Sunday, September 2, 2007

Welcome to China

September 2, 2007 -- Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Beijing

Adam: Valerie and I began our trip to China last Friday (which seems very far away now - we haven't slept much with the jet lag) at LaGuardia airport. We took a brief flight to Chicago, and then boarded our fifteen-hour behemoth to Hong Kong.

Valerie: The flight felt shorter than I expected. Perhaps because we had plenty of space -- we were sitting in the economy plus section which was much roomier than the standard economy section.
(Us waiting at LaGuardia for our flight to Chicago to board.)

(The plane. As you can tell, it's the size of a boat with wings.)

Adam: We got to Hong Kong in the late afternoon, and quickly discovered the perils of trying to pack three weeks of clothing into a backpack: it is quite heavy. Valerie turned purple =)

Valerie: Backpacks are overrated.

Adam: We went to the Temple Street night market, which is one of the cleanest Asian street markets I've ever seen. The aisle between the stalls was about 1.5 meters, and everything looked nicely maintained - nevertheless, we figured we wouldn't buy anything.

Valerie: The market was OK, but I thought they would be selling more arts and crafts (i.e., handmade or local-type items). Instead, everything was stuff you'd find at the dollar store in the States. The food, though, was very yummy and cheap.

(A picture of the food stall with outdoor seating we ate at.)

Adam: On Sunday morning, we got up early (5 am - jet lag sucks), loaded up all of our stuff into the packs, and took a train to the China Ferry terminal to get our ferry to Shenzhen. Sadly, I had misread the instructions, and it turns out that the ferry was not leaving from the China Ferry Terminal.

Valerie: We took a taxi and made it to the right station in time. Apparently we were late and it seemed like they were holding the boat for us, but when we boarded it was practically empty.

Adam: We then had about seven hours to kill in Shenzhen airport. We decided to fly from Shenzhen - one of China's special economic zones - because it is about half the price of Hong Kong. We very quickly discovered that, unlike in American airports, there is very little to do in the Shenzhen airport. So we read, we slept, we explored the entire airport (luckily, they had a branch of Aji Ichiban, my favorite Asian candy store).

Valerie: Surprisingly, they had a McDonalds, KFC, and Starbucks. It's as if we were still in the States.
(Adam in Hong Kong in front of a 7-Eleven.)

Adam: Beijing has been nice so far - dinner was tasty, and it is significantly less humid than Hong Kong, which is really sweltering.

Up Next: Five days in Beijing. We hike up the great wall, see the forbidden city, and buy suitcases.

Previously: Before heading to China, Adam, the Doog, and I took a road trip from Columbus, Ohio to Miami, Florida. It was long but fun and there are plenty of pictures from the trip which we'll upload and write about when we're back in the States.

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