Hong Kong

Thursday, April 22, 2010
Hong Kong
The city is the definition for contrast between old and new. Very tightly packed matrix of small streets lined with shops or street vendors next to highrise bank buildings or shopping malls. We are staying in the Central District on Hong Kong Island which is hilly and has a roadway system that is full of corkscrews to get up to the next levels. Mr Toad's Wild Ride. Out for a walk when a rain downpour sends everyone running for cover, so we head for the covered escalator system that descends for hundreds of feet and over a mile through town down to the waterfront.

New Construction

Packed with lunch hour crowds, the pedestrian streams branch off to other overhead covered walkways and into office buildings and shopping malls. Later to Man Mo Temple, an older building with a beautiful nest of incense coils overhead.

Temple Incense

Then shopping for dodads along a street of antique shops.

HK Street5

I am surprised that Hong Kong is still very separate from Mainland China, even more than 10 years after “The Handover”. Customs controls at the border, the Hong Kong dollar is still a separate currency (very handsome with a tendency to display buildings and bridges), English is pretty universally spoken, and internet sites that are blocked on the Mainland are open here.Sun is out this morning and it looks like a good day for the ferry to Kowloon (wonderful name).

Yangshuo and Water

Sunday, April 18, 2010

li river

Yangshuo County is all about water. We travel from Guilin on the scenic river cruse. The landscape is made up of fantastic shapes eroded from the limestone bedrock by thousands of years of rain erosion. When the river level is lower during dry periods, the boat cruse starts further along the river, but we are lucky because it has been raining for many days now and the water is high. We power down the river with hardly enough time to appreciate the scenery. The hills are all the ones you see on ancient Chinese landscapes.

li river4

Our guide, Joy, (or Mr. Hu – Who? - his joke not mine) points them out - “See that hill that looks like a big apple? We call that Big Apple Hill. And over there, the spire that looks like a writer's brush? That is Writer's Brush Spire.” In Yangshuo, the /humidity is extreme, and condensation is on eyeglasses, camera lenses, tile floors – everywhere. Walking leads to sweating. I soon realize that wearing a rain jacket is two muggy and that an umbrella is all you need. The river has heavy morning fog that I swear is coco brown, like the river. Traditional cormorant fishermen float by on bamboo rafts.

fisherman

They fish with trained cormorant birds who dive for the fish and return them to the raft. Neck collars keep the birds from getting greedy and swallowing the catch.  The river is nearby and is so high that they have canceled the boat cruses. Ours was the last for a little while, and we are fortunate to get here in the brief window between dry period and the too much rain period.

Getting Around in Shanghai

Saturday, April 17, 2010
Shanghai has grown into an uber-city, and there is too much to comprehend. There is a mix of old overlayed by new. In may cases old obliterated by new. New York comes to mind. Our hosts spend a lot of time in the French Concession neighborhood which is older, European influenced, and busy with shops, clubs and restaurants.

Street

Cab fairs are cheep and are the best way to get around. No English is spoken, but pointing at maps, or blackberry emails with instructions in Chinese seems to work. One night the return home is entertaining in the extreme, with our driver proving to be a western jazz nut, listening to his jazz radio station and playing ''air saxophone” to Stan Getz.

Lunch

Traffic is universally insane, but we only saw one accident. If everyone is insane together, it seems to work.

Transport

Leaving the city for the airport, we travel first on congested surface streets, then on the new overhead freeway system that wasn't there a couple of years ago, and finally we transfer to the Maglev train for the last 10 minutes at 260 mph. It is a short prototype system to test the technology, and it is well traveled with tour groups as well as airport passengers.

Maglev Station

Arriving Shanghai

Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Thursday – Shanghai The first full day in Shanghai. I can't sleep past 6:00 and start the day with Pete's coffee. It seems like a good idea to make a foray into the city on the Metro to get comfortable with the concept of being here. The French Concession is an older neighborhood that looks like a good target and has the additional enticement of Julian's favorite massage place. A possible two hour jet-lag cure is our target. Experiencing the Metro, I an struck with a couple of thoughts, but they are not the ones that I was expecting. My preconception was that Shanghai is an international cosmopolitan center and I expected to see more western faces once we were out and about. However, the Metro experience and the walk to the area of the old French Concession was a 100 percent Asian one. The city is getting ready to welcome the world to the Expo 2010 fair on May 1st, but the world is not here yet.

working

The other surprise was to only encounter one person who spoke decent English – a gentleman who helped us decipher the Metro ticket machine. That sounds like the American's typical exception that everyone should speak my language and I guess it was, but it was still a surprise. Everyone was helpful, but communication was entertaining. My point of reference was a visit to Beijing two years ago, where I remember more shopkeepers or people on the street who had English skills. Dinners at Anja and Julian's place have been wonderful. First night prepared by their housekeeper, and last night was Hunan take-out. Much wine and interesting conversation.