Shanghai II

a woman creates a tribute to those lost in the Chengdu earthquake

Christoph helps me fill out my forms to get a new visa. Oh bureaucracy...

city scape

THE best dumplings we ever encountered in China. Buttery and crisp but still soft and oh so cheap. I feel like going back to Shanghai just for these jewels

Respite from the bustle

Shanghai

The famous dumpling place where we waited a half hour to get our serving (and where the infamous 'dumpling dance' was born)
one shot of the large skyscrapers (reminiscent of Hong Kong) that lined People's Square

Our "peking duck" that we didn't manage to get in Beijing but settled for it in Shanghai

yes this was staged but don't we look like we were meant to be having tea in this quaint garden?

testing the coy... but with no results

Checking out the Bund

the old town of Shanghai (interestingly blended with the new)

Xian II

one of many calligraphers that dotted our paper and brush lined street

our encounter with what some people call a "wonder of the world"- the terra cotta warriors
emma and erin do some yoga and get their feet wet near the great goose pagoda

the actual pagoda, complete with incense lighters and cute little boys

a third bunk view of our train to Shanghai- you really pay more for the lower seats for a reason (chinese trains are full of rules...what kind of train closes their restaurant car at 8?)

Xian I

our lovely hostel in Xian (where we got in room massages! this was before my wallet was stolen...)

christoph, emma and erin observe the mosque inside the muslim quarter of the city (a nice change from temples)

Men congregate to play cards (and gamble I am sure) You will not see any women in these parts of the parks

when you order food at a place where there is an obvious language barrier, there is a lot of pointing and, in our case, pictionary (Christoph managed to get us eggplant, rice and meat skewers with his drawing skills)

who says the chinese can't drink?

Beijing (part 3)

dusk on a lake

portraits of people

erin works out the chinese way
fresh pork and vegetable buns (a whole steamer of those cost less than a dollar)

Erin sits with the map (I admit I did very little of the navigation on this trip) a glass plate separating us and our cab driver

The Great Wall

ski lift up
wearing Erin's bday present to me: a jade necklace. And what better place to wear it then when sitting in a window on the Great Wall of China?

Vanessa, Erin and I look happy but this must have been after a rest because, with the heat and the oscillation between stairs that were too spread apart adn those that were too close, we were exhausted

eerie scene inside one of the towers of the wall

toboggoning down (of course!)

Beijing (part 2)

one of the cleanest squatting tiolets I have ever been priveleged enough to become acquainted with

summer palace design (this actually stood out from the rest of the similarly themed decoration and color schemes of the palace)

one of the many tourists groups who decidedly matched

a tree that seem like it would only exist in a movie

an early supporter of his country, this little one stands outside the gates to the forbidden palace (nicelt framed by Mao's face)

Beijing (part 1)

the theatre scorpions, bugs and crawly things for the eatin'

street sweet potato outside the summer palace

erin buys one of the many experimental red bean bun attempts with high hopes

me, erin, brianna, umm...., vanessa

Erin's friend Brianna took us out a few nights and her and her friends enlightened us to what studying Putongwah (mandarin) really entails.

Full circle

So I am back in Hong Kong. It is strange to be back here as a tourist and to walk the streets knowing that I won’t bump into any one of the other temporary inhabitants here that I familiarized myself with. Changing location is also big factor as staying in the heart of downtown has given me brief insight into what a more cosmopolitan (expensive) lifestyle is available in Hong Kong. This city (with all its order and suits and waiting lines and people that only look forward when they walk) is certainly worlds away from Thailand or the Philippines. I don’t have much to report here because most of my time today and tomorrow will be spent largely staring at my computer screen doing all the things I neglected while traveling. Being alone is a change, I am meeting up with Erin in a while and got to see Louise for a bit as well but, since Elisa has left and I have no roommate back in my old dorm, I am left to my own devices. You would think if I could survive SE Asia for weeks at a time that I could handle being alone…

I am haunted by memories in places here that have no memory, in places that don’t care about the lives of the people that get so attached to them. I am visited by images of faces of people who are out scattered around the rest of the world. I am living next to a cemetery and it is only appropriate that I am mourning certainly one of the better times of my short, privileged life this far. If you were from HKU Spring 2008 and are reading this know that I miss you incredibly and the lifestyle that we built for ourselves in this crazy vertical land.

I think this is it for me. As far as this particular blog goes. Unless I crash on my flight over to London or get abducted by Korean mafia members, I can guarantee you that this will not be my last trip and that the reflections will only continue to come.

Enjoy some more pics from my China trip and time in HK and if you want to see any glimpse of Thailand and the Philippines then please check out my other join blog with Elisa at melandelle.blogspot.com