China

March 20 – April 3, 2009 China
Motoring between Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula, we felt as if we had journeyed into the future. Huge skyscrapers loomed everywhere. We should have seen superman swooping down! Only some little shacks clinging to the shore looked familiar. Bustling construction sites are everywhere. At night, Les stood amazed on Matthew’s deck, watching colored lasers and moving lights put on a spectacular show. This is Hong Kong! (Photo taken by Matthew from the Peak.)
Our first adventure as a family was to journey to the Sham Shui Po Market on the Kowloon Peninsula, the side where our ship was docked. Our inter-port student had told us that this was where the locals went to shop. We had a few false starts, going into subways that turned out to be under road walkways, but we finally found the underground metro. (Barrett & Wendy are by the ticket vending.) In Sham Shui Po we walked thru the market and visited the Golden Computer Store where Wendy replaced her broken camera. We ate dim sum in a tiny restaurant communicating by pointing at pictures, and bought roasted sweet potatoes and chestnuts from a vendor on the street.
That first night, Matthew & Wendy were part of a group attending a formal reception and dinner on board. Matthew’s MICE group presented a concert (pictured). We spent the evening with Barrett and watched the city lights and boats in the harbor area.
Les and I rode over to Hong Kong Island on the Star Ferry system the next day. The Star ferries (pictured) are from the British days and have quite a history. We walked around a bit, went to the post office, and had a bite of lunch. That afternoon I ventured into the upscale shopping center attached to our ship’s gangway. I bought a pair of shoes at Anchorage prices. Then we left for the airport and Guilin.
Guilin is in the tropical deciduous forest zone along the Li and Peach Blossom Rivers. It is a city of 700,000 that swells to 5 million in the larger area and with visitors. We arrived at night and immediately saw that they love colored lights: multicolored palm trees decorated the airport landscape and a bridge beside our hotel was lit with blue lights. In contrast, the Chinese people dress in dark colors, except when it rains. The rain brought out bright umbrellas and combined poncho/motorcycle covers that serve both the rider and machine.
Our guide was a young woman whose work name is Cherry, and she was enthusiastic and funny. Our group included 14 adults and 6 students. The main attraction in Guilin is the karst topography. We took a four-hour cruise down the shallow Li River to enjoy these amazing “gumdrop” shaped karst towers. It was misty but lovely. Little boats came alongside to barter or sell fresh food. Our lunch was cooked on the stern deck, and I watched the boat in front of us as they prepared the food. There must have been two dozen boats going down the river in a line. We walked around the village of Yangshuo along the river before climbing on an electric golf car to our bus and back to Guilin.
That night all the students, Les & I, and one other went for a massage. We had a one-hour foot massage, and the others had a full 1½ hour massage, but we were all together in the room and had quite a hilarious time. The workers were able to pinpoint problems with our bodies from working on our feet. (Cherry stayed to interpret and took the photo.)
We were kept busy for the next two days having a tai chi lesson, watching Chinese painting, visiting a tea plantation (see Judy in hat) including a Chinese tea ceremony (“tap two fingers if married three times on the table to say thank you for tea”), riding up a lift to the top of a mountain wearing rented Mao coats (it was cold), and visiting a 1500 year old banyan tree where we had our picture made with cormorants. We went to a pearl outlet and a silk factory where we purchased a silk comforter made from the chrysalis of twin silkworms. The twins do not produce a single unbroken strand of silk, so their silk is used for quilts. At the Traditional Chinese Research Center for Medicine, we had momortica tea and watched while student Bobby had his back cupped. (He threw up.) We went to the Reed Flute Cave. Deep within it we were treated to a light and bubble show – they do like their colored lights!
Les & I took an early morning walk in the rain by the Li River. We watched people swimming in the river, doing tai chi under the bridge, fishing in suits before work, and even ballroom dancing. On our drives we saw the rice paddies and neat little carefully tended garden patches. We saw people preparing their ancestors’ tombs for the Weeping Tombs Festival on April 5.
We flew to Shanghai and had two planned activities for my classes. Sunrise tai chi was held in a concrete park. We tried to follow the teacher’s moves as she stood under a huge statue of Mao in her red jacket. In the same park were numerous groups and individuals exercising. A group of older ladies were doing tai chi with colorful fans.
Then we explored two food markets and ate lunch at an expensive restaurant in one of the Shanghai skyscrapers. The markets have an abundance of green vegetables, fruits, chicken parts (“eat feet with beer”), pork, noodles, fresh water fish and bivalves. There are interesting items like ginko seeds, jellyfish used in soups, ching twan (bright green dumplings for the Tombs Festival), assorted mushrooms which are not expensive here, and eel-like fish that start their lives as males and then become females. Eggs are not simply brown or white. Chinese eat chicken, dove, duck, quail, and goose eggs. They have salted eggs that look as if they have been buried in dirt, but it must be dark impure salt. Blue-green eggs are fermented and are solidified and black inside.
We left China in the night, going through Shanghai down the long Huangpu River and out into the East China Sea. Our next stop is Kobe, Japan where we will be met by our friend Isao’s daughter, Kiriko, and travel with her to their home. Then I will meet Setsuko, my pen pal of fifty years!