Ni Hao, China!

Our China visit consisted of 2 stops in Hong Kong and Shanghai. I was actually just in Hong Kong this past May when I went with BU to China for 3 weeks. However, I still had a spectacular time and much different experience. The BU trip did not go to Shanghai so that was a new place for me. China has a very deep culture because it has been around for thousands of years. It’s so interesting to compare China and the U.S. on a cultural level… the U.S.’s culture reaches a few hundred years while China’s wanders back much further. I enjoyed being surrounded by this culture again that I had grown to love only a few months ago.

HONG KONG:
Hong Kong is much different from the rest of China, especially rural China. It was colonized by the British and only handed back over to China about 10 years ago. Therefore a strong British influence is still observed today. For example, they drive on the left side while the rest of China drives on the right side… they also drive much more quietly than the rest of China! The geology of Hong Kong is sooo beautiful… It consists of several different mountainous islands. The main Hong Kong Island has many tall skyscrapers built closely with fancy landscaping and very clean roads and grounds. Kowloon Island is across from the main island. It is filled with many buildings and shops but not quite as tall as the main island. Lantau Island is a bit further away and is focused more on natural landscaping than the others.

Sailing into Hong Kong was soooo beautiful! I woke up extra early to watch the sunrise as we sailed between many mountainous islands. It was neat to arrive by ship this time around rather than plane! About 2 hours later we docked at Kowloon Island with a wide view of the main island—Wow, it was astonishing!

As soon as the ship was cleared, my friends and I took off. We took the infamous Star Ferry across to the main island then took a 30-min ferry over to Lantau Island. We pulled right into the dock that I had been on so many times in May! In fact, I could see across the bay where we had stayed at a Methodist Church Camp on the side of the hill along the beach! It brought back many good memories with my BU crew ☺. We then grabbed a quick bite to eat and caught a bus to take us to the other side of the island. The drive was just beautiful showing off the white beaches along the shore. After about 45 min we arrived at our destination… The Big Buddha! (This, in fact, is its title lol). It is the world’s largest sitting bronze Buddha at about 45 meters high. He sits with one arm up in the “Native American ‘how’” position. On the sides of him sit 6 smaller statues of ladies kneeling and offering gifts to him. It is a very impressive statue, especially because of its position at the top of a mountain surrounded by distant waters. I took a jumping picture with it (you know how those are popular nowadays) and it looks like I’m high-fiving Buddha’s raised arm! Haha! Then we took the bus and ferry back to arrive back on the main island.

We walked along the skywalk and then took the 100 yr old tram up the side of a mountain to arrive at Victoria’s Peak, which overlooks the city and waters of the Hong Kong islands. At the top is a mall with shops and restaurant that overlook this beautiful and famous view. At this point we ran into a SASer with the 2 new Japanese interport students who then hung out with us for a while. I got to talking with the students and it turns out that one of them had spent time in the U.S. I asked where and she said Ohio! I asked where in Ohio and she said ST. MARYS! Whoa, what a small world that I would meet a Japanese girl in Hong Kong, China who had spent time in a city 10 minutes from my hometown in the U.S.!

We took the ferry back across to Kowloon Island where we had a beautiful view of the Hong Kong Light Show. This show consists of the many buildings that put colored lights up in patterns to music and lasers making designs in the sky. It was very impressive! We found a late dinner at a local Chinese place and ate authentic food. This was good and bad depending on who you ask and what they ate lol. But it was surely very different from Americanized Chinese food! That concludes our first day in Hong Kong. Even though I’d been there before, I still thoroughly enjoyed it as I hadn’t seen the Big Buddha and I was traveling more independently than the last time. It was neat to go to a foreign country where I’d been before and compare my traveling maturity since then.

The second day was another fun and ultra-cheap day! 4/5 of the SASers left on trips that explored parts of China that would then meet up with the ship in Shanghai. However, my friend Natalie and I decided to stay on the ship in between ports. I decided this since I’d just been to China 5 months ago and could save a few extra dollars this way. It proved to pay off, which I will explain when I get there! That morning I went and found internet in a mall so I could upload pictures to my blog from South Africa to Vietnam. I hope you all enjoyed them!

Nat and I then headed out for our 2nd and last day in Hong Kong. We took a ferry over to the main island and found the Hong Kong Botanical and Zoological Gardens (free of charge!). It was sooo beautiful! It sat in the center of the city and is kept up very well. There were many different types of trees, plants, and flowers. They also had many types of birds and monkeys! We really enjoyed watching the monkeys jump around their cages! So many of their animals come from all over the world… including a very special animal from the U.S…. a Procyon lotor… aka a RACCOON! Can you believe that? They have raccoons in a zoo on the other side of the world! Ha! It sure gave me a good laugh. There were also Japanese children on a field trip that kept yelling “HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!” to the turtles. If anyone ever goes to Hong Kong, I’d highly recommend this beautiful zoo and garden!

Next came our adventure I like to call Sky-Scraper Upping! We wanted to go to the top in the tallest skyscrapers. When we would walk into the buildings, security officers would be scattered throughout to guide people like us. They would point up and say in their cool accents, “Up?” haha. They would check our bags, document our passports, and hand us visitor lanyards that we swiped on our way up. Even the elevators were made for tourists, as there were only 2 buttons: one for the bottom floor and one for the top floor! We succeeded in “upping” in 2 of the tallest and most unique buildings in Hong Kong: The Bank of China and the International Finance Company (IFC). The IFC is the actual building they used to tape one of the Batman movies! The views on top were soooo beautiful… looking out over the water onto Kowloon Island while also seeing the rest of Hong Kong Island.

The last couple hours were spent just walking around Kowloon Island at night. We stumbled across a night market, Chinese models in a photoshoot, and ended in a fun pouring down rain. We went out on the 8th deck as the ship pulled away from the islands. It may have been wet, but it was still very pretty watching the city lights layered on the mountainous islands.

You might find this interesting… before we pulled away we had a lifeboat drill with all 95 of us on the ship. We have these periodically where we practice lining up for the lifeboats in our hott life-jackets as if in an emergency (Titanic, anyone?!?!). Well why would we need to do a drill with only 95 people? Supposedly they were checking each cabin to make sure there were no stowaways!

That night I sat in my porthole window and read from the Bible… the scripture came sooo alive to me. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians how a gift had been given to him and now he had to share that gift with others. And it so many times mentioned “the world.” Hearing “the world” has such different meaning for me now that I’ve traveled it and seen it… I feel like SAS has been a gift that God laid on my heart to partake in… and now it’s my turn to use God’s gift for others’ benefit. I’m not exactly sure what this consists of yet, but I just need to continue to follow God’s leading through the rest of my SAS journey and listen for what it may be.

2 DAYS SAIL:
95 people compared to 650 is quite a change! But, oh, was it nice! There were quite a few awesome happenings:
• Quiet/Alone time! It’s nearly impossible to find quiet or alone time on the ship normally… so this was the time to take it in!
• Piano-playing! There are 2 pianos on board, both of which are in VERY public places constantly filled with people. Playing piano is personal to me, not usually for show, so I hadn’t played yet on the ship. So I sat down at that piano 2 nights and played for the first time in 3 months for 2 hours! Oh, it was sooo wonderful!
• Fancy dinners! We can buy these for $25 anytime, but since we were such a small group, they gave them to us for free (even with different food options) 2 nights! And mmm mmm it was GOOD!
• Free massage! The Wellness Center had us pop balloons for a free something. Originally I won a nail re-polish but I traded it for a free 15-min foot massage! Yup, a FOOT massage… here I go changing again! And it felt sooo good!
• Karaoke party! We had this dancing party in the Faculty/Staff Lounge which students are not allowed in! It is located in the prime spot… the front of 7th deck with the most beautiful view of the ocean on the entire ship. And there we were just singing and dancing around in it!
There was only one negative to these 2 days… the weather! The area between China and Taiwan is known as the Bloody Passage for a reason! The ocean was REALLY rocking, from bow to aft. This creates lots of loud noises and lots of random shaking and jolting. So much for catching up on lost sleep! But nonetheless, these 2 days were quite enjoyable… especially since it was my first 2 days in a row having nothing! It was like a weekend!

SHANGHAI:
We pulled into a wide Chinese river early Sunday morning and after about 2 hours arrived in Shanghai. We, again like Hong Kong, had such a beautiful view of the city. On one side of the river sat a nice park with buildings and on the other side sat high skyscrapers, including the 2nd tallest building in the world. It took awhile for the 95 of us to be cleared, surprisingly, but once we were cleared we were off the ship! Oh, the weather was initially sooo wonderful! It was like Fall weather in our jeans and sweatshirts! This was a nice change from the 90 degree weather we’d been having in about every port! However, the weather kept getting colder and colder the longer we spent in Shanghai, and I definitely did not bring winter clothes!

Nat and I walked across a couple of bridges and many streets to get to the main part of the city. We viewed an area called “The Bund” which is basically old city buildings lining the river that cuts through Shanghai. There’s a lot of construction right now, but when it is finished there will be a nice wide concrete path right along the river and the Bund. Next we went to the Yu Garden, which is a 5-acre park in the middle of the city. It was very pretty. Next to it was a 5-story market, wow! We whisked through it in search of some birthday gifts for our friend, Aleks. We were pretty stoked when we found a 2-Yuan store (everything was about 25 cents!). Next we walked through the Old City filled with traditional landscaping and buildings and many shops. We had fun looking through the stores and markets. We came out of a grocery-type store and at the same time saw a big red flashing sign that read “DQ DAIRY QUEEN.” We both let out a HUGE DEEP GASP, shockingly looked at each other, and raced over. Haha. We ate it on the 2nd story and overlooked the people walking through the Old City streets. Oh, how wonderful! A great site and SUCH a great taste, even in cold weather! We finished our blizzards, looked around a bit more, and then started the journey back to the ship. We saw some tunnels on the map that go under the river to the other part of the city and decided to check them out. The first one we searched and searched for but never found (maybe that was because of all the construction…). The second one was specifically for sightseeing tourists and was made up similarly to Disneyland! We then headed back to the ship and waited for the rest of our friends to get back from their trips. As I mentioned earlier, we were shopping for Aleks’s birthday because it was her birthday the next day. So that night we went out and celebrated for her. The joke of the night was that it was no big deal… we were just celebrating her birthday in CHINA. Lol.

The next day we let up to Aleks what she wanted to do since it was her birthday. Funny enough, she wanted to check out the Yu Garden and Old City, just as Nat and I had done the day before! Haha. We were actually fine with it because there aren’t a ton of “must-sees” in Shanghai. Our other options would’ve been going to the zoo (which we can do in the states), view a Buddhist temple (which I’ve seen many of in China), or go up a skyscraper (which costs about $15 USD each). So this option was by far still a good deal. We walked over the 2 bridges, down the Bund, through the Yu Garden, around the 5-story markets, and through the Old City. We ate lunch at a very interesting local stop. It was almost like a food court, but you take a try and walk through each place taking whatever you’d like. We all shared so we could try a variety of things (of which we really didn’t know what they were when grabbing them). They were… interesting, to say the least. Lol. One thing I’ve learned about real Chinese food is they like to stuff things with more things… it makes it an interesting experience, that’s for sure! We then continued our route from the day before… and got some more DQ! Haha. You gotta stock up on it when you can, geesh! We finished walking around the Old City and decided to head back to the ship. It had been raining ALL day, was windy, and was VERY cold from this weather combination. By the time we got back we were completely soaked and could barely move our cold legs. It felt really good to warm up! And what a reminder that at least we have a place to go where we can dry off and warm up.

We then found out that the ship’s disembarkation had been delayed because of big swallows in the ocean. So now we didn’t have to be back on the ship til 11:00am on Tuesday and the ship would depart at 2:00pm! Awesome! So we got more time in Shanghai!

We got up early the last morning to finish exploring Shanghai. We first scouted out some “Skyscraper Uppings” but didn’t succeed as easily as Hong Kong. We were going to “up” the big ones across the river, but it was so overcast that the tops were in the clouds and therefore closed! Instead we went into some shorter local places but they didn’t allow “upping” for fun. We then went to the popular Nanjing Road and walked along it for a few hours. It was filled with little and big shops, coffee shops, malls, restaurants, and anything else you can imagine. The majority of it was blocked off from vehicles and had a little sightseeing train running through. We took a break from the cold and got some incredibly rich hot chocolate. We also got to try out a new item: a tennis ball that always comes back to you! It is connected to an elastic string on a weight and you hit it over and over. It was really cool! We also saw people couple dancing, which is popular in China in public spaces, and stopped to watch them. As we stood there taking pictures a man came up to me and asked me to dance. How did he know I was the one in the group that liked to dance?! Of course I joined him and tried picking up on the polka-waltz-twirling moves. Oh, no matter how goofy and uncoordinated I looked, it was so much fun! Too soon it was time to head back to the ship and board for disembarkation. I sat on the 5th deck studying and watching as we sailed down the river away from China.

We have 2 ½ days between China and Japan. That first night was VERY ROUGH--- literally. The waves and swallows were HUGE. This makes it difficult to do anything- sleep, shower, change clothes, eat, study… ugh, it’s just not fun at all! But luckily it has now calmed down a lot and is very livable. We arrive in Japan tomorrow already! I can’t believe it’s already here and is our last “foreign” country. We still have Hawaii, but it’s technically part of the U.S. even though its culture is much different. My friends and I are traveling independently in Japan, so I’m sure I’ll have plenty of good stories for you!

I hope you’re doing well and staying WARM!
My blessings to you.