Примус починяю…

Turns out I took over 1000 pictures during this trip! Most are not that great, but there are also some good ones. I have started uploading them on picasa:

http://picasaweb.google.com/olga.p.petrova/HongKongPartI

http://picasaweb.google.com/olga.p.petrova/HongKongPartII

http://picasaweb.google.com/olga.p.petrova/Shanghai

Hong Kong

Day 2. Hong Kong, May 23rd, 2009

I got in last night around 8 pm. Getting around the airport and into the city was super easy and Akanksha was waiting for me at the last stop of Airport Express, Central. It is soooooo nice to be with her again, reminds me of my undergrad years in Worcester and our cozy little apartment on  Goulding Street.  We had dinner with some friends of hers at the dorm, and then I was so tired from the 16 hour flight and the 3 days of running around in DC with my mom that I went straight to sleep.

It was raining heavily when we woke up this morning, but with all the heat and the humidity it just contributed to my impression of Hong Kong as a city in a rain forest. I have never seen so many skyscrapers coming in all colors of the rainbow surrounded by trees one would expect to see in the middle of the jungle (at least the way I picture it). The closer you get to Central though, the more it starts to look like a cleaner, more organized version of NYC.

We met up with some of Akanksha’s classmates from the Hong Kong Family Institute and went to a Cantonese restaurant for lunch. There we had dim sum (delicious!!!) and other tasty thingies that I don’t know the names for. Cantonese cuisine is AMAZING, I don’t think I’ll ever eat at Orient Express again, now that I know what real food tastes like.

After lunch we took the Midlevels Escalator to the Man Mo Temple. When I think of temples, I usually expect to see a building at least 400 years old, and this one turned out to have been built in 1840s. Nevertheless, it is the oldest temple in Hong Kong, and the first Buddhist/Taoist temple I have ever been to, so it was pretty interesting.

Day 3. Hong Kong, May 24th, 2009

The original plan was to go to the HK Museum of History and then to the Chi Lin Nunnery and the Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple (I really enjoy pronouncing the name of that last one, wonder if it means anything). But the Museum of History took much longer than we expected, so I moved the nunnery and the temple to tomorrow. The Museum was really quite nice – it started with the pre-jurassic period, rushed through the dinosaurs and on to the first homo sapiens living in what is now Hong Kong. So yeah, it really covers ALL of HK history up to the late 90s.

After the museum we decided to take the ferry back to Central. We walked and took the bus to get to the water, and thats where I saw the most amazing view of the trip so far. We passed one of the buildings and all of a sudden there was a fantastic skyline of skyscrapers, skyscrapers, skyscrapers sitting right on the waterfront. I have never seen anything like that before – pictures can’t really capture it, but they are the best I could do.

Day 4. Hong Kong, May 25th, 2009

Today’s first destination was Nan Lian Garden – a beautifully serene classical Chinese garden in the middle of a residential area. I dont know how they do it, but there is absolutely no noise coming from the nearby road, all you hear is quiet pretty Chinese music and the birds. You would think a place like that would be a primary tourist attraction, but the only person I bumped into was an ancient tiny Malaysian man, who advised me to “finish my studies” before leaving the states for good in a tone taken right out of the Kungfu Panda movie. Another reason to visit  the garden (apart from it being breath takingly beautiful) is the vegetarian restaurant whose one wall is entirely made of glass in such a way that from the outside it looks like a waterfall. As a bonus, there’s a cute somewhat english-speaking waiter.

What I actually came to the garden for was the Chi Lin (Buddhist) Nunnery – a very traditional-looking wooden complex, even though it was actually built not that long ago, in 1930s. At this point I really need to start packing for my trip to Shanghai, so I don’t have much time for writing, but a quick overview of the day (I’ll post pictures of everything on picasa eventually): after the garden I took MTR to the nearby Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin temple, whose Good Wish Garden inspired me to take the picture of a flower which I proudly posted on the left here, and later that day I hang out with Akanksha and a couple of her friends. We went to see the light show at the harbour (that beautiful skyline I mentioned the other day gets lit (lighted? whatever) with lights, and lasers and stuff, really nice), grabbed some food and went to the night market, where I shopped for gifts and a few things for myself, like a Chinese dress for $13 (!).

So yeah, I will be in Shanghai until June 1st, and Akanksha told me that wordpress is for some reason banned in mainland China so I guess I won’t be updating this page for a few days. I will be keeping a diary though, and eventually I’ll type it all up, so stay tuned for further updates

Shanghai

Day 7. Shanghai, May 28th, 2009

So I am finally in Shanghai! The train ride was much better than I expected.  I used to travel 3rd class from Russia to Ukraine every summer, so I was prepared for the worst, but the train was actually very clean. We passed a few Chinese cities/towns on the way, and a lot of what I saw reminded me of Russia. The poor residential areas looked like Soviet/early 90s Russia and the more upscale neighborhoods looked sort of like Russia these days.

By the way, the few Chinese words I learned prior to coming here immediately turned out to be useful. In the first vegetarian restaurant I went to, they had an English menu (yay!), but the wait staff only spoke Mandarin. Luckily, I perfected the word for bathroom back in the states!

Another thing I should have learned the Mandarin word for is “subway”. The subway stations are all over the place (except for where you need them, like the Old City and the Bund), but I guess they just arent marked clearly enough for me. Today I spent nearly an hour on People’s Square trying to find one – this could be just me though, I am the kind of person who get lost in their own apartment when they are not paying attention.

Day 8. Shanghai, May 29th, 2009

I was so tired last night, I went to sleep at 9 pm, so right now it is 6:30 am and I am wide awake. Today’s plan is to go to the Former French Concession and afterwards, depending on how much time I spend there, check out the Old City and/or the Bund. Thats a fairly ambitious plan though, lets see what happens.

Lunchtime update: I just walked all over the Former French Concession. It is filled with cute little European-looking houses with pretty gardens and Chinese restaurants playing old French music (do they really think it makes them more attractive?). I am running low on RMB and have not seen a single money exchange place, so the restaurant I picked for lunch is a bit on the low end. Id these turn out to be the last words I wrote on this trip, I was probably poisoned here.

This morning I also went to the Shanghai Museum of Sun Yat-sen’s Former Residence. It was quite nice, although would have been more informative had I joined an English tour – embarrassingly I did not know who Sun Yet-sen was before coming here.

Evening: Wow, what a day! In the afternoon I ended up going to Pudong. There I went up the Oriental Pearl Tower (bird’s eye view of Shanghai + an excellent history museum at the bottom, it really gives you a feel for what the city was like in the past). After the tower I noticed three cute guys who seemed too tall and acted to Russian to be Chinese – guess what, they turned out to be from Kazakhstan! Together we went up on the SWFC Observatory’s building skywalk and that was really something. I actually walked on a transparent glass-walled walkway 474 m above ground!

Day 9. Shanghai, May 30th, 2009

Hmmm Pizza Hut is a fancy place here. They have a Hawaiian theme going on and the staff all speak pretty good English.

I just came out of the Shanghai Museum on People’s Square, which is supposed to be really good – and it was, if you are into seeing ancient artifacts, row after row. Personally, I prefer the history museum at the Oriental Pearl, where you feel like you are walking on the streets of old Shanghai.

Only today I had two groups of people ask to get their picture taken with me. what do they need a picture of a randon white girl for? I also saw some people taking pictures of me on their cell phones on the subway – I guess this is what being a celebrity would feel like.

Day 10. Shanghai, May 31st, 2009

Today was intense – in a good way. First I went to the Jingan Temple, where I asked some random girl to take a picture of me and she turned out to be russian – a graduate student from MSU visiting Shanghai for a conference. We spent most of the day together – grabbed some lunch, went to the Jade Buddha Temple (pretty impressive) and to the Yu Garden, which is really pretty at night (I already got a chance to see it during the day yesterday). Then we met up with two British girls I met at my hostel for dinner, and that was a pretty good time too. Ah, good day