Category: hong kong 06-07

Another weekend, another border crossing

This past week: WVU had an interesting presidential selection process, with some overly credulous reporting from Charleston newspapers and some academic drama. One embarrassing article quoted three students in a row favoring the BOG-favored lobbyist candidate (and new President), Garrison. It didn’t mention the connections these three have to each other or to Garrison, but it did give the impression that students were falling in behind the BOG against the faculty. In reality, I’m sure most students didn’t care. I’m sure I wasn’t the only student who would have preferred an academic to lead the University. The fix was in, though, and in spectacular fashion: 16-1. I hope it works out for everyone.

Kurt Vonnegut died. That wasn’t good.

I’ve not spent a full weekend in the HKSAR for a long time. This past weekend would not be an exception, as I joined Alex D. and a pack of tutors on a trip to Heidi’s family’s horse ranch in Dalan, Dongguan, Guangdong, Mainland. Dalan is a Y35 RMB/single coach ride, about an hour, from Luohu.

They have a pretty nice place up there, and some pretty nice horses [well, they were nice to other people at least] too. I’ll try to be brief, because I ought to be tapping out a quick essay for tomorrow morning instead of blogging. We arrived early Saturday afternoon, and spent most of that afternoon riding horses or watching. I’d never ridden a horse before (and I’m not sure I’d like to again), but it was an interesting experience. If I’m not mistaken, Alex hadn’t been bitten by a horse before, either.

In the evening, we joined the BBQ and its delicious beef, chicken, mini-sausages, lamb, ribs, sweet potatoes, corn, open flames, and local Kingway (Dongguan) beer. That sentence should explain my feelings about that part of the visit adequately. Afterward some of us tried to watch Little Miss Sunshine and ended up going to sleep about 45 minutes in.

Morning came—eventually—and we were given breakfast (my highlight for the trip). Baskets and baskets (well, two, but stacked really high) of homemade jiaozi and… uh… other good stuff. Lunch wasn’t much worse. Before lunch, we went up the hill to a local temple with very nice views of the area. Then, the more adventurous (everyone else) rode a second time before our late lunch and trip back to Shenzhen.

It was a nice weekend trip, but it didn’t help me write that essay: actually, it would have been illegal to bring my sources with me [though the Lo Wu formalities are very relaxed and I’m sure I would have gotten away with it]. Of note: this was my 15th entry into Hong Kong (and the 15th ridiculously big student stamp on my passport pages]. I could run out again in as little as two trips, if the HK Immigration officials continue their recent trend of stamping the half-page stamp across a full page.

Sunday and Monday in Beijing

On Sunday, I walked.  A lot.  I still have a relatively minor but annoyingly placed blister to prove it.

First I took the 20 minute walk and the subway to Tian’anmen Square where I forked over the RMB to go into the Forbidden City.  It was big and impressive and all—and I liked the garden—but the KMT really did take all the good stuff for Taipei’s National Palace Museum.  I really liked the garden at the northern end.

Of particular note (more than the imperial Chinese exhibits which, at this point, were starting to run together like one big wide ineffective wall snaking thousands of km across the Chinese countryside) was my visit to the Forbidden Store.  It’s not as big and gaudy as I’d half-hoped: it’s just a corner of a room shared with a standard souvenir shop.  If you’re a Tall or Venti (or, save us all, Short) aficionado, you’ll be disappointed: Grande only on this limited menu.  Cups still have the Starbucks logo; the storefront does not.  What’s truly remarkable is the willingness of people to pay standard Starbucks prices in a country where the hostel’s marked-up bottles of Tsingtao are 3 RMB/pint. 

If you noticed that I didn’t mention seeing Mao’s embalmed body on my trip, it’s because I wasn’t able to: the Maosoleum is closed for repairs for a few months.  Stupid Olympics.

After the Forbidden City I trucked my way down to Tiantan, the Temple of Heaven (catching a Peoples’ Armed Policeman climbing a tree to get his kite on the way).  The complex was big and rather nice, actually, probably my favorite “traditional Chinese” site.  This was another opportunity for the weekend’s fantastic weather to show off (maybe factories were down for Qingming): blue skies, warmer than Hong Kong, not a hint of rain.  Pictures are probably better than words (working on those).

After that, I ended up walking from Qianmen to one subway stop shy of the east side of the ring along Chang’an Jie, and then back to one stop west of the west side.  That’s a long way.

Sunday was a slow morning.  One of my roommates dragged me along to a local market where we laughed at tourist prices set for tea and took in the delicious scene of a farmer’s market sort of arrangement.  We bought food on the way back: some tasty baozi and a pineapple.  Good, of course.  After that it was off to the airport, on the bus to which I sat next to a 50+-year-old from Georgia who, at the suggestion of a mother in the States, had come to China to woo her Chongqing-based daughter.  Hope that works out well for everybody.

Arriving at the sparkly Beijing Capital Airport, I found that it doesn’t have Shenzhen’s talent for e-ticket check-in kiosks.  Shenzhen Airlines didn’t even open the physical check-in until 1h30m before departure: I kept myself busy at KFC “Select” in arrivals with a traditional Chinese “Zinger” burger, egg tart, and 7-Up “smoothie.”  It was overpriced for China, but so cheap compared to the rest of the airport’s offerings (and 2/3 the price of that sacrilegious sbux latte).

Sorry if I “scare quote” “too much”—I’ve probably picked up the habit from reading too many China Daily articles about Taiwan.

SZ Air was not terrible, aside from the normal queuing culture clashes.  Food was served (yes, on a budget airline flying one-class cabins domestically… such is Asia) with a drink before and after.  The meal wasn’t anything special but did include a baggie of four or five longan fruit, which were tasty.  ZH, like HU (a couple posts ago), is rocking the brand-new 737 models (a -900 for this flight).  One interesting feature was the obsession of the cabin crew with making sure the curtain at the front of the aircraft (concealing the galley, jumpseats, and one lav.) was closed for every second permitted by regulations.  There was some sort of raucous group stretch/prize drawing sort of exercise toward the end of the flight which would have been more interesting if I understood Mandarin.  One nice bit: I wasn’t expecting anything after the Chinese-language newspapers were paraded past, but I was handed a copy of the China Daily just before takeoff. 

Back in Shenzhen around 20:00 after a brief delay, it was easy to get to the bus for Luohu.  Lo Wu crossing was more crowded than when I’d left on Thursday, but after around 15 minutes I was through and fighting to squeeze on the East Rail train.  I took the minibus (44A) back from Sheung Shui for a change.  The extra HK$1 was worth it to fly by trucks and buses instead of the other way around, and I finally got to see a minibus speedometer over 100.

The Other Wall

A quick note on the Great Firewall’s practical implications for travelers: blogspot is out. Wikipedia (but not Wikitravel) is out. Gmail and my unheard-of blog are fine, at least until this post. Bloglines is working, which lets me read my friends’ blogspot blogs. Google News works, but most links from it don’t. Youtube works: take that, Thailand.

Summer Palace and Badaling

I haven’t been keeping very good track of happenings here, so I’ll dump some to this page before I lose more. Yesterday I took a ridiculously cheap Y1.5 bus to the Summer Palace (the new one, not the burned one) which is more of an outdoor attraction. Fortunately, I’ve found myself in a spell of spectacular, clear, warm weather this week (warmer and clearer by far than Hong Kong on Tuesday-Thursday). The palace grounds are mainly a gigantic lake, surrounded by paths and pavilions and towers and temples and you name it. When I came back, I puttered around Tian’anmen Square for a while, where I saw the big flag, the Great Hall of the People, lots of guards, and acres of concrete. A bit creepy. I didn’t go into the Forbidden City because it was too late when I arrived: more on that in a bit.

Today I went to the closest, super-touristed section of the Great Wall at Badaling. It’s as overtouristed as it’s cracked up to be, but I made it through easily enough. There are two ways to walk on the wall once you get up there (Y12 bus, Y25 student admission), and taking the one less traveled by got me out of the crowds quickly (after I’d gamely suffered through the more popular section for about three hours). It’s… hard to describe. In Nixon’s words, “This is a great wall.” I’m glad I went there, even if Nixon was there first.

It’s funny how tourist price inflation works. In the US, if you’re buying an overpriced hot dog at a game, the seller is going to use his government monopoly (or collusion) and refuse to serve you if you don’t play ball. Here, even at the Great Wall, a little walking away quickly gets that Y10 drink down to a more reasonable Y5 (where I stopped: I’m sure I could have gotten it to 3 or 4, same price as the city, but I’m willing to pay a little for convenience even when the shopkeepers don’t realize they can make me do that).

In a more classically East Asian treatment of the problem, I was presented with an English menu where my beef noodles from lunch were priced at a silly Y48. Comparing characters and prices with the local menu quickly found a local rip-off price of Y15: at least twice what you’d normally pay for that sort of thing in the PRC, but a lot more sane.

Now I’m back in the hostel and caught by Beijing’s early closing times (often an hour earlier in the “winter” which ends on the 15th). Getting back from the Wall around 3 or 3:30, it’s too late to try going to the Forbidden City or Temple of Heaven (my top two remaining sights here) because they’re immense and even if you beat the ticket booth to closing time (3:30 at the Forbidden City in this winter with which I’m discontented), you won’t see nearly enough to justify the trouble of getting there. I did enjoy a few blocks of street food to console myself, and it was a great idea: the supremely important Pineapple Price Index finds a new low in Beijing with a stick of fresh pineapple going for Y1. This beats Thailand’s B10 sticks, though those are much more flavorful. I also had some sort of clamshell meat/spring onion type bagged sandwich thing and some bread that smelled better than it went down. No complaints, though.

I’ll be going to both the Temple of Heaven and the Forbidden City early tomorrow, if all goes well. Traffic is frightening me so I’m going to be concentrating on getting to the airport early on Monday.

Arrived in Beijing

A short departure from NYU (my last post) is Beijing. My flights back over were moderately delayed but otherwise passable, a sure sign that I’ve crossed the Pacific too much (three times, but once might have been enough). I got back late on Monday night, barely made it to campus before the public transport switched over to night mode, and suffered for two days stubbornly trying to get over the lag. HK is really chilly lately… not much warmer than Beijing, so far.

Had a moderate adventure yesterday flying out of Shenzhen. I was stuck in traffic on the HK side for about an hour on the bus to Sheung Shui, but the crossing itself was faster than a normal weekend crossing: probably a combination of overstaffing and crossing on the holiday instead of the day before. The Y20 airport bus (and waiting in line) were worth it… the airport’s really far from Luohu. It’s big, and pretty modern (except for the squat toilets), and the inflated prices for food don’t look too bad if you’re coming from Hong Kong. There’s a cross-airline e-ticket self-check-in (genius!)—this probably works since all the airlines are part of CAAC. Met up with Betsy there, ate, killed time, boarded. I guess we were delayed a while on the tarmac but I was too tired to care that much. The Hainan Airlines (HU) flight was on a pretty new 737-800, and since I got on quickly enough to claim overhead space I was actually fine for legroom in coach. Dinner and two beverages served: I had chicken, it was about what I’d expect from a Chinese airline meal.

Beijing’s airport is relatively free of taxi touts, etc. I caught the Y16 shuttle bus #2 to Xidan Aviation Hall and a cab (with the help of some phoning for directions) for Y16 from there to my hostel, Red Lantern House. I’m in a 4 bed dorm. It’s a little noisy but decent so far, with slightly softer beds than LN (read: hard). They’ve done amazing things with their courtyard/restaurant area: hopefully my pictures come out, but it looks really nice. There are a few other Lingnanians in Beijing right now but I think I’m the only one with fully-working texting, so it looks like I’m (at least mostly) on my own for a few days.

trips to the States

My law school tour is coming up more quickly than I’d like. It’s going to be so… very… c-c-c-cold for me, even if I’m not stuck on the tarmac for hours while de-icing fails (as is the fashion lately, according to the chilly travel news from this weekend).

My other trip back is still far off and should involve nicer weather, but I’ve finally gotten a legible printout of the new itinerary so I’m posting it here (as a way to avoid losing it):

12 Jun CX 830 HKG-JFK 1015-1400
DL 5639 JFK-PIT 1640-1845

Update 27 May:
CX reservations in HK gave me a missed call. After waiting about 30 seconds on hold (gotta love CX) I found out that that second flight is now:
DL 5639 JFK-PIT 1636-1836

Infernal Affairs vs. The Departed

The Departed is the only movie I’ve seen on the big screen while I’ve been in Hong Kong. First-run theaters with v.o. are just too far away. It was pretty good. Last night, though, I finally saw the first installment of the trilogy on which it’s based (Infernal Affairs), a Hong Kong movie.

I think I like Infernal better. It gets rid of all that character-developing fluff, leaving the question of whom to side with more ambiguous: I knew which character I should like from Departed, which really hammered it in, but I’d be less sure if I were watching Infernal first. That’s probably the intended effect. There was also the gee-whiz factor of recognizing places (Tuen Mun gets props in the first lines of the movie)… but I think it’s just a better movie. It’s interesting that the forgone conclusion of a tidy, “happy” ending, supposedly insisted on by American audiences, was in the case of Infernal insisted on by Mainland censors for their version of the film. The American ending is partially redeemed by the fact that Marky Mark in his bunny suit is carrying it out, but I like the Hong Kong ending much better.

Urban Hiking

Today I went through passport control six times without leaving the country. Such is China.

I took the 10:15 ferry from Tuen Mun (!!!) to Zhuhai. This company wants to go to Macau, but Stanley HO doesn’t like the idea of not controlling part of each ferry company landing in Macau (in addition to the ferry terminal and the vast majority of the casinos), so regulatory approval has not been forthcoming. Instead, it makes two round-trips daily between the humble Tuen Mun Ferry Pier (spiffed up with immigration and customs facilities) and Zhuhai’s Jiuzhou harbor. In Zhuhai, I had the option of a free shuttle bus down to Gongbei, at the border with Macau. Too easy, and I wanted to see the one big attraction of Zhuhai: the fisher girl. There’s a legend, go look it up if you’re interested.

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So, I walked around (for about an hour) and up the coast until I found it. Took pictures, walked back… all the way down to Gongbei, maybe another two or three hours there. In Gongbei, I was able to muddle through ordering lunch in Mandarin. Gongbei is the Lo Wu Commercial Center equivalent in Zhuhai, but much more underground and much less seedy. I have friends who would have wept to see so many shoes in one place.

I walked over to Macau (this took maybe 30 or 45 minutes with all the standing in line for passport controls) and… kept walking. I actually walked all the way from the border to the central square, Lgo. do Senado, which is south of center. I’m not sure of the distance, but I walked a lot longer since I wasn’t navigating very well. There I broke down and took a bus down to the tip of Coloane where I stuffed myself at the semi-famous Fernando’s.

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Took the bus back onto the peninsula, walked another hour or so to the ferry terminal… overall, I probably gained weight. Well worth it.

Taipei’s MRT’s little details

A couple nice things that struck me about Taipei’s MRT:

  • Most MRT stations had clean public restrooms, clearly marked, with toilet paper and at least a few western toilets, in their unpaid areas. Excellent. In Hong Kong’s MTR, there are restrooms on the platforms in the paid areas… but they’re a secret! You have to grovel before a platform supervisor (either in person or by a call button requesting “information”) before they’ll unlock those unmarked doors for your newfound urgent calling.
  • People actually wait for alighting passengers before boarding.
  • The EasyCard is fully-refundable, including deposit, after just five uses. It’ll take you three months before you can get the full value of an Octopus back. The Octopus is still better and I will still miss it terribly when I leave, though: I didn’t see any non-transit EasyCard uses in Taipei. There was some kind of contactless credit card reader from Visa branded “Wave,” though.