Here are a few random things I have noticed about HK:

-This ain’t China. It seems odd to say, but the people seem very different here. This place seems much more like a less culturally diverse New York / London hybrid. And whenever mainland China is mentioned, I swear I detect mild hostility or open disgust from the locals.

-Along with the above, the locals don’t seem to be subject to any censorship. At least not on the TV or Internet.

-Hong Kong has a lot of interesting architecture and business that happens in-between spaces, especially going up hills and stairs.

-Like something out of Blade Runner, the signage is crazy and everywhere, but kinda cool.

-I have never seen a city where more people have their shirts off. (West Hollywood during pride festival notwithstanding) These people are mostly (by no means all) manual laborers, but it is interesting nonetheless how culturally more acceptable it is here to have one’s shirt off.

-On my walk this morning I noticed an extraordinary amount of people working out in various ways. Lots of Tai chi, running, walking, swimming, yoga and even outdoor weight training. And all ages were participating. This seems like a culture that values physical health. I also noticed a ton of sports clubs and health facilities.

-So many malls, so little time.

-They have these wacky wide taxis here that they claim hold five. But should there be three or four in the back? We actually took one of these back to our hotel last night. (all six of us. It was a squeeze.)

-According to my internet and last night’s reconnaissance, HK is a city that only parties on weekends.

Tempers seem to be running a bit short in our group, so I decided to take a mental health day and walk around by myself. Hong Kong is a very shiny city. Everything sparkles and even where it doesn’t there are interesting spaces. I bought a one day metro pass and have been exploring. The metro (called the MTR) is amazingly efficient and clean and easy to use. I will try to post some pics later today.

We finally arrived in HK today and are staying at the YMCA which has AMAZING views over the water to Central HK. We walked around a bit today and then went up to the peak for an incredible view over the city. So far, I like Hong Kong a lot.

It happens at least once in every country. I got scammed. This one was pretty slick. As we arrived at the train station in Beijing, there was a commotion going on as a guy was screaming at the woman at the help desk counter. I was standing nearby when a Chinese man, in perfect English, asks me if I need any help finding my train as he grabs my ticket out of my hand. I said, “No thanks, I know where we are going.” and he handed my ticket back to me and went on his way. That is to say, I THOUGHT he had handed my ticket back to me. In fact, he handed me a ticket on the same train, for the same date, but in seated class (about half the price of my ticket). Fortunately, the people on the train accepted my story and didn’t make me pay for my seat a second time (although they started out asking me to) and so I got to ride with our group in style. The guy must’ve sold the ticket to get the difference in price and made off with the money (which wasn’t all that much by the way, perhaps $60). Now I understand the reason for putting names on tickets.

pretty damn similar, huh?

Bye, Beijing. We are headed via 24 hour train to Hong Kong. On our last train from Xian, we were assigned 2nd class seats when we had paid for 1st. What this meant was that we were in 4 person berths instead of 2 person berths, so I got to share with 2 middle aged women from Beijing whose friend (we’ll call her Sylvia) from down the hall spent much of the evening with us.  It appears that Sylvia is going through some sort of domestic squabble with her husband. She was tearful and angry, sharing loud and animated complaining to her friends (and me by sad association). I don’t speak Mandarin, but I feel almost certain I heard the words for “cheating bastard”.

As interesting as all of this was, I wouldn’t mind a little high class comfort for this longer train journey to Hong Kong. See you soon.

My stepdad was obsessed with the wall of Xian. He was in a hurry to climb to the top at all costs. So much so that he forced the bunch of us to take a rickety metal ladder up to the top of the wall (when there were plenty of actual stairs to climb).

In a nutshell, we wandered around the delightful Big Wild Goose Pagota and gardens, went to see the Terra-Cotta Warriors Museum, were forced to visit some tourist shops, took note of the horrible air-quality, had dinner at the fantastic Pavilion restaurant, and then went to a funny gay bar called “21”. Click on the photo to see the days events with captions.

The high altitude train was for the most part not bad. A little cramped (and we were in the deluxe seats), but very new and mostly pleasant. We did feel a little short of breath when reaching 16000 ft, so we plugged in our oxygen tubes and were breathing a bit easier until we reached the lower altitudes.

We are now in Xian, where today we will go to see a bit of the city and the terra cotta warriors. I walked around near our hotel this morning and my first impression is that the city is spookily spotless. There isn’t a stray paper or morsel of anyting anywhere.