Hongkong

Ben at the Hong Kong harbor, day and night.
The fantastic "mansion" holding my equally magnifacent hostel!
The Junk Boat sailing through the harbor(now only for tourists, but still cool.)
A Bathing Ape (BAPE) Hong Kong store.... I was very surprised to stumble upon it!
Bank of China building at night, my favorite building in HK.
Looking down on Central Hong Kong from atop the mountain... after taking the tram up the hill!

Dehang, China. Home of the Miao people.

Dehang Miao's tiny table and chairs!

Taohua fish from the local river. We ate the fish whole.

View from the restaurant.

 

 

Shanghai

We went for dinner with my friend Sisi and her boyfriend in Shanghai one night.

Then is Ben's favorite television tower: Oriental Pearl.

Ben finally found some american candy in China--Hershey's!

And He was very exicted taking picture with a giant pingpang paddle.

I was hugging a huge stuffed animal--Expo sign.

 

Huangshan

It was so foggy on the cold day, we can barely see the way. Everyone would get so exited when the fog went away for a minute!

Huangshan

The first day was so cold! We bought gloves, underpaints and krampons before we climb Huangshan. All the trees had icicle on the leaves...
But the next day all the ice melted and was so hot!

Huangshan!

Viewing Lotus Montain from another top.

Different day with or without fog~

Beijing

Trying to put old pictures up...

Beijing 2

Cities in China are always too crowded. Beijing is the only city that I always like.

It is so big that I always wish I knew more about it. Beijing has everything, if I can just find it.

Beijing is a place that combines rich and poor. I dont believe there are still that many really poor people who live in Beijing, but the Hutong are so dark and small that they are the best view of original old Beijing.

It's like a maze once you step into the narrow stone walkways, small and short rooms in a row,, post officers ride bikes in there to delieve letters. 

Mostly old people live there. I don't believe old people want to change their way of life. They appreciate the things they are use to like spending time with neighbours.

It is the same for my grandparents. They know the neighbourhood. Their friends and relatives all know where they live, so it's much easier to visit each other. Sometimes they just want to be with someone they know. They feel it is a waste to move out.

Paivi told me changes are always good, or at least there is a reason for it.

Things are changing here.

I don't know if the Hutong will still be there after this last old generation passes. 

Maybe there will be another museum to memorialize the Hutong, like with other lost cultures.

Now the goverment is trying to preserve some of the Hutong. They paint the outer walls, redo the tiles, making it nicer and newer looking. In the bigger Hutong homes where young people live they hang airconditioners, and change the old wooden doors to safety aluminium doors. 

I dont feel the Hutong are the same, but maybe that's the way they adapt to a new century.

Beijing has lots of conflictions. Things are so fancy and expensive, and there are things that are  so cheap and fake.

I always try to understand how a city can adapt to all the needs of its citizens.

Beijing is a dream place for most Chinese. I hope the hamorny can last.

Shanghai and the F1, part 2...

I would've done more research to learn anything about formula 1 racing prior to the race, but I was a bit worried about getting too in to the whole idea of going, and then being unable to get a ticket. So i figured i'd just go and see what would happen. After a semi restless night's sleep, we awoke early and hopped on a subway to the football(soccer) stadium, where we were promptly greeted by a gang of ticket scalpers doing their best to gain our business. At that point, we decided there was no turning back and hopped on the 50yuan roundtrip bus to the race course, which was about 50 minutes from the football stadium(near downtown.) We took the bus out there, and at that point it seemed clear that we had no choice but to go. Forget saving money, this was a once in a lifetime(hopefully not anymore) event, and we had to take advantage of our luck of being in the right place at the right time. Just to make it clear, we weren't even planning on coming to Shanghai, but finding the train to Wuyuan was basically impossible, we wen't straight to Huangshan instead(more on that to come.) Because of the skipping of the small village of Wuyuan, we had a few extra days, and being only a few hours via bus(we opted for a 12 hour and cheaper sleeper train) from Shanghai, we figured we'd come here.  So it was basically luck, being at the right place, at the right time. These are the moments you have to take advantage of when your travelling... The one in a million chance, the things you'd never thought you would see, never dreamed of, but that suddenly become the chance of a lifetime. The momentary decisions that become stories to tell for the rest of your life! We started bargaining(once again, "we" meaning Jin) and soon found ourselves shrugging off the cheap seats, standing room only, which were around 70US, and finding our way into some choice bleacher seats, at around 120 a seat..... still the cheapest of the seated seats. other tickets started at around 190US each, going up to well over 500. continuing to bargain, we eventually got a 2 for 1 deal and ended up sitting on the first curve, with a great view of the opening straightaway, first curve and some other fun curves a bit farther down the track... SICK!!!! Our tickets were amazingly not fake, and we ended up inside the stadium around noon, with the race starting at 3.... more to come...

A Day at the Races! Formula 1 2010 Chinese Grand Prix

Sunday in Shanghai!
What a rainy day! I will start off with saturday....We got back to our hostel saturday afternoon and tried to make friends with our hostel roomate. He spoke very little english, so when I say "we" tried to make friends with him, i basically mean Jin. He told us he was from a few hours from Shanghai, and had come to town for the weekend to watch the Formula 1 race, and that he had just come back from qualifying. The lonely planet guide says the race is in September, so I was a bit confused, thinking he meant some lesser race or something not that special. after grilling him for a while via Jin, i discovered that Shumacher, and whomever else is famous was racing, and that the race had been moved just this year to april! Getting more and more excited, i took to the internet to find out some more specifics, eventually learning that this in fact was a legit F1 race of worldwide consequence and that it def was not to be missed!!!!!!

More to come..........