the globeTROTTERS

5/22 Great Wall at Badaling 

This was a big day, we would be visiting the Great Wall of China.  This was one of the top sites of our whole trip.  The group was excited.  We got up early in our Beijing hotel and met up in the lobby.  The closest point to see the wall is several hours drive from Beijing proper.  One of John's relatives had very generously offered to drive us there, most people would have been taking some kind of tourist bus.

We all pile into John’s cousin’s minivan.  It is crazy early, so shortly after driving out of Beijing, most of the group is fast asleep in the van.  The countryside is pretty and the freeway we are traveling on is surprisingly modern.  This road could be in any part of the US.  We reach the first section of the wall after only an hour or so.  At least that’s what our guidebook says.  It went by so fast that I didn’t even see it (you don’t get out and walk around at this point).  It would take another hour to get to the section designated for tourist visits. 

Here are a few facts about the Great Wall:

• The Great Wall is the world's longest human-made structure, stretching over approximately 4000 miles
• It has been estimated that somewhere in the range of 2 to 3 million Chinese died as part of the centuries-long project of building the wall
• The wall was built between the 5th and the 16th century BC to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire
•  At its peak, the Wall was guarded by more than one million men

The section of the wall frequented by tourists from Beijing is known as Badaling.  This section of the wall had a large number of guards to defend China’s capital (Beijing). Made of stone and bricks from the surrounding hills, this portion of the Great Wall is 25.6 ft high and 16.4 ft wide. 

I should mention that it has been raining all morning.  Hard core raining.  We get to the car park that leads up to where you visit the wall and are greeted by tons of entrepreneurial Chinese selling rain ponchos for a dollar.  This place is like Disneyland, there is a huge parking area including a big section reserved for tour buses.  We are there pretty early so the masses haven’t quite descended on the place.  John quickly negotiates with some guy to get us all our ponchos.  We gear up and head over to a western, Disney-style ticket office to get tickets.

Tickets in hand, we schlep it up a hill and make our way to the wall.  The tour buses and crowds have arrived at this time.  Think huge masses of Japanese, each with two cameras.  There are a bunch of Chinese tourist as well.  A number of the Chinese tourists want their picture taken with us on the wall.  We were somewhat of a novelty.  The rain is still coming down, so bad that I left our camera in the car.  We walk up and down the wall in the rain for about an hour and then decide to head back.  This place has such the theme park thing going that they have this crazy luge type ride you can take from the wall back to the parking lot.  We pay to ride this down, it was a little scary in the rain.  Back in the parking lot area we notice that they have some black bears enclosed in a zoo type setup and we pay to get some apple slices which you can lob over a wall to them.  This is kind of sad and then we head back to John’s cousin’s van.  He didn’t come up to the wall with us and has been waiting in the van.  The guy was super cool. 

After visiting the walls we get back into the van and drive over to the Ming Tombs.  There are 13 Ming Dynasty Emperors buried in an area not too far from the Badaling section of the Great Wall.  The tomb complex is crazy big, with the tombs themselves being underground.  It is still raining pretty good but we have a nice walk around the tomb gardens and then check out the stuff underground.

After finishing up at the tombs we eat lunch in a restaurant and then head back to Beijing. 

That night we meet up with John’s in-laws for dinner.  They take us to this pretty swanky private, members only restaurant that John’s father in-law belongs to.  Like most Chinese dinners, the whole family is there, John’s in-laws, cousins, cousins’ kids, etc.  We have a private room at the restaurant and are all sitting around a big table sporting a lazy susan in the middle.  A few people start ordering food, not us of course, we don’t know what the hell to order.  Everything is served family style on the lazy susan.  We all order Tsing Tao beers and sit back to enjoy.  Everything is really tasty, there are a few interesting items.  One that sticks out in my mind is shark fin soup.  This is literally a soup made from with shark fins.  It is a delicacy and is really expensive.  We all try it.  It is pretty good, relatively mild as I remember it.  Dinner is a lengthily affair, with tons of food.  We are at the restaurant for several hours before saying good night and heading back to the hotel.

05/23 

The following day we spend a good amount of time wandering around and shopping on Wangfujing Dajie, an area that has a number of very nice (read expensive) shops that we give a good tour.  One of these is a multi-storey almost department store type setup.  Very nice, very expensive.  You could get all kinds of jewelry, precious stones, vases, etc. in this place.  We spend a few hours wandering around.  For lunch we go to a Muslim restaurant that is similar to fondue except you are cooking the food in water as opposed to oil.  John orders several plates of raw lamb meat and a variety of mushrooms and other veggies that we use chop sticks to dip into the boiling water to cook.  Each plate of meat was different qualities of lamb meat, I think the younger the lamb the more expensive / tasty the meat is.  We were also drinking down some kind of potent rice wine that is similar to vodka.  Good stuff, could strip paint off the walls.

We finish off our day with yet another wonderful massage at our favorite Beijing massage place.  This time we get full body massages.  They cost us around $10 US for an hour and a half.  Sweet. 

Cheers,
Bill

We arrived in Beijing by plane from Guilin. Having just chilled in Yangshou for a week we were well rested and ready for some sight seeing in big town Beijing. Our friends from back home (John, Damien, and Polly) would be meeting us in Beijing. John was born in Beijing, so we were going to get the grand tour from a local.

The whole group was going to be staying at a Courtyard Marriott for the duration of our stay in Beijing. Chrissy and I got in the night before the crew arrived from the States. This was good because we had some serious travel logistics to take care of before we got busy with the sites in Beijing. Next stop after Beijing was the trans-Mongolian railway trip across Asia into Europe. This trip isn't easy to plan or orchestrate. The big hassle is getting a Russian visa. Russia is famous amongst travelers for how difficult it is to get the visa. Here is a list of the hoops they make you jump through to get a visa.

We spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to handle the Russian visa situation. We ended up with only one option that had any hope of working out in a timely fashion. It was to use a travel agent to book our entire trans-Mongolian itinerary. These guys were willing to use a courier to ship our passports from Beijing to Hong Kong where the visas could be obtained. This is all pretty crazy because the largest embassy in the world is the Russian embassy in Beijing. For some reason this embassy of all embassies does not service non-Chinese citizens. Things turned out really well. The travel agent which was going to take care of all this for us turned out to be awesome. They can be found here.  These guys took something that is a really complicated, hard to understand, and full of options, and made it understandable and easy. Chrissy and I went to their office in Beijing and they had us all set up in about half an hour. Was a little of a shock to find something so well organized.

So Chrissy and I spent our first day in Beijing taking care of our trans-Mongolian logistics. We even scored a pizza in the restaurant owned by the same dudes that own the travel agency. That night we meet up with John, Damien, and Polly, our buddies from Dallas. John was kind enough to bring two bags of Tostitos chips and some salsa for us. Chrissy had been dying for this stuff the whole trip. We chow down for a bit in the hotel and then head out to these infamous Chinese massage places John has been telling us about. It is like 11 PM at this point, but these places are open 24 hours a day. I know what you are thinking, any massage place that is open 24 hours a day is maybe the kind of place that offers services that are a bit too friendly. John assured us that this was not the case with the place where we were going.

John had never actually been to this specific location, but had gotten directions to the place from the hotel concierge. We jump into a couple of cabs and head over to this place. The joint isn't too far from the hotel and is on big street, which is pretty dark at this point in the night. We get out of the cabs and walk up to the massage place. They have a girl in full traditional Chinese dress open the door. Then you climb these steps that are adjacent to a waterfall and are greeted at the top of the steps by about ten massage people (both men and women) who all say hello (in Chinese, nobody speaks any English in this place). They sit us down on a nice leather couch and have us remove our shoes. John starts talking to a lady about what services we want. We settle on foot massages for everyone and they lead us into an long narrow room that has lazyboy type recliners along one wall. A total of six, so the night number for each of us to have one. On the way facing the recliners is a flat screen tv where you can have a movie showed, if you want. We pass on the movie but do order up some beers and snacks. Yes, beers at the massage place. Soon a line of massage people enter the room all at once, each carrying a wooden tub of very hot water. Each of us has our own massage person that sets down a tub in front of our chair. The hot water is actually some sort of tea. They have us put our feet in for a good soaking prior to the foot massage. Damn is this water hot. I can barely take it. But I sit back, take a sip of beer and relax. The ladies are all joking and laughing and John is the only one who knows what they are saying. He is translating some of it. Apparently the ladies are laughing about Damien's hairy legs. Chinese men aren't hairy like Mexicans. Ha. After the soaking, the massage folks towel off our feet. Each massage person has a little case of tools with them. I am getting nervous as my lady pulls out a straight razor. She precedes to spray the razor with alcohol and then light it on fire. Such are the disinfection methods in China. Anyway, so they each use these razors to scrape dried skin off the bottom of your feet. It kind of tickles. She didn't have to do much scraping on me, I am proud to say. Not bad for having spent almost a year on the road at this point. I can't speak for the rest of our group. After the knife treatment the foot rubbing finally starts. This feels good for the most part but my little lady is pretty rough. She is like digging her fingers into the bottoms of my feet. This type of massage is also called Reflexology. Here is an explanation from wikipedia:

Reflexology, also called Foot zone therapy, is traditionally practiced without lotion, as the pressure points on the feet are stimulated by thumb and finger walking, as well as static pressure. Painful spots reflect illnesses of other parts of the body. The theory behind foot massage maintains that the ailment of an internal organ will be associated with the nerve ending on the sole of the foot. As pressure is applied to the sole, theory holds that a healthy patient should not feel any strong pain. This theory is based on the energetic flow of "meridians" in the body, also known as Chi.

Before the massage, the patient's feet are soaked for about ten minutes in a foot bath, typically a solution of hot water and Chinese herbs. The practitioner rubs and massages the painful spots to break down rough spots and accumulated crystals which have not been scientifically researched. Based on this theory, some shoe liners are made with pressure points to stimulate the soles of the feet.

If you read this explanation you get that if you are a completely healthy guy you shouldn't have any pain during the foot massage. As I mentioned, this lady is digging her fingers into my feet and it hurts. She explains in Chinese to John that I must have some kind of stomach ailment. So I got that going for me.

After much foot rubbing, they break out these little wooden hammers and lightly tap your feet with them in a very rapid fashion. This feels pretty good. The whole deal ends with a nice back and shoulder rub. Total cost for an hour and a half? Like ten bucks, plus extra for the beers and such. No tipping. Crazy. We close out up front and decide we are coming back to this place every night we are in Beijing. We purchase the equivalent of a prepaid frequent customer card that will be used to pay for massages for the group. As a thank you gift we get a case of boxed milk and a small ceramic pig.

Chrissy, happy with a case of milk

We grab taxis back to the hotel and fall into blissful, relaxed slumber.

- Bill

Twenty minutes outside of Macau, we arrived at the border with mainland China. Both Macau and Hong Kong are considered Special Administration Regions for China and neither require a visa for US citizens. Bill and I got off the bus and were required to walk across the border, stopping first at immigration and customs. We thought that it would be a difficult transition because of the language barrier, but it actually was very easy. As we stood in queue, however, we both started to get nervous because we both were travelling with political, religious and guide books, all of which can cause problems. We got through without any issue and both gave a sigh of relief.

 

A couple of hours later, we arrived by bus to Guangzhou, formerly Canton. We paid too much for a crappy room, but we were happy with the location on Shamian Island, an area of town formerly inhabited by Europeans during the 19th century.

 

We took a walk around and ended up crossing through a market that was closing en route to a pedestrian shopping street. My jeans had been one of the casualties of the laundromat fiasco in Hong Kong, and I needed a new pair. Although I am considered a relatively tiny person at home, I am a mammoth next to Asian women. There also appears to be little standardization to Asian sizes and so it became quite a debacle to try and find jeans that fit. I had given up in Macau and was about to do so again when Bill and I walked into one last jean store. These two wonderful women gave me tons of stuff to try on. They started with a small size and I realized that I couldn't even fit my leg into the jeans. Knowing only the basics in Chinese, I had to do hand gestures to indicate that I needed bigger. Much bigger. Finally we found the right size and then they gave me a ton of jeans in that size to try. I finally found a pair that Bill and I both liked and we were off.

 

We found an excellent Cantonese restaurant and ended up ordering based on the pictures. Actually, that isn't exactly true. The truth is that we attempted to do this, but the waitress would not accept our order and informed us that we would be eating duck that night whether we wanted to or not. OK, that's one dish down. She gave us a few options on vegetables and another meat dish, so we settled on roasted duck, chili pork, and mushrooms with Chinese cabbage. Oh wow. The fungi in Chinese is highly recommended. There are so many types of mushroom and they are all yummy. All kidding aside, we were happy that she was looking out for our best interests. She seemed eager to make sure that we had a good experience there and we did.

 

There are four regional cuisines of China (Cantonese, Beijing style, Hunan and Sichuan)and Cantonese is reputed to be the best. Guangzhou is supposed to have the best  of the Cantonese, so we were in good hands.

 

In case you didn't get the memo, the Chinese make quite a ritual out of making tea. We had a couple of pots on our table and didn't really understand what the heck was going on. Our waitress politely showed us how to continually add and mix the hot water to the tea. 

 

We stopped the dim sum lady and her cart and asked her what she had. Most people will open up their baskets and show you. She just pointed to the sign in Chinese on her cart. That did not help us. I asked for shu mai (the only dim sum item that I can recite off the top of my head) and to my amazement, she understood me and we got just that.

 

Most of the restaurants in Guanzhou had these tanks of fresh items for you to examine as you enter

 

The next day we took the metro to the Nan-Yue tomb. The tomb housed Zhao Mo, the grandson of the western Han dynasty's founder, Zhao Tuo (whose own tomb has not yet been found). The tomb was found in 1983 when some construction workers found it while digging for the foundation of a residential estate. Great discovery for the world, horrible find for the propective home owner.

 

The Nan-Yue tomb as discovered from above ground

 

Because the tomb was never found, it has never been robbed. The highlight of the collection is a suit sewn of jade tiles and red silk. The silk had disintegrated by the time of the discovery, but has since been replaced and the suit restored. It is simply stunning. The Han believed that jade could help to preserve the body, hence the suit was fitted around the entirety of the body, including glove-shapes around the hand.

 

The remains of 15 people's bodies are also in the tomb. Apparently once the emperor dies, all the important folks get sacrificed. Perhaps you should quit your day job in this case. Anyhow, some of the folks included an assistant, two guards that were found at the entrance, a favorite musician, the cook and three concubines.

 

Afterwards, we headed to Sanyuan Gong, or "Three Purities Temple". It is the largest and oldest Tao temple in the city and was consecrated in 319. It's nearly impossible to spot from the street, but a security guard down the street pointed in the direction for us.

 

The next day, we headed back to Qingping market just to check out the wares. There were dried mushrooms, starfish and snakes everywhere. There were also many rubber bins filled with live scorpions. You could buy them and they would fry them up for you right there. More on that in a future Beijing entry.

 

  
Some of the items available in the Qingping market

 

The pet market was quite depressing. A dead, discarded kitten awaited disposal in the gutter which made me very sad. Later, I was looking at the beautiful live Siamese cats when the ornery shop owner kicked me out.

 

After such a fine welcoming, we felt sad to leave. Not. We headed over to the jade market and perused some of the hundred or so stalls. After navigating a bunch of small streets around the market, we found Hualin Si, a temple founded in 527 by the Bodhidhama, the man who founded the Chan movement (a.k.a. Zen).

 

During the 1700s, the complex was expanded to include the likenesses of 500 arahats (enlightened people). Chans, unlike other Buddhists, believe that even secular people can reach enlightenment through everyday conversations and actions. Talk about having an aha! moment.

 

During the Cultural Revolution of the 60s, the statues were ruined but they have since been re-built. The room was impressive and it was amazing to see so many large statues. There was a large idol with accompanying kneeler with Bodhidhama. Sitting on the kneeler, was a young man watching Looney Tunes at full volume on a handheld device. We are still shaking our heads in disbelief.

 

After another fine dim sum meal, we headed over to the Peasant Movement Training Institute, where Chairman Mao spent some time as a dean. It is a lovely Qing dynasty former temple, but the now-museum was somewhat of a disappointment because we couldn't read anything. I would have been a bit amazed if it would have been in English anyway; it doesn't jive so much wih communism.

 

One of the rooms was large and Bill was walking through the exhibit at a slower pace than I was. A man who worked there came up to me and seemed to start yelling at me. I was politely trying to figure out what the heck was going on. I immediately got nervous and tried to quietly call over Bill. We were the only people there and the room was big, but not too big. I think Bill was purposely ignoring me (for the record, he disagrees). Regardless, I started to yell louder for him to come over. Finally, I just walked away from the man and went to get Bill. The man walked over to another man that worked there and vigorously discussed us. The other guy didn't seem concerned that we were there and finally the irate guy gave up. I was spooked, so I stuck by Bill and suggested a hasty exit.

 

We went back to Shamian Island and grabbed a Tsing Tao at Lucy's, a western style restaurant. We had been there the prior day and really liked the vibe. The restaurant-bar is across from the White Swan Hotel where adopting families stay. Guangzhou is a major adoption center and we were surrounded by families getting to know one another. There were many American and European familes and it was really cool watching everyone try and communicate with one another using mostly hand motions.

 

We grabbed our backpacks and headed to the train station. We gave ourselves an hour and a half, plenty of time for the long metro ride to the train station, or it would have been had we gone to the correct station. This was not immediately apparent and our various attempts to ask people were met with complexing reactions. People gave us a look like, "uh-oh" and then would politely shake their head. Eventually, we went back down to the metro station, showed our train tickets to a metro employee. She walked us over to the metro map and pointed to where we were...and where we should be. The appropriate location was a further ten stops away and we had less than 20 minutes at this point.

 

Somehow, we arrived with five minutes to spare (although our train actually was 8 minutes late). Yes, we were very lucky.

 

We had opted or second class and although the carriage was a bit smoky, the berth itself was decorated in a lovely fashion. A little over the top, Victorianesque, but very plush. Curtains, satin hangers, even slippers under the bed - much nicer than we had been treated to on earlier rides. Guilin was a short overnight twelve hours away and we slept like babies - alone in our four-person berth.

 

Interior of the Chinese train

 

It was an easy transition from the train station to the Flower Youth Hostel - it was directly across the street. It was 7 a.m., so we slept until noon and then walked over to Elephant Trunk Hill. The hill is actually a limestone karst and the limestone has eroded at the bottom of the hill over the river into a cove. The hill resembles an elephant drinking from the river and legend has it that the elephant was once an imperial baggage elephant that was sick and retreated to the hill. Once healed, rather than return to the army, the elephant opted instead to turn to stone. For us, the most interesting part of the place is the centuries of chinese calligraphy graffiti that dot the hill. Some writing dates back to the Song dynasty (960 - 1271 AD).

 

Elephant Hill

 

As we walked along the trails, we ran across a Chinese family several times. At one point, they greet us with an exuberant "hello". They eclipse in laughter and excitement when I answer back, "Ni hao!"

 

Afterwards, we got lost walking through the pedestrian shopping area en route to Jingjiang Princes' Palace and end up meeting Tom, the friendly tout. As usual, we don't know whether to trust him or not when he says that he's a student and just wants to "practice his English". This is one of the oldest tricks in the books, apparently, but we hadn't gotten that far in the guidebook yet.

 

Initially, he seemed genuine but we started getting suspect when he came through the gates without having to pay. When he started on the usual lines - how long will you be here? Do you have your tickets out yet? Where are you staying? - red flags went off. We politely got rid of Tom.

 

The palace was built by Ming rulers between 1372 - 1650 AD, but these buildings were later destroyed by fire and rebuilt. The original stone wall and stairs remain. The palace now houses a university. While beautiful, our visit was overshadowed by Tom the tout.

 

 

We hiked up this hill to escape Tom the tout

 

When we returned to the hostel, we encountered two Brits, Chris and Ceri, that were travelling the following day to Yangshuo. This was our next stop as well and they suggested that if we were interested, we could ride in the boat that they had hired and it would cut all of our costs.

 

We agreed, and signed up for the 3.5 hour journey to Yangshuo, leaving the following morning.

 

- Chrissy

 

We arrived in Hong Kong just days before my 30th birthday. I had already freaked on my 25th birthday, so I felt relatively good about this one. That didn't stop Bill from a little payback. In November, about a month away from Bill's big day, I started to taunt him. "Was there anything that you had hoped to accomplish before this important pinnacle in your life that you haven't yet done?". This question was, of course, thrown right back at me. "Nope", I said. "I feel good."

 

The HK airport was clean and well-signed and our hotel had a desk just outside of customs and immigration. We were taken to a local bus to get to the hotel and we left promptly. No one else was on the bus and we made no stops, so we had a nice private trip over to the Sheraton Kowloon. Katherine was leaving on another flight, about 12 hours after us, so we checked in and decided to run some errands for the day. Our first stop, however, was food.

 

Yeah, this place has a lot of people

 

We found an amazing noodle shop and ordered dumpling soup. Bill got his "very spicy" while I opted for "hot". Both were seasoned perfectly and we were in heaven.

 

Later, Katherine joined us and we ate a quick dinner and then headed to the top-floor bar at the Sheraton. They had a nice bar and every evening the city puts on a free light show showcasing all of the tallest buildings. We enjoyed watching the show despite a bit of cheesiness. It was choreographed to music and had audio and we were happy to learn the names of some of the notable buildings.

 

The next day, we hopped on the historic Star Ferry that goes from Kowloon over to the island of Hong Kong.  The ferry has been running since the mid-1800s and is an institution. The seven minute ride afforded good views of both skylines. We hopped on a bus for a quick ride to the Peak Tram.

 

The Peak Tram is a small train that chugs to the top of the island. At the top, you can get a great panoramic of the city. Afterwards, we took the ferry back to Kowloon and walked along the Avenue of Stars. Hong Kong has the third largest film industry after Mumbai and Hollywood. We found our favorite Hong Kong stars and I can happily announce that my hands are the exact same size as Jet Li's hands. I am not sure if that is good or bad for either of us. Oh well.

 

View of the Hong Kong skyline from the Peak

 

My hands are the same size as Jet Li's hands

 

That evening, we met Stella and Eugene for dinne. We had met Stella and Eugene, two college friends, on our fateful Halong Bay trip. They had helped to make an otherwise miserable trip fun and we were happy to see them again. The restaurant was amazing. It had an incredible view of the city and had floor to ceiling windows. Walking in, I was mesmerized by a tree that had hundreds of glowing candles hanging in balance.

 

The food was even better than the beautiful décor and the presentation was astounding. Soft shell crab came out in a basket filled to the brim with cherry-colored red peppers. We ate jade vegetables and beef and more food than I can remember eating in a long time. Katherine immediately took to Stella and Eugene and we had a wonderful evening.

 

After dinner, Eugene headed out to play hockey (Stella and Eugene are both originally from Canada). The rest of us headed to Morton's Steakhouse, inside the Sheraton, for dessert and cordials.

 

Stella had to work the next day, so we bid "adieu" and then headed upstairs to the top floor bar again. We were only 15 minutes away from my birthday and it didn't seem quite right to go to bed. Instead, Bill ordered a bottle of champagne and we celebrated in style.

 

The next morning, we packed our bags and prepared to move to the hotel next door. Allow me to explain. My dear husband was treating me to a stay at the Peninsula. The Peninsula is consistently at the top of the charts for Asian hotels and boasts the largest customized fleet of Rolls-Royces in the world.

 

As luck would have it, Stella is quite senior at the hotel and was able to accommodate us with an amazing corner suite on the second highest floors. As we walked in, we were immediately greeted by the quartet playing in the foyer.

 

People kept approaching me, "Happy birthday, Mrs. Trotter". It was quite plush, if I do say so. Stella immediately ushered Katherine and I to the spa for a surprise massage treatment. The spa was heaven. We settled in and were immediately drawn to the sauna and steam rooms. The sauna had commanding views of the harbor and the steam room boasted a large mineral rock in the center. Afterwards, we took turns acting like kids in the  shower. It simulated a "spring rain" with soft cool water, flickering lights, aromatic scents piped in and the sound of rainfall and birds. There were two other intriguing settings, but the spring rain was definitely the best.

 

We each sat in a reclining chair and sipped on fresh squeezed orange juice while awaiting our treatment. The massage was wonderful and as usual, I was not ready to leave. Afterwards, I took a small nap in the relaxation room and we drank some tea. Unbeknownst to us, poor Bill was waiting in the lobby for us to come out so that we could go to lunch!

 

We took the elevator to the pool and ate poolside. It was raining hard, but fortunately the pool is inside. The large windowed doors that often open to the outside were closed for shelter. We had a nice lunch, but Bill was noticeably disappointed when a message came saying that our afternoon plans had been cancelled due to inclimate weather. I didn't know what those plans were though, and I was content to just swim for a while.

 

The pool was lovely, but we were all amazed that music was piped into it. You couldn't hear the music when you were above water, only when you were swimming. While Bill napped on a lawn chair, Katherine and I headed back to the spa to enjoy the segregated jacuzzi. Their was an icy plunge pool which we did not partake in and then a nice, hot jacuzzi.

 

Arriving back at our room, we had a three-tiered stand filled with delicious chocolates. Moments later, someone showed up with a birthday cake and chilled champagne, courtesy of the hotel. Katherine also surprised me a nice bottle of Veuve-Clicquot.

 

Champagne, chocolate and terry robes. Me likey

 

We had dinner reservations at Gaddi's, one of the Peninsula's main restaurants and one of the best in the city. Bill and Stella had arranged for us to sit in the kitchen in the lone table reserved for special guests. The chef, David Goodridge was delightful. He gave us a wonderful tour of the kitchen and then served us a delicous five course meal, consisteing of beef cheek, sea bass and the main course, pigeon.

 

For dessert, we opted to go to the dining room and enjoy the atmosphere and the band. The band sang me happy birthday and the kitchen delivered another cake! We were already stuffed, so after a courtesy taste, we had the cake and our petit fours packed and delivered to our room.

 

Bill gave me my present - a book on playing guitar and a promise that we will get an acoustical guitar when we get home. I've always wanted to learn and so I am looking forward to getting home and practicing!

 

After dinner, we should have gone home, but we went down the street to an Irish bar instead. Within minutes, we met another American that had been in HK for a long time and was lonely. He started buying us whiskey and tequila. On later reflection, we all decided that we should never start drinking with a stranger that already has red wine stains on his shirt.

 

The next day, I woke up and wanted to read the paper. For the second day in a row, we had not gotten a paper and I thought it was very strange that a hotel that paid such attention to detail could oversee such a thing. I called guest relations and requested someone to deliver a paper to our room. "Did you check in the closet?" she asked. Huh? I said something to that effect and she repeated the question. I was so dumbfounded that I just told her that I would call her back. I did one of those things where you replay the conversation back in your head in the hopes that it will make sense the second, and in this case, third time around. I just looked at Bill and said, "She told me to check the closet".

 

We were both confused, but when I looked in the closet, lo and behold, there was our newspaper. Within the closet, there is a small door and within that door there is a compartment that houses your newspaper and shoes that you can set there to be shined and delivered the next morning. We were both like kids in the candy store. How does it work? Who puts it there? Should we stick our head in there and ring the button and scare the hell out of the man or woman that appears? These questions were all paramount and we spent the next ten minutes trying to figure it out.

 

In case I've piqued your interest, allow me to explain. There is the door that enters into the closet that provides the guest with access to the goods. At the opposite side of the compartment is another door that provides access from the hallway. Stella later informed us that apparently the chairman of the Peninsula got tired of going out to the hallway in his bathrobe to get the paper and instructed his people to come up with a solution. Ladies and gentleman, that is some cool shit. When you set your shoes inside, you press a button so that the magical elf knows to come and pick them up. Bill talked me out of putting my head in there.

 

Shoes and a newspaper, all delivered through the closet

 

The following day, we got up and went to lunch with Stella. We had discovered that the noodle shop that Bill and I went to the first day was also a favorite of Stella's and we thought Katherine might also enjoy it. As we ordered, Bill and I both tried to order our dishes as "hot". Stella ordered for us in Cantonese but the waitress shook her head no and informed Stella that it would be too hot for us. We insisted, saying that we had been there a few days prior and had eaten it "very hot" and "hot" and it was just right. Stella suggested that maybe they had written down something else, but we felt confident and stood our ground. Stella and the waitress politely went back and forth with each other and the waitress wrote down something. Stella then said something back to her and told us that despite what she had told the waitress, the lady still wrote down a milder spice level. At that point, we became obstinate and the matter was settled.

 

I'm sure you see where this is going, and that's exactly where it went. I am not sure why we pay to subject ourselves to pain. I tried to make a good effort on behalf of all of Stella's hard work, but I couldn't take it. Bill was more of a trooper and he finished his soup. I left with a very runny nose and tears streaming down my cheek. Bill left red and sweaty. Good times.

 

We all instantly had stomach aches from the spiciness, but we headed back to the Peninsula. Stella went to have a coffee and wait for us while we went to our event (the one that had been cancelled the day before).

 

I still didn't know what we were doing, but I figured it out once we got into the special elevator on the top floor. Bill had made reservations for the China Clipper, the Peninsula's helicopter (call sign Hotel 0) that takes off from the rooftop. Bill, Katherine and I all climbed in and were treated to an aerial trip of the Hong Kong skyline. It was amazing. I got to sit up front and take in the view. I had never been in a helicopter and for someone that flies in a plane as much as we do, it's quite strange to ascend directly upward without a gradual incline. It felt very surreal.

 

Me, Katherine and the China Clipper

 

Yeah, I'm a badass

 

It was a lovely day and we had fun when the pilot dove down and did some side turns. We circled the whole island and the pilot pointed out all of the sights. At the end, we each got a hat commemorating our trip. It was very cool.

 

We met back up with Stella and then headed toward Stanley, just outside of town. There are a lot of trendy bars and restaurants and a great local market. We met up with Eugene and perused the market. Katherine and I bought Christmas ornaments (we always pick one up when we are travelling somewhere new) and everyone picked out at least something. Stella left to meet a friend and Eugene took us to his favorite restaurant in the Times Square area.

 

I like a cat with a sense of humor

 

The food was great. Eugene ordered a ton of food and we made a good dent in all of it. We had scallops and broccoli, duck, shrimp and all sorts of delicous dishes. That night, we met Stella for drinks at the JW Marriott.

 

The next day we started to pack up to get ready to head to Macau. Katherine and I had dropped off laundry a couple of days prior and we went to pick it up. The laundramat was closed. This presented a few problems since half of my clothes were in there and let's be honest, I am continually wearing the same stuff day in and day out. We needed to head out to Macau though if Katherine was going to get a chance to go, so we opted to head out anyway. We reasoned that Katherine could pick up the clothes a couple of days later when she flew out of HK. Bill and I wouldn't be back, so I had a free license to get some new clothes!

 

We met Stella at a delicious Cantonese restaurant on our way out of town. The efficiency of the restaurant was commendable. You are in and out in as much time as it takes you to eat because they immediately serve you, clean up and provide the bill. The whole affair is over within 30 minutes.

 

We were sad to say good-bye to Stella and Eugene. Their hospitality was above and beyond. Bill and I have been lucky to meet some wonderful new friends on this trip. Most of the time, you make acquaintances that you share the same basic questions and conversation on a surface level - where are you from? Where are you going? How long are you travelling for? How much longer do you have? On occasion, however, you meet lifelong friends and we have certainly met some on this trip.

 

The last two stops had been full of visits with new friends - Mel, Mel and Ryan in Perth and Stella and Eugene in Hong Kong. We were also extremely lucky to have Katherine come out and visit us for a second time, no less. As we moved into China, we were looking forward to Beijing just a few weeks later where we would meet other friends from home - John, Damien and Polly.

 

But with the exciting prospect of a new country on our mind, we focused our thoughts to mainland China and our first stop, Guangzhou.

 

- Chrissy