Hong Kong

Aberdeen harbor sampan

We were in Hong Kong Oct 21-24 and again, just overnight, on Oct 30-31 for the flight home. While there, we toured the city on foot and by bus, visiting a temple, Victoria Peak, Aberdeen harbor, the Temple Street night market, and bid a tearful farewell to our tour group and guide.

Two systems. The first thing you notice when traveling from the rest of China to Hong Kong is that you cross a border. Hong Kong is part of China, but has retained most of its systems, including immigration, customs, and currency. The electrical plugs change to UK-style. Google can be reached. In addition to those differences, we'd moved into the Cantonese belt in China, where the names are different and strangely more familiar to my eyes, as most Chinese Americans came from southern, coastal China.

On our own. We had more time on our own in Hong Kong. And it seemed we were finally ready, too. It helps that there is more Pinyin signage and it also helped that the subway was excellent. We visited the fabulous Hong Kong Museum of History and wandered into restaurant nearby for a light lunch. It was a little awkward, as we were the only tourists in there and there was no English anywhere. We did have a few tasty dishes, but I'm sure they looked like weird selections to the completely-polite and solicitous waitstaff.

More to see. I can see returning to Hong Kong. It's modern, dynamic, and diverse. While I was ready to return home on our brief return to the city from Phnom Penh, I found myself wishing for a few more days, or a quick dash to something nearby. We'll have to figure out an excuse for another visit.

Flickr has an album of photos.

The Yangtze

This post covers Oct 17-21, when we flew to Chongqing, sailed on the Long River, bused to Wuhan, and flew from there to Hong Kong. Along the way, we cruised through three gorges, had a home visit with a family that had been relocated from the flooded river bottom, and toured the Three Gorges Dam.

The River. The river, which has several names along its length (Yangtze is the name for the last segment, at the coast, used in the title for its familiarity), was a fascinating few days. Everywhere we were on it was part of the Three Gorges Dam reservoir. The dam flooded many towns and displaced over a million people. New towns were built to house them, not all of them high rises. Our home visit was with a relocated farmer and was in a two story building with spacious rooms. I loved the gorges and the history along the way. And the Goddess Stream trip was an unexpected delight.

The countryside. The country along the river side was very green and, for a good part of it, very rugged. We also got a good look at varied country on the four hour bus trip from just upriver of Yichang to Wuhan. This included forested hills, lots of agricultural land, and some broad river valleys.

Apartment layout

The developers. Upon arrival in Wuhan, our tour guide rerouted the bus into a street under all sorts of development -- subway station, road resurfacing, and apartment development. It was the apartments that she was interested in. We'd been talking about housing for the entire trip -- how much has gone up, how expensive it is, and how a new space comes with nothing but roof, walls, and windows. So, we all trouped into the sales office for a new apartment complex (she'd spotted it from the highway). They were very nice to give us a tour and talk to us about their plans, which included a school next door.

While we were in there, a woman was signing an agreement to purchase an apartment for her fourteen year old son, because that's what's done. Now, this young man is in better shape to get married. The apartment was expensive for a teenager, but it was expected to be more expensive later, so the argument is to buy early. We learned this because our tour guide, in her inimitable way, just asked. The mother agreed that house buying is a bubble, but with prices always going up, it was hard to hold off. And, besides, with prices always going up, it's a good investment! It was a very interesting, unplanned, "learning discovery" experience.

Flickr has an album of photos.

Lhasa

I was happy to have been able to visit Lhasa Oct. 14-17, as part of our trip to China. It's not always possible, but our timing was excellent. The start of the Nineteenth Party Congress meant that we had to leave, but it didn't affect our itinerary. Other groups there did have a shortened visit. Our plane flying in was more than half empty and the flight out was completely full. We visited the Potala Palace, had a home visit, and toured the Johkang Temple, the Sera Monastery, and the Papungka Monastery.

The terrain. Lhasa is situated in a broad valley at just under 12,000', surrounded by dry, brown hills rising to over 16,000'. The valley is home to the wide and braided Lhasa River that flows east and then south to join the Brahmaputra River, which flows to the Bay of Bengal. The city sprawls across the flat valley bottom, not quite filling it. In contrast to the enormous and concentrated cities we'd already visited, this city seems small, almost intimate. It was very sunny and the air was dry, so that it was warm in the day, even though we were at elevation.

The people. Tibetans look and dress a little differently from Chinese. I was struck by a few instances of dress and hair style that reminded me of pictures of people who live in the Andes. I have no theory about that. As in China proper, people were friendly and interested to see us tourists.

Security. We were reminded of the sensitive nature of Chinese possession of Tibet before the visit, which was made only more sensitive by the approaching Party Congress. The photos don't show this, but the plaza of the Johkang Temple was patrolled by police, soldiers, and fire fighters in flak jackets, and all of the market streets surrounding it had police checkpoints controlling access. 

The plaza below Potala Palace, with the "Tibet Peaceful Liberation Monument," has all sorts of propaganda images on walls and fences, highlighting the beauties and benefits of the Chinese nation. They clearly were political, and perhaps not particularly clever, since none of the people depicted looked like Tibetans.

Security was tighter at this airport than any others on the trip, with an explosive swab at the door to the departures hall. A squad of soldiers marched through as we were waiting to check our bags.

Flickr has an album of photos.

Chengdu

Our Oct 12-14 visit to Chengdu gave us a visit to People's Park, a metro ride, an opera demonstration/performance, a visit to the Chengdu Panda Base Breeding Center, as well as a chance to wander in the hotel's neighborhood and to get some rest.

Pandas. The core of our time in Chengdu was the pandas. The Chengdu Panda Base Breeding Center is a zoo, breeding center, scientific facility, educational exhibit, and tourist attraction. In its spacious and attractive grounds, it houses scores of giant pandas and a number of red pandas. We saw adult pandas eating and -- literally -- hanging out in trees, slightly more active juvenile pandas, and baby pandas, barely able to lift their heads from the ground. All of them were adorable.

One of the adults was interested in something other than eating pre-cut bamboo sticks. It stalked into the shrubs in its enclosure, broke off a six foot branch, and dragged it to the back of its space to push around and chew on. It displayed remarkable strength and agility in doing so.

Here, as with the terracotta soldiers, I was impressed by the commitment to the pandas and their conservation. When they started this work, almost nothing was known about how pandas reproduced. With the increase of knowledge, they are able to return some pandas to the wild, in growing reserves in the mountains.

Three Kingdoms. One of my preparations for this trip was to listen to a podcast recap of a 14th century historical novel called "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms." It recounts the history, somewhat novelized, of the Three Kingdoms period, which took place in the 60-100 years before 280 AD. The podcast had about 100 episodes by the time we left for China and I caught up by listening to five, twenty-five minute episodes a week. I highly recommend The Romance of the Three Kingdoms Podcast.

Chengdu was the capital of the main focus of the novel, the Kingdom of Shu. I was thrilled to see statues, in our hotel's lobby, of the four heroes of Shu: Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei. It was a cool, accidental connection with actual history and a story that I've thoroughly enjoyed hearing.

Flickr has an album of photos.