

He recommended a couple of touristy stops along the way to and from the wall. The first was a place that sold a lot of cloisonné style goods. They had a little spiel where you walked around and they told you about making the goods. Then of course there was a sales room at the end. I had never realized how much work went into these pieces so that aspect of it was cool. I was also able to pick up some cool gifts for a couple of people at the store.


After that we went to the MuTianYu section of the wall. This is the same section of the wall my mom and aunt went to. I like it a lot more than BaDaLing. The wall itself is not that dramatically different but the drive up there and the surrounding area is a lot cooler. Also it is a lot less touristy. We wandered around until my chest felt like it was on fire and I was worried about a heart attack. I was getting over being sick so that must have been the cause of my unease. Surprisingly it was not as steep as BaDaLing. There were also some cool places to climb around.






After walking the wall we took the slide down. That was pretty embarrassing. As we were taking the gondola up to the wall we kept hearing one of the guys working on the slide yelling at people to slow down. As I went down he was yelling at me to speed up. There was one point where I came to a complete stop. Let me set the scene, this is a slide down a mountain. I was riding the brake pretty hard to get the sled to stop.




We had a nice meal afterwards with Henry at a Sichuan place he recommended. My dad was not a big fan as the meat had bones and the other dish we ordered was nice and spicy. It was cool talking to Henry though about his life and what he had to do work wise to make ends meet. It is amazingly hard for an average Chinese person to live well.


On the way home we stopped at a silk museum which was another small exhibition on making silk and a room to buy all sorts of silk goods. It was cool to see but it was pretty touristy. Both my dad and I ended up getting comforters but that was about it. They should be nice but we will see.

After the big trip we just went to the local hot pot place and had some good hot pot for the last time (sniff). I will miss that quite a bit. The food was good and the company better. A good way to finish a nice visit.

Race to the finish

Monday we woke up and headed out to the airport with me barely beating the over under line yet again. The Hong Kong airport was just as nice as you would expect based on the rest of the city although it was difficult to navigate. The signs did not really point you in the right direction and sometimes they just forget whole swatches of gate numbers. I was surprised at how disorganized it was.


Dragon Air was great and the food was as good as we had been told to expect. If you are flying around Asia it is worth flying this airline if you can. They are located in Hong Kong but have a pretty large number of flights through the region.


Once home we just took it easy and unpacked. After that tremendous ordeal we had worked up quite an appetite again and went to South Beauty for some nice dinner. The only problem was the night before we eaten at Hutong which was amazing. South Beauty managed to hold its own though which makes me even more impressed with it.

Louis Vitton tights?

Sunday was another fun day. We were hoping to be able to see more of Hong Kong but it rained again all day so we got to see more of the inside of buildings in Hong Kong which I guess is mostly what you see in Hong Kong anyways. This gives me reason to go back and see the peak and take the elevator or tram around the island.

I woke up early for a great massage in the spa. I have to admit though I have started to look at small older female masseuses with a measure of fear now. The amount of good pain they can inflict on my body is amazing. This one was no different; I did not fall asleep in the massage but am still feeling better now.

Afterwards I met up with my dad for breakfast after which we decided to grab the ferry from Kowloon (the crescent part of the city on the mainland) to Hong Kong Island. The ferry was a wonder of efficiency. We just missed one (they shut the gate about .5 seconds before we reached it) but the next one was there and leaving within about 6 minutes.


For some reason I seem to attract crazy people wherever I go and the ferry station was no different. This woman ran up to me with a box of custard rolls that had a phone number on it and said something to me in what I am assuming was Cantonese. I understood phone number and “tall and handsome”. I politely refused a couple of times then had to spend the next minute pretending like she was not there. My dad foolishly thought that was the end of it but I knew better. He sat down in an empty row in the ferry and she blocked us in by sitting right next to me. To her credit though she said nothing while on the ferry she just stared at me intently for a while waiting for me to make some flicker of acknowledgment. As we got off though she had to give it the old college try and waved the box in front of my face while saying something unintelligible to me.


The island itself was really interesting. We saw the maid / helper phenomenon first mentioned to me by Jason. It seems like most of the domestic help in Hong Kong is from Southeast Asia and on their days off most of these people (almost exclusively female) gather in the covered spots on the Island and picnic or just hang out and talk. It was a lot of people like 1000’s a lot. At one point I went to a public restroom and the line for the female one was around the block.






We also had lunch at another dim sum place. Apparently the place we went to was one of the last (if not the last) old school dim sum place in Hong Kong where they roll around the carts and you pick what you want of them. This was kind of surprising to me and I need to do a little more research to make sure the concierge was not blowing smoke up my arse.

Basically we just went shopping and looking at hotels. I tried on many clothes that did not fit at all the high end places you could imagine (Versace, Valentino …). Finally I found a pair of pants at Zegna yet again. Thank god for someone who makes nice clothes in a bigger size. My dad got a nice jacket at the biggest Armani I have every seen in my life. It was basically a shopping mall full of Armani’s (Sweets, flowers, house, and clothes).

One cool thing about here is that if you order clothes they bring them back to the hotel for you so you do not have to carry them around. My clothes beat us home.


Yes these are indeed Louis Vitton tights.

We headed back to the hotel for tea which was British but good. The scones were amazing. It was also just fun taking a little break during the day to hang out and do nothing (like shopping was doing something). After tea though we headed right to dinner where both my dad and I thought we were not going to eat anything. He ate a decent amount and I ate a ton. We ate a Sichuan place called Hutong which was one of the best restaurants I have been to period.

We had fish in black bean sauce and drunken and crispy pigeons. The crispy ones were better. Remembering Wil’s comment on how good pigeon ass was I ate every last bit of the pigeon that was remotely edible, including the head. This prompted much amusement among the wait staff who were probably thinking to themselves what is this crazy foreigner doing eating the decoration.

Before:


After:

We got to see the light show again with some better pictures being taken this time before we left. Afterwards we went up to the Felix bar in the hotel to have a quiet drink but dad made the fatal mistake of talking to a guy from LA who was not quiet for the rest of the time there. Finally we shoved off and headed to bed

Are you from Holland?

Saturday was great. The first thing I want to comment on is the fact that I am loving the decrease in average height the farther south you get in China. This means I get more and more leg room in the cabs. I also am glad I took this long to visit Hong Kong. It is going to make Beijing look pretty awful in comparison and now I have an exit strategy from Beijing so it is not that bad.

We woke up Saturday and grabbed a nice breakfast in the hotel lobby. I ate using all real silver utensils. It was pretty cool. We then got our flights changed to first class out of Hong Kong instead of having to go back to Shenzhen. Even the concierge made fun of me for flying into Shenzhen. He also gave us a couple of places to go to get my camera and made us reservations at a nice Cantonese place.

We headed out and I got my camera in a huge mall that had every store I had ever heard of. The deal was better than both Beijing and the States but not by quite the margin I expected. For some reason I kept expecting it to be half the price. Most things seem to be that way. A little cheaper but not the huge discounts everyone always talks about. Although the no tax deal is pretty sweet and kind of makes up for the lack of huge discounts so what you see is what you pay.

After the camera we headed back to the hotel for some dim sum at the hotel restaurant which was amazing. While we were waiting for our table I managed to buy a shirt at Zegna which was just a couple of doors down. They have at least 13 of every boutique you could want in walking distance from wherever you are in Hong Kong. The shirt happened to be the same color as my dad's and when I wore it to lunch everyone thought we were from Holland.

Look how cute the twins look. Needless to say he quickly changed after lunch.


We also got some laundry done. They put this awesome bowtie in my ratty ass old shirt. I was amazed.

Larger than life Jackie Chan working out.

We went to the ladies market which is like the markets in Beijing but it is outside and bargaining is a real pain in the ass. To make up for that though they usually start at a much lower price. My dad got most of his presents and I picked up a Pistons jersey and shorts, got to celebrate the soon to be Eastern conference champions somehow.



Kowloon was just as neony and crowded as you would expect. One of the big differences between here and Beijing though was the pretty blatant pornography and strip clubs. Don’t get me wrong Beijing wins hand down for upfront prostitution but Hong Kong wins for blatant sexuality. As we were walking around it kind of started pouring again so we headed back to the hotel to relax (aka sleep).





We headed to dinner at Prince which was the nice Cantonese restaurant. I mostly liked it but my dad was not a big fan. They did try to rip us off (and succeeded some) because we were a little out of our element in ordering. The food was good. I have not had Cantonese much in China and it was interesting having it in Hong Kong. If I go back to Hong Kong though I will probably go to a different place. The view was spectacular though as it was on the 11th floor and looking out on the harbor.

The coolest thing was the laser light show at 8. Now I have not changed into a hippy and am not going to planetariums to watch lasers to the grateful dead. This light show involved all of the buildings in Hong Kong. The shot different kinds of lights all over the place and from many different heights. As my dad said it was if you were in a George Lucas film. I tried to take pictures but they did not turn out well.

After we finished we went back to the hotel and had a cigar in the lobby while chatting. It was a nice way to finish a fun day.



Our hotel from the outside.


The view from our room.

Buses and Shenzhen or Another travel day from hell

Friday was another amazingly fun travel experience, one that I will be hearing about for some time to come. We woke up and just hung around the hotel in the morning having a nice long breakfast and packing. I surprised myself and managed to pack and shower in under 20 minutes hitting “the time I am walking out the door” – Alan Baird with about 27 seconds to spare.

We got in a cab and he just started driving in completely the wrong direction. It was not his fault thought the cab attendant told him the wrong airport. After a little bit of this, I placed a quick panicked call to Jason to determine the geography of everything and we finally got that we wanted to go the other way and to the maglev train station. Once that was all settled we got there really quickly. It was to a sign though.

The maglev train was lots of quick fun as it was before. This time I was paying attention when the other train flew past and that was pretty cool it really let you know that you were going 432 kmh.

The plane flight was not bad, a little long but not bad. Once in Shenzhen though the fun started. We flew into a city which is not Hong Kong and then were going to take a train or boat into Hong Kong. The reasons for this were multiple, I wanted to see Shenzhen without actually spending time there and it is about a 1/3 of the price. So we got in a taxi and after about 1.5 hours we finally got dropped off in downtown Shenzhen at a bus station. It was around this time that I found out my father has an amazing hatred of buses. My curiosity of this dislike will remain unfulfilled for a while. I believe his response to my question was unprintable in a family blog.

In the bus station you go through customs even though Hong Kong is part of China. Part as in it has its own government, money, phone system that blocks Chinese users from getting service, language and many other things. So we finally get through customs and a really nice guy gets us on the wrong bus into Hong Kong. On the 45 minute drive there you go through customs one more time just for the hell of it. We finally got into Hong Kong 3 hours later and in the wrong part of Kowloon which is really big, for some reason I imagined Hong Kong being all compact and it definitely is not.

After another taxi ride we finally got to our hotel and checked in. The room of course was only one bed so while they fixed that we had dinner at the fancy Philippe Starck designed Felix on the 28th floor with a phenomenal view of both Kowloon and the Island. The food was really good so that made both of us calm down some. After dinner we lounged in the fancy bar for a second and then went home and too bed. We seem to be cursed in flying for some reason so we will see what happens on the return trip.

Last pictures of Shanghai from the room and the lounge when the weather was not so bad.

Rain, wind and fog

Thursday was kind of kicked in the ass by the remnants of typhoon pearl which decided to drop what was left of its rain on the city all day. It was hard to spend any time outside because it was so rainy and windy. Especially because I had been positive that Shanghai and Hong Kong were only going to require shorts and tee shorts beyond nice clothes for dinner. We started off the day with a meeting for me through conf call and working out for my dad. Remember how I mentioned his fear of heights? Well the whole hotel is built on flaunting how tall it is, the tallest bar, post office, etc… apparently all the work out machines are pressed against the floor to ceiling glass so you can take advantage of the view while working out which was anything but great for him. I guess he tried pulling the machine away from the glass but he ran into a language barrier when he tried to explain what he was doing.

Breakfast was nice, how could it not be with a view OVER the clouds. We headed into the city to visit the museum because that seemed like a good rainy day choice which it was. It was a beautiful museum with tons of Chinese historical exhibits (ceramics, jade, coins, …) and a nice exhibit sponsored by the MOMA in New York which was Cezanne to ????, mostly early 20th century works which was pretty cool. Overall though the pottery was probably the most interesting as it was the most comprehensive and also had some of the coolest exhibits.

After the museum we bought umbrellas and tried to make a go of it by walking to Kathleen’s above the art museum for lunch. I was able to almost find it without any assistance from Jason but finally had to give in as I got confused by the fact that two buildings looked a lot like what I remembered it looking like. By the time we walked for 5 minutes we were soaked and not too happy and this was during a light spell in the rain.

We got to Kathleen’s right as the stopped serving lunch which was sweet because I had entered my “I’m so hungry I am even more of an asshole than normal” phase to my father’s credit he just let me be bitchy and did not say anything till I had eaten (Maybe because I got 50% of that trait from him?). The tea service we had was good but did not quite fill me up. We headed back to the hotel just to relax there and grab some free food the view by this point was mostly fog which I have tried to capture.

After spending some time watching megastructures and eating free food we decided to head back into town to meet Holly and Jason for dinner in XinTianDi. This is a new hip part of Shanghai and I just fell more in love with it after dinner at a Hong Kong chain restaurant that was really good. As expected dinner with Holly and Jason was a great time. Lots of good food and good conversation.

After diner we headed back to have a drink at the highest bar in the world which is Cloud Nine on top of the Jin Mao tower (Floor 87). To be honest the view from the lounge on 83 was better because it was not obstructed by the building. 87 was in the pyramid at the top so you could not see straight down. After all this sitting around eating and drinking we decided to call it a night.

And here is an out of place picture of the atrium of the hotel.

Turbulence, vomit and great views

Wednesday was way hectic and included the worst flight I have ever taking in my life. I stopped in at work for a while before our 2 PM flight which was no good because I needed to pack and did not leave the office until 45 minutes after I should have. Luckily we were able to get on the plane because it was delayed for a while. We were further delayed on the runaway and it was at this point the vomiting started. The woman next to me was pretty nervous and managed to throw up once in a very quiet polite fashion into the sick bag while we were waiting. She followed this up with another nice quiet session as we had hit our cruising altitude. It was at this point that I turned up the music loud and tried to pretend we were already there.

As the flight attendants were handing out drinks we hit the worst turbulence that both I and my father have ever experienced. I thought I was going to die. I had my phone out and was planning on who I could call and approximately how long I would have on the phone with each person. The plane was not only dropping and bouncing up 50 feet at a shot but bouncing sideways about the same distance which is rare. All through this I expected there to be a fountain spewing forth from next to me but luckily enough the woman was too worried about dying to get sick. The most surreal thing about the whole experience was the fact that the attendants continued handing out drinks and standing there smiling when the turbulence got too bad to do that.


After that finally stopped I started to relax and at that exact moment the fountain began. The woman next to me managed to fill up three bags which I had to pass to the stewardess and pass back empty bags to this woman. When she started dry heaving is when I started thinking well this is good because at least she won’t be filling up any more bags. She threw up / dry heaved the rest of the flight and it was not the polite quiet sick of before. This was a full fledged sound that the pilots could here. When the attendants asked me to take off my ipod for landing I almost got sick myself. Motorhead played at loud volumes was one of the few things between me and being sick. Somehow I managed to keep it all down though and even kind of help the woman.

After such a spectacular flight there was a nice reprieve as we were staying at the nicest hotel in Shanghai. The grand Hyatt is beautiful and in the largest building in China. We were staying in the 83rd of 88 floors. We were also on some special level where we got to take advantage of the lounge on the 83rd floor which had the craziest view I have ever seen. You were staring down on towering skyscrapers which would dwarf any building in Seattle or Beijing (Forget about Michigan). The hotel also had no rooms in the middle of the building just a giant atrium that went down 50 some floors. It was when I pointed out this awesome sight that I realized my dad has a horrible fear of heights. He fell against the wall and almost could not make it to the room. The rooms view was just as awesome, we were looking out on the Huangpu just south of the Bund.

After showering and some food in the lounge we headed to Jean George which is one of the premier restaurants in Shanghai. The décor was really cool but the food just did not match up. You expect it to be pretty spectacular with the way people talk about it but it was not that good. Having said that we did end up staying there for 3-4 hours talking and looking out over the river at the view we had just left on the other side. A crazy eventful day with a noticeable lack of pictures. I am getting a camera in Hong Kong though so it will be back to normal soon.

Ming tombs and the Summer Palace, yet again

Tuesday was a busy day. My dad went to the Ming tombs outside the city which apparently are much smaller than the Qing tombs to the East. He said it was primarily one big structure which is pretty different than the Qing Tombs. He liked it but was through it pretty quickly. To kill some of the extra time he had the driver and the tour guide he went back to the Summer Palace and wandered around there. He also ended up buying a nice vase which should get back to him on one piece.


I had a lot of work to finish up before heading out on our trip so I made him sit around at my office for a while. I managed to get everything done I needed to though. Finally we were able to get some food and headed towards the hot pot place near my house. We got a nice table with a A/C fan blowing right on it which was great for personal comfort but posed a slight difficulty for the burner that was cooking our food. After a while we managed to work out a way of keeping it going though. I am going to miss hot pot in a big way.