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Published: August 22nd 2005
It's been almost 2 weeks since we updated this blog. Needless to say, we've been busy! My old friend Kevin Beveridge met us at the Hong Kong airport and took us to his place. The next day he took a day off work and toured us around, showing us how to navigate Hong Kong by train, subway, ferry and taxi. Kevin and Patty and their two children live in the New Territories as they are called, basically suburban Hong Kong, so it means a minimum of a taxi and train ride to get anywhere. He took us to the Kowloon walled city which until a few decades ago was a lawless little section of the city that non-Chinese did not dare enter. It was razed, other than the wall around it, and made into a large city park full of Chinese gardens. We sat in a little tea house and had tea. They had a wide selection so we all tried something different; four of us had hot tea while Renee had iced green tea.
The next day we explored two outstanding museums. The first was a museum of the history of the Hong Kong area that gave us all a
good understanding of the place we would be exploring in the next few days. After lunch we went across the square to the Museum of Science where the kids had a great time with lots of hands on exhibits.
It was very humid and hot, the kind of day when you sweat just standing outside. We Canadians felt like we were melting. The first week the highs were in the low 30s and it rained very little. The second week it rained every day in Hong Kong, and the highs were still in the low 30s. Luckily we spent 4 of those days in Beijing, where it was hot but not humid and did not rain. The other days this week we basically experienced tropical rainforest weather. But you get the umbrellas out and you enjoy the fact that it's not quite so uncomfortably hot while it's raining.
Last Thursday we spent the morning on borrowed bicycles, touring the area with a friend of Kevin and Patty, whom we had met on the Tuesday. This woman's three year old daughter died in the tsunami in December. Yes you read that correctly. The family was on vacation in Thailand.
Unimaginable tragedy, yet somehow this woman seemed to be coping. Underlined again for us just how incredibly lucky we are. In the afternoon we took the "tram" up the "peak". That is we took the world's steepest inclined funicular up the cliff to Victoria Peak. Its greatest incline is 27 degrees which may not seem like much until you remember that no regular traintracks have a grade of greater than 2 degrees. It was fun but it was too cloudy and rainy to enable much of a view. We had designs to hike up to the summit but we were pre-empted by the rain. We took the ferry across from the mainland to get to Hong Kong Island. When I say the mainland, this is not to be confused with mainland China. The territory of Hong Kong consists of Hong Kong Island and part of the mainland (Kowloon and the New Territories), as well as over 200 other islands, mostly uninhabited rocks. So the ferry just connects one part of Hong Kong with another, basically. The territory was a British colony from 1840 until 1997, and since then has been a special administration district of China. Anyway, after coming back
down from the peak we explored Hong Kong Park with its conservatories, aviaries and surprisingly good tea museum. The history of tea as well as many artistic and imaginative teapots, formed the bulk of it.
On Friday we took a hydrofoil ferry to Macao. Now Macao was a Portugese territory until repatriation in 1999 and it had been a territory for more than 3 times as long as Hong Kong was - almost 500 years. Again it was very hot and humid, but after hiking through the old part of town with its Portugese colonial architecture and up the hill to the Monte fort that resides on the hill in the middle of the city, we escaped inside to the air-conditioned Museum of Macao. This was also an excellent museum, with lots of multi-media. Everything was trilingual (Chinese, Portugese, English) so we didn't have to struggle to understand in Portugese, although the children noted how much they could understand of that language thanks especially to their knowledge of French. Surprisingly we don't think we heard any Portugese spoken all day in Macao. In Hong Kong over 95% of the population now is Chinese, and in Macao it must be
even higher. In both places English is the only other language we heard.
After seeing a few other sites, like old churches and the facade of a church which was otherwise ruined, we fled to the seaside for lunch. Then the kids went swimming at the black sand beach, which indeed does have dark grey sand, while the adults sat on benches in the shade watching. Stayed for over 2 hours, not wanting to move in the heat. Finally we returned to the city of Macao, found more shade in a terraced park, then took the hydrofoil back to Hong Kong.
Last Saturday we spent out on the ocean in two large rented boats with Kevin's family as well as a number of other ex-pat families. We all dove and swam and ate and drank and mingled. There were Canadians, Americans, English, Scottish, Greeks and Australians. A great time was had by all. On Sunday Kevin and Patty took us to the south side of Hong Kong Island to a seaside village called Stanley which bustles with hundreds of little shops and booths catering to thousands of people.
On Monday this week we got up early and
flew to the Chinese capital Beijing. We learned our first lesson about how flexible prices are on the way to our hotel. It cost $65 Canadian for the 45 minute taxi ride. Later we discovered it should have been about $15. We were wiser and, recognizing the flexibility of virtually all prices, got into the spirit of things and started to barter. We got some good deals after that. We went out to a famous Peking Duck restaurant that evening and we all enjoyed the sliced duck that you wrap with vegetables in a pita-like thing. Since we were only a couple of blocks away, we walked over to Tiananmen Square. Thousands of people there, some flying kites, some trying to sell us kites, and various other things. We watched the lowering of the flag ceremony there at dusk. Then we took a taxi back to the hotel. Unlike Japan the swarms of bicyclists in Beijing use the roads, not the sidewalks. Jaywalking is common as well so the streets are bedlam. You can never get anywhere fast. Even when its clear sailing, which is seldom, the traffic moves at about 50 to 60 km/hr, presumably in anticipation of having
people or bicycles suddenly appear in front of you.
We chose to stay at the Best Western because we figured people would be able to speak English. Well that was somewhat true for some of the staff. Our first clue was actually months before when we phoned to make the reservation. After asking "English?" to a couple of people I got a guy who it seemed spoke some English. So I asked if we could make a reservation for June thirteenth. "Just a minute" was the response. Then he asked my name. Then he said "just a minute" again and was gone for a long time. When he came back he said "No William MacCallum here". I explained again that I was William MacCallum, and that I wanted to make a reservation for June thirteenth. He asked me to spell that. So I said J-U- etcetera and again it was "just a minute". When he finally came back on the line again he said "No June Thirteenth here!" Exasperated now, I said, no, I'm not looking for anybody, I just want to book a room. "Oh book a room!" and the light bulb went on.
Well the English wasn't much better when we were on site either, but at least you got the impression that they really cared about whether you were happy and satisfied so the language barrier was not much of a problem. They gave us coupons for two free breakfast buffets for each of the three mornings we were with them, but after the first morning we were told we did not have to pay at all, they would consider the kids free as well. Sometimes, we discovered, the flexibility of prices can work in your favour.
On the second day we took the guided tour from the hotel to the Great Wall in a mini-bus. The guide's English was quite good and we understood most of what he said. Beijing is a sprawling city of over 10 milion people. Unlike Japan they have lots of room to spread out, so the city has lots more green space, and many wide buildings and roads. There are roses and other plants on the medians of boulevards which detracts from the ugly uniformity of most of the towers and other buildings. As we had to pick people up at two other hotels it was over two hours before we got out of the city. Anyway the Great Wall was indeed great. We went to the Badaling section and fought the crowds to get up to the "toppest" point as our guide called it. You can see for a long way in all directions from up there. The steepness of the wall surprised us. Lots of stairs and most of what wasn't stairs was not flat and you wondered why there weren't more stairs. They say thousands of men died while building the wall, most of starvation, and they were buried right in the wall with no commemoration stone or anything. About 5000 km of the wall is maintained, but including all the extra cul-de-sac bits it was originally over 30000 km. They say its the only human-made thing that can be seen from the moon. In fact, we also saw the only living thing you can see from the moon as well on this trip - the great barrier reef. So, with a couple of other stops, like the underwhelming Ming Tombs, a Jade factory and outlet and a strange Chinese medicine place where they tried hard to get us to part with our money for a few herbs, we headed back to Beijing.
On Wednesday we went on our own, by foot and taxi, to the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace, which was essentially the emperor's summer "cottage" and is now really part of the city. We enjoyed the Summer Palace especially. On arriving there we were met by a bubbly entrepreneur who called himself Happy. He won us over and we aquiesced to his request to be our tour guide. He was excellent, spending one and a half hours with us and telling us much more than we could have gleaned ourselves about the buildings and the stories behind them. He was a bargain at about $20 Canadian, including tip. On Thursday morning we explored the Forbidden City which for 500 years until 1911 was truly forbidden to anyone who wasn't invited in by the emperor unless you wanted to be separated from your head. It consists of buildings with names like Temple of Earthly Purity, lots of massive brick courtyards and some small gardens all enclosed by a 10 metre-tall wall. Over 8000 rooms total. We rented an audio guide with one earphone which wasn't particularly informative. Then we went to the airport, had lunch, waited for a while, then flew back to Hong Kong. We fly to Europe on Sunday...
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Marie-France
non-member comment
China
Bill, you've got to write a book someday. I don't care what the subject is, I'll buy it. It is so easy to picture what you're describing. I was there when the guy who spoke some English look for William MacCallum and June 13. The poor guy was sweting as he couldn't find either. I was with you when it was so humid and hot. Actually, no, I was stuck in humid and hot in Lindsay where with humidex factor it was 43 C... Thanks again for your generosity in sharing your adventures. Can't wait to see you all again!