China Pt. 2

Big lag in writing between Japan and China, and I really don't have any good excuses because the internet connectivity was a little better in China. I also traveled on the ship between our two ports of Shanghai and then Hong Kong.

We left Shanghai on Monday February 4 and, rather than traveling inland as we did in Japan, my family stayed on the ship to travel within the country to the next port of Hong Kong. The trip sent us through the East China Sea into the West China Sea, and the waters were as calm as anything we’ve encountered yet after a month at sea. Nice change.

 

Here's Hong Kong the day we arrived. You can see parts of Victoria Peak behind the clouds. I hear it's really impressive on a clear day and looms high over the city, but it was not clear enough that I got to see the peak.

  

As we traveled between ports, there were perhaps a fifth as many students, faculty, and family onboard, so there was lots of room on the ship to spread out. Solitude is a rarity normally, but on the intraport trip it was really quiet and spacious, and I think I needed that. I also think Jasper appreciated having a little more room, and he an I joined in with a group of students playing hide-and-seek Tuesday afternoon.

We said goodby to Perry, one of the great meal stewards aboard the ship. He was really fond of Jasper, and we miss him. Some of the staff departed at Hong Kong to return home to the Philippines to see their own families.

Hong Kong arrived early Wednesday morning, and I got up early to watch the harbor lights and buildings appear, and since Hong Kong is a world-leading port, there were lots of buildings, dry docks, sea docks, ships, and traffic in the harbor. As we docked, more and more people arrived on the upper deck to see the city greet us, and I saw more skyscrapers in any one place than I ever have before; I think it’s been argued that Hong Kong has more skyscrapers than other major cities, or a greater percentage of ultra-tall skyscrapers than other cities. One thing is for sure: the population density is huge, so it was crowded and affluent with a big-city feel on steroids (or perhaps a more descriptive metaphor for my cycling colleagues would be EPO).

After Ellen planned out so many details for our Japan visit, we hit China with no real plans, and it worked out well for Shanghai. Same goes for Hong Kong. She had visited Hong Kong for a couple days while studying her semester overseas in college and remembered it as huge, especially for a foreigner alone. Still huge, but it was a little less intimidating according to her this time around.

Since there were so few people onboard and we had already cleared Chinese Customs and Immigration in Shanghai, we were able to disembark immediately rather than the usual several-hours wait that normally happens at each new port. Some students were awaiting the ship to get back and rest up after flights to Beijing, hiking trips on the Great Wall (which, according to our adopted student Molly got down to 17 below overnight as she camped in a remote spot on the Wall), and other exciting travels. Ellen’s dad was still on his four-day trip to the Yunnan province, so we had some nice family time just the three of us.

First up was a walk to the Kowloon Park about a mile from the dock on the mainland side. For the first day, we stayed on the mainland side of Victoria Harbor, hoping that the next day we’d be able to travel up to the top of Victoria Peak on the Hong Kong Island side of the harbor, but for now the city hung covered in clouds. The temps were warm in the 70s F with high humidity, so short sleeves were what I wore and was really surprised to find out the temps inland were so much colder. The Kowloon Park is sort of like a small version of Central Park, a patch of green within the concrete and tall buildings, containing playgrounds, exercise paths the elderly were using, and fish ponds and aviaries. It was nice to see pink flamingos, parrots, and Jasper got excited to see a small turtle near the flamingos. I thought the turtle looked exactly like the small turtles we see back home in the Rivanna, but he had a blast watching it perch at the concrete edge of a koi pond and waiting for it to dive ploop into the water.

Ellen’s dad arrived that night around Jasper’s bedtime, so the two of them found a Thai restaurant while I put Jasper to bed. Then, Ellen and I got to do something I hadn’t been able to do so far on this trip—go out late, just the two of us. I had been out late by myself for a time or two, and this time I was able to convince Ellen to join me. We found the Night Market a couple subway stops away. Some of the students were there as well, and once we got back onto the ship we saw they bought nicknacks such as silk robes, panda hats, and fluffy panda paws. We hunted for electronics and bought Jasper a set of headphones and a light-up spinning top for his birthday (don’t tip him off, please…). Our bargaining skills haven’t improved at all, but we enjoyed the market and all the sights of knock-off goods, souvenirs, and handmade crafts.

Jasper hits the tourist gong before boarding the Star Ferry.

The Star Ferry takes pedestrians between Kowloon and Hong Kong every 10 minutes or so, and the ferries are somewhat like rickety large double-decker buses on the water. I think this particular ferry line has operated since early the 1900s and has had four generations of ships, with these being built in the early 1960s. They were a bit rough on the inside but somewhat stately with the green and white wooden clapboards on the outside. These ferries were docked near the MV Explorer, so it was easy to grab a token and catch the ferry on the Kowloon side. Then the ferry traversed Victoria Harbor, dodging other boat and ferry traffic and their resulting wakes to take us to the Hong Kong side. A few minutes later, we were across.

The next day, we got up after our late night to head over across the harbor to the Hong Kong island side. So, it was an unusual event for us to stay out late, and it ended up being fairly late since we barely caught the last subway back and ended up onship about 0200. We slept in a little late but didn’t want to sleep off the entire day, so we caught the Star Ferry across to the high-rises of Hong Kong. The Kowloon side where the ship was contained lots of high-end stores and large malls, both above and below ground. The Hong Kong island side is quite similar but even maybe a bit more upper crust. The city really contrasts with the grittiness of Shanghai, and Jasper observantly pointed out that every third car was a Ferrari. We spent the mid-part of the day exploring and scoping out a restaurant called Crystal Jade that served dim sum all day; we wanted dim sum but it’s usually a morning item, and we didn’t have time for a meal before hitting the Hong Kong Maritime Museum.

We lucked into a private, pre-opening tour of the new Hong Kong Maritime Museum. One of the faculty invited Ellen, and she was mildly interested; Jasper and I were really interested. The museum was moving into a new building and is scheduled to open in late February, or perhaps March, and for now the museum is setting up in the new building, so it’s brand-spanking new. The museum director spent an hour and a half giving our small group a tour and explaining how the artwork and artifacts were acquired. Some of the items were bought at auction, and Mr. Hardy’s descriptions of finding out about when something exciting like the 18-meter linen scroll showing Hong Kong’s mid 1800s rise as a port were incredibly entertaining. Jasper enjoyed seeing the pirate exhibits (it’s not as noble as you’d think), and we got an autographed copy of the museum guidebook at the end, signed to Jasper by Mr. Hardy.

Ah, so then we went back to the Crystal Jade for dim sum. I got a noodle dish with spicy red chili and peanut sauce, and it hit about the right button on the hotness scale with a slow-building burn. We also got several varieties of dim sum and soups. After the dim sum, it was turning into night, and the lights burst out with neon everywhere. The clouds were now a general misty haze, so we opted not to go up the tram to Victoria Peak, but what we did do was take the commuter escalator from the business district up to the residential district. During the morning, the escalators run downhill and at night return commuters to their apartments. We rode uphill as far as we could and then wandered the streets back down.

Day two of Hong Kong, we joined a field lab that a professor had sold us on over dinner conversation. He’s a freshwater marine biologist from Alaska, and we were talking one evening about Virginia sports we participate in (mountain biking with the occasional foray into WV for cross-country skiing) and sports he does in Alaska (fat-tire winter mountain biking, xc-skiing, ice skating not on a rink but miles and miles in a straight path along frozen lakes and rivers). It was also nice to hand over the planning to Semester at Sea rather than plan out our day. We joined the students, hopped on a boat, and traveled among the smaller islands trailing a net to collect plastic pollution. Fortunately for the water but unfortunately for our trip, the waters were quite clean with the occasional plastic pellet left over from spilled cargo from the last typhoon; one of the spills involved a shipping container with tons and tons of pelletized plastic. The seas on the little boat were rough and the day was chilly compared to the first day. Jasper had some difficulty with the rocking, but it was fun traveling with the students, and Sandy enjoyed being on a small boat. I liked the seafood lunch we had as we docked on a small car-less island with a couple fish restaurants with tanks full of crabs, grouper, prawns, and snails. 

 

Temple on Lamma Island during the ocean junk-recovery trip.

I wish I had taken more pictures of us, but I think I really just didn’t feel like snapping pictures so much as taking in the sights and experiencing everything new firsthand. Ellen has been before and now Jasper and I got to see small parts of the country she spent an entire semester in during her senior year at W&M. I know we didn’t even scratch the surface of what we could see in this huge country, but everything to me was new and I’m really getting excited about seeing so much and experiencing things that are so different from home.

 

Hong Kong lit up at night as we left. There are laser shows and a neon symphony every evening at 2000. We unfortunately left right before Chinese New Year and missed the firework show.

Thanks for reading, and please send me comments either on this blog or by email. Next up is Vietnam, and this is one of the countries we're most looking forward to experiencing.

Ciao.