Posts Tagged ‘hong kong’

Last night Ruhi and I had a wonderful dinner with Khalil and his mom at their home.  While there he showed me these videos he made that were quite funny and I thought you guys would appreciate the martial arts humor.  There are three of my favorites.  Enjoy!

I am still in Hong Kong and will return to Xi’an on the 24th.  I will blog and provide photos and what not from my trip once I have had a few days to reacclimate to home.

Just a quick update to let you all know where I am and what I’m up to.

After a busy week Ruhi and I flew down to Guangzhou on Sunday afternoon/evening. We’ve been running around a lot and I’m going to write another more detailed blog later on when I have time, but here are a few highlights from the past 3 days:

• I met Kevin Spacey on Monday afternoon.  I almost didn’t wash my hand again.
• I did some background acting/extra work behind Daniel Wu and Kevin Spacey on Tuesday evening.  I hope I don’t end up on the cutting room floor.
• I’m going to be attending a conference in the New Territories for the next 2 weeks.  Tonight was the orientation and tomorrow the sessions begin.

So, I might not be online too much, depending on our schedule.  And anytime I am online I might have to be working and can’t really blog too much.

But I’ve been taking some videos and pictures so you can look forward to things later on in the future.  Until then … bye!

When last I blogged I had gone to Monday’s wushu training with the Hong Kong wushu team and then went to dinner with Gao Song his wife and a good friend. In the evening I grabbed the MTR back to Tin Shui Wai and headed to bed.

Tuesday I had a lunch meeting with a client in TST. We went to an Indian Restaurant called “Gaylord”, that had a very nice buffet. Got some good work done at the meeting and are on track with two projects. After the lunch meeting I headed to Hong Kong Island and had some pages added to my passport at the U.S. Embassy. It wasn’t just because I was running out of pages, but I plan on getting a student visa put in there before my next trip to Hong Kong so I needed space for that.

I did a little putting around the IFC, looking through book stores and what not, and almost went to see Sherlock Holmes but decided against it.  In the evening I headed back to TST and met up with Jack, Joanne and Boon for some evening Hot Pot.  While I was waiting for them I saw a place called “Chococat Cafe”.  I had some time to kill so thought I would go and get something to drink.

It turned out that this was a pretty unique place.  When I sat down I was given a menu.  There wasn’t a huge selection, but I asked for a drink.  Then she said “Okay … lets go make it”.

Say what?  It turned out that at the Chococat Cafe you pick things from the menu and they they show you how to make it!  They have some pasta, chicken wings, salads and a few various drinks.  I got a pineapple, orange drink and so she took me behind the counter and showed me hot to make it.  I could add as much or as little of each ingredient as I wanted.  A pretty nice concept.

Be warned though.  If you have allergies to cats, don’t go there.  They have a few (super friendly and relaxed) cats who hang out there as well.  Not sure about the health code violations of having pets in a restaurant, but none of the customers or people working there seemed to have any issues with it.  I suppose if you have a cat in your home, then having a cat in a restaurant isn’t necessarily a huge leap forward.

There is one in Causeway Bay too.

Hot Pot was pretty good.  I haven’t had hot pot in a while but it was quite tasty.  And it was nice to hang out with Boon again, since I haven’t seen him in a while.

Wednesday it was time to head to Guangzhou.  Around 11:30 I left Tin Shui Wai, grabbed some flash cards at the stationary store, and grabbed the 276 bus to Sheung Shui and then the MTR to Lo Wu.  After a quick border cross I made my way to the Shenzhen Train Station and grabbed an express train to Guangzhou East.  I had made a reservation at a reasonably priced hotel on Long Kou Xi Lu (龙口西路) named 龙口明珠大酒店.  It was okay, but the head in the rooms was terrible and it was rather cold.

I spent the afternoon preparing for my meeting with Dayyan Eng (伍仕贤 ).  I’m helping him with a facelist to his production studio website, colordance.com, as well as his wife’s professional site, gongbeibi.com.  He was in Guangzhou directing his newest feature film, ‘Inseperable’, which stars Daniel Wu (吴彦祖), Gong Beibi (龚蓓苾) and Kevin Spacey.   You can read an article here.

It is great to have various friend involved in such a nice project.  It is a great get for Dayyan because he is directing one of the biggest stars in Asia and it is the first time a two-time Oscar winner is involved in a Chinese production.  It is great for Dan because he will be getting some major U.S. exposure, acting across from Mr. Kevin Spacey himself, and it is great for Kevin Spacey because he gets to hang out with cool peoples in China.

The next day, before heading to the airport and catching my flight back to Xi’an, I dropped by the set to check things out.  I haven’t been on a film set in a few years — not since one of Jet’s U.S. films, come to think of it — so it was neat to be in that environment again.  I had an hour to watch Daniel’s scene.  I won’t get in to specifics, but he was in a car.  I think the most interesting part was the local Chinese Look-E-Loos who act way different than the ones in the U.S. (naturally).  Much more gawking and walking back and forth over and over again.  After I saw the same group of people walking down the sidewalk for the 10th time I was thinking “Okay — you aren’t fooling anyone.  Why are you even pretending to be busy?  You obviously have nothing else to do today …”

I got to say Hi to Dan as well, which was nice.  I’ve never actually seen him acting before so that was a change of pace.  I got to see Dayyan doing his thing too, which was also kind of neat.  It is one thing hanging out with someone socially, but when you see them in their professional environment you see a different side to their personality.

After an hour of that I caught a cab to the airport, flew to Xi’an, took the bus to Gao Xin and another bus home.  Charisse, Ruhi and I grabbed lunch at Bacchus Restaurant and then I got to bed at a reasonable pre-midnight hour.  Its nice to be home!

As you may have read on my facebook feed or my previous blogs, I’m in Hong Kong for a few days to renew my visa and meet with a few clients.  But while I was here I thought I would check out the Hong Kong Wushu Team’s training.  Gao Song, one of the HK team coaches, originally from the Liaoning Wushu Team, was kind enough to let me work out with them too.

If you have been in the “loop” you have probably seen the Hong Kong team’s training facility on various videos.  It is located in the Sports Complex out in Ma On Shan in the New Territories.  The practice was at 3pm so I headed out from Tin Shui Wai around 2pm via bus to Sheung Shui, Train to University Station and Taxi to Ma On Shan.  I made it just a few minutes after 3. Here is a map of the route:

View Hong Kong Wushu (1/11) in a larger map

Red Line = Bus from Tin Shui Wai to Sheung Shui
Blue Line = MTR from Sheung Shui to University Station
Green Line = Taxi from University Station to Ma On Shan

Gao Song was also nice enough to hook me up with a pair of shoes to train with.  A little tight to start with, but they stretched out quite nicely during class and now they are very comfortable.  Great slapping sound too.  I think these are the default shoes the HK team trains with.

The class was pretty good.  It started off with the team members playing soccer on one carpet and I did some jogging and my own warming up on another.  The head coach was there, along with Gao Song and another coach, as well as Hei Zhi Hong, formerly on the Beijing Team, but a coach/athlete with Hong Kong too.  No Colin, I’m afraid and He Jing De was back in the U.S., but I was able to see his wife, Ya Qing (Christine) after class, as she coaches the younger kids at 5:00.  Nice to see her again as it had been a year or two since we last met up.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself a bit.  Back to the class…

After warm ups and stretching it was time for basics.  Of the 9 or 10 athletes training, 2 of them were nanquan people.  I would follow along with whatever nanquan basics they did in the line.  After basics the rest of the class was all small combinations from forms, which turned out to be perfect.

The one thing I have to say about the class is that Gao Song, who was the main coach for the practice, is a really, really good coach.  He is able to provide some really great feedback that gets to the heart of one’s wushu deficiencies.  The corrections he gave me were spot on and its going to give me things to work on for at least the next several weeks.  There are only a few coaches (I can count how many on one hand) that provide that level of helpful instruction, so if you ever get the chance to train with Gao Song, I totally recommend taking advantage of the opportunity.

I wish he lived in Shaanxi.  Because even though the coaches and athletes in Xi’an are wonderful and very helpful, it isn’t quite the same level and I feel like I would really improve very quickly if I had more opportunities to train with him.

Unfortunately while I’m in Hong Kong for 2 weeks next month he will be up in Liaoning visiting family for New Years.  Which is sort of a bummer, but can’t be helped.  It almost makes me want to head to Liaoning.  But … I’ve been to Liaoning in the winter and it ain’t for the faint of heart.

Since it was my first time training there and I didn’t want to make a bad impression I didn’t do any pictures or recording of the practice.  However, I was able to take a little video of Gao Song and his wife at dinner that you can see here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RsgmFWUtRA

I hope that I have the opportunity to come down and train with them again in the future.  It was very educational and quite beneficial, both in terms of wushu, and also because I got to hang out with some good friends.

After a very quick trip (around 48 hours) to the south of China I am back in Xi’an. Nothing major to post up, but just wanted to let everyone know that I am back and should be blogging regularly again soon.

I went down south to renew my visa. I flew down on Thursday afternoon to Guangzhou, took a bus to the Futian border crossing in Shenzhen, and then took another bus from Lok Ma Chau to Tin Shui Wai in Hong Kong where I stayed with Jack, actually not sleeping at all the whole night.

I left off at 9:30 AM and took a bus to Sheng Shui, the MTR train to Lo Wu (Luo Hu) and then the express train up to Guangzhou where I met up with Ruhi and caught an overnight train to Xi’an. I slept a solid 12 – 14 hours during the trip and we just arrived this afternoon.

Since spouting out names of locations don’t mean much if you aren’t familiar with them, I made a few maps to demonstrate the route …

All in all it was a pretty good trip.  Mainly because I didn’t get any illnesses or get snowed in anywhere.  But also because it all went according to plan.  Yay for plans! (Mark likes plans)

Tomorrow morning Ruhi and I are meeting Yue Xiao Yu to go shopping for a bicycle.  I am going to see about doing some video-ing of our excursion too so you can enjoy that. After that I am meeting my tutor, Ada, for an hour of Chinese learnin’ and then I believe Ruhi and I are meeting some new friends in the evening.  A jam-packed day to be sure.  Yay for Sundays!  (Mark likes Sundays)

Before I blog, I wanted to share something that I saw today.  You may recall that I mentioned that the winter smog from the coal burning and polution gets pretty bad here in Xi’an.  But we also get a bit of fog from time to time.  And when you combine the two things together, like we had today, it turns in to a pea soup the likes of which I never saw in my 14 years in the Bay Area.

Here are a few comparative shots from the morning and the afternoon so that you can get an idea of what it looked like from our living room window:

And just so you don’t think it looks like this all the time, here is a picture from just a month or so ago:

See?  Blue skies!

Anyway, back to the blog …

Three main things happened today in the World of Mark.  Well, okay … more than three things.  But three things that I’m going to blog about.

First, was figuring out what to do about our visa renewal.

We spent most of the early hours of the day (i.e. before lunch) going to the visa office and trying to get an extension on our tourist visas.  As we are in the process of closing down Ruhi’s company (after which we will probably start up a new one in 2010) we are technically in China as tourists.  As a result, I either have to leave the country every 30 days (60 for Ruhi) or get an extension.

As you will recall, last month I left the country and went to Hong Kong, only to end up spending a week in Anhui with the flu.  This time we decided to get a 30 day extension instead.

That is, until we found out that the cost of a 30 day extension for U.S. Citizens is 940 RMB ($140 USD), which is also the price of a full one-year multiple entry visa.  But only for 30 days!  Well, for less than 940 RMB we can just take the train down to Guangdong and hop across the border, so why spend all that extra money?

So, on Friday Ruhi will be traveling to Beijing for some meetings.  To save some money I will be going directly to Guangdong from Xi’an.  Sorry to Wu Di, Jenn, Chris, et al. for not being able to make it over to the capital this time around.  But Ruhi will be there in my stead for 2 days.

On Wednesday I’m going to catch a train down to Guangzhou and then hop across the border.  Ruhi will have already been staying in Guangzhou for a couple days and on Friday afternoon we will catch a train back up and get home on Saturday morning.  This time around I opted for the faster train, as the slower one is obviously not an option.  Who wants to go all the way to Anhui anyway?

Here is a map of Ruhi’s journey.  As I said, my route is just a straight back and forth from Xi’an to Guangzhou.

The second thing that happened today was a revamping of our home.

Yue A-yi was here to clean today so we took the opportunity to swap our bedroom and the second room around.  After several hours we have set up the place so that we’re both working in our “spare” room with all the natural light, and our sleeping room is the darker, more comfortable one that gets much warmer.  Plus we moved some furniture around in the main room.  I love optomizing my living space.  According to Ruhi I get a twinkle in my eye when I am in that mode.

And the third thing is (hopefully) a change to my training routine.

I called Yuan Ming earlier in the day and asked him for Coach Zhang’s phone number.  He didn’t have it, so I had to relay the message through him.  I told him that (1) I would not be able to make it today and that (2) I wanted to switch my workouts from the afternoon at 3:00 to the morning at 9:00.  He said he would talk to Coach Zhang for me.

In the evening I gave him a call but it turned out that Coach Zhang wasn’t there today.  Tomorrow morning they also don’t have training because there is a meeting, so I will just go in the afternoon as usual.  Then, assuming Coach Zhang is there, I can ask him about switching to the morning session.

Why switch to mornings?  Well, for one, it will make me more productive with my work.  I will have a bigger chunk of time to get things done during the afternoon and evening.  Also, I think it is better, physically, to exercise during the earlier hours of the day as it sets up your body’s metabolism and function better for the rest of your waking hours.

Plus, I just feel better when I train in the morning vs. the afternoon.

So, that is what happened today.  Tomorrow it is back to the wushu grind stone.  Today they had strength training, so tomorrow, I”m not really sure what is happening.  I’m hoping it is wushu, but it might be running too.  I’ll just play it by ear and make sure I am prepared for any contingency.

Until tomorrow …. here is a bonus picture that I swiped from Wu Di’s camera in Binzhou.  Enjoy!

NOTE: I got a few photos off my film camera so I’m posting them up with this entry, even though they are from the entire 10 day trip.

I had jokingly said to Ruhi that with my luck I would probably get to Hefei (合肥) just to find myself delayed overnight by the weather again.  Ironically it almost came true.

My plan was to take a morning train from Fuyang to Hefei (3 hours), get my plane ticket at the e-Long office, and then catch my 5:20 flight at the airport, arriving in Xi’an around 7:00, and hopefully home in time to get some dinner and enjoy a bit of rest at home.

And it started out okay too.  I woke up around 7:00, cleaned up, packed my things (yay for being a light packer!), and then got a quick bite at the hotel’s free breakfast buffet (nothing to write home about) before checking out and catching a cab to the train station.

It looked like there had been a fresh coat of snow on the ground from the night before.  But the snow wasn’t falling very heavy, even though it was overcast.  And the snow was pretty minimal so I didn’t think too much of it.

At the train station I waited a few minutes before they let us on.  (I don’t really understand the huge rushing of people to get on the train, considering that all the seats are pre-assigned.  It isn’t like someone will swipe your seat, right?  Maybe it is for the overhead packing space …)

I know why they call them hard seats (硬座) now.  They are no gift to the lower back, that is for sure.  I spent a fair amount of time playing my Nintendo DS and thanked my lucky stars that I brought it along with me for some entertainment.  Thank you Mario Brothers!

I noticed as we were traveling that the snow level outside was getting  a bit deeper.  ”How come the farther south we travel, the thicker the snow?” I asked Ruhi rhetorically through SMS.  By the time we arrived in Hefei around 1:00 PM it was snowing pretty steadily.

I grabbed a taxi and gave them the address (intersection) of the ticket office where e-Long has their pick-ups.  It actually took me a lot of walking around to find the place.  If you didn’t know where it was, you wouldn’t know where it was.  And that was the case for me.  It was purely by accident when I got there and they handed me my ticket.  I had actually asked the person at the counter what their address was (bad labeling on the buildings) and the lady next to her handed me my ticket.

Getting a taxi from there to the airport took another 30 minutes, but I still managed to arrived about an hour before the scheduled check-in time for my flight.  The guy told me to come back at 3:50.  So I had a sandwich and drink at the airport restaurant.

3:50 rolls around and the ticket counter has plenty of customers but nothing is happening.  4:00 .. 4:20 … By 4:30 we’ve been told that the flight hasn’t left the city of origin on its way to Hefei due to weather conditions.  Once they know if there is going to be a plane or not, we will know if we are flying out or not.

I got on the phone and ASKED Ruhi to  help me book a hotel in Hefei for the night. Just in case.

But as soon as I hung up the phone with her there was a flurry of activity and it turned out the plane was cleared to come to Hefei.  I stood in line and got my boarding pass.  Seat 20A on Tianjin Airlines.  My first time to fly with them.

Now, getting your boarding pass just means you have a seat assignment.  But until the plane actually shows up, who knows if you will actually get to where you are going.  We sat in the gate area for a long time waiting.

5:30 … 6:00 … 7:00 … 8:00 … 9:00 … And the same announcement over the intercom.  ”Your flight has been delayed due to weather conditions.  Thank you for your patience”.

And all the while other flights were dropping like flies.  ”Flight MU3948 to Beijing has been cancelled .. Flight CZ2349 to Tianjin has been cancelled … ” It was like waiting for the worst lottery ever …

At 9:45 we were suddenly told that we could board the plane.  We could board?  I didn’t even know it had arrived!

We scrambled to the bus which took us out to the tarmac and on to the plane.  It turned out there were only about 30 passengers on the flight, which means everyone had some nice room to relax.  I spent the time studying my Chinese flash cards and playing my Nintendo DS.  Oh .. and a bit of sudoku during take-off and landing …

Now, this whole time I hadn’t told Ruhi that I had gotten on the plane.  Part of me, I admit, was scared that as soon as I said “I”m coming!” they would announce that the plane had a case of the measels, or it had colided with Santa Claus, or that gnomes had hijacked the airport and we were all going to be auctioned off as slaves in an underworld blackmarket operation.

The other part of me wanted to surprise her.  She was expecting me to possibly not be showing up at all that night. Especially considering how late it was.  Before we got on the plane I said that I was turning my phone off to conserve battery and that I would call her back when I got more information.

Then, after we landed in Xi’an, I called her again and told her that the airline was going to put us up in a hotel for the night and asked her to cancel the other reservation she had made for me.  (That could have been a signal right there, since airlines in China don’t really do that unless you are flying international and missing a conneciton, especially not Tianjin Airline on a 2 hour domestic route.)

I walked pretty much straight from the airplane, through the airport, and in to a taxi which drove me the 150 RMB (about $22) trip home (!!!!).  That might be cheap in the U.S. for 45 minutes in a cab, but here it feels pretty pricey.  As I was entering our building and going up the elevator I tried to call her but didn’t get through.  But she called me back and as I got off the elevator I said “Oh, hold on … I need to use the restroom.  I’ll call you back.”

Then I came in the front door and said “Excuse me.  I’m looking for a restroom?”

She was pretty surprised. ;-P

And I was pretty tired.  Still a tickle in my throat, but for the most part none too worse for wear.  What was originally supposed to be a 2 day trip to Hong Kong ended up including a week in Anhui, a brush with the swine flu and the storm of the century.

The best part of the trip was that I pack well so I was prepared for what happened.  I had warm enough clothes, I had the ability to get food and lodging, and I even had flu medicine in my emergency travel kit (never leave home without it!).

Of course, the worst part of the trip was missing a week of wushu, being stuck in the middle of no-where (no offense Fuyang fans), and being the sickest I’ve been in a few years.  But these things happen and it isn’t anything that you can control.  Sometimes you just have to take things as they come and make the best of the situation.

Especially living in China.  Where you never know what is going to happen.

Hong Kong will always have a special place in my heart.

Not for the friendships I made there, which were quite wonderful and heartfelt.

Nor for the experience it provided me with social networking and alivenotdead.com.

Not even for being the place where I picked up my limited Cantonese, learned how to jog, began to appreciate traditional kung fu, or discovered an affinity for herbal tinctures and naturopathic medicine.

Hong Kong has a special place in my heart for one major reason: The HEAT.

Before living in Hong Kong, I had never been around so much heat and humidity for longer than a summer at a time, maybe 5 months, max while in Shanghai.  But in Hong Kong?  Even the winters are warm and the summers are downright ridiculous.

It wasn’t until my second year in Hong Kong that I began to acclimate to the heat (even given my increased natural insulation), and when I visited Beijing the summer after leaving Hong Kong I was amazed at how much less “muggy” and “hot” northern China felt to me than in previous years.

However, all that seems to have changed, and my exposure to the winters of Eastern Idaho and the initial cold fronts (albeit rather tame ones) in Xi’an have made my body forget exactly what it means to be truly, uncomfortably hot and sweaty.

So, when I came to Hong Kong to get my visa renewed, I was struck at just how hot and muggy it still was, in November, of all months.  Beijing had already received a light snow a week or two before, but here in Hong Kong people were walking around with flip flops and shorts.

The plan, however was pretty simple.  Stay 2 days in Hong Kong, grab the last suitcase of things from Jack’s place, and take a train back to Xi’an, arriving in time to get to Friday’s wushu class with the Shaanxi Wushu Team.

And as much as I enjoyed my time in Hong Kong, seeing good friends, including the boys at alivenotdead, I wasn’t terribly sad to be heading back up north.  If for no other reason than to be heading to cooler climes and lower temperatures.

Now this starts to fall in to the “be careful what you wish for” category of stories, because it went from hot to freezing (Not to mention feverish), literally over night.

From Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong, I grabbed a train that would take me the 34 hours up to Xi’an.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but this particular train took the Looooooong way up and we actually would go through Anhui province, which is closer to the ocean than it is to Xi’an.  Here is a map of the train route, to give you an idea …

Not exactly a direct route.  It looks more like the number 7 had a stroke.  Which would actually be accurate if it had gone through the same climate shift that I experienced during my travel.

As we left Shenzhen on the train I was lamenting that there was no a/c on the train and the staff had all of the windows on the train open.  But pretty soon it started to cool off.  In the morning I woke up and it was downright chilly on the train.  I could even see my breath when going to the dining car.  And not a small wisp of steam either.  I looked like a chain smoker with an invisible cigarette.

At around 10:00 or so we stopped at a station.  Wasn’t sure where it was.  The stations in China have very poor sinage, (unless you are standing across the street from the main entrance, which is kind of silly since most people entering a station from the front door probably know where they are) but my random guess was Wuhan (since I inaccurately assumed that we were taking a more direct route).

I went to eat lunch in the dining car around 11:30 and the man who was sitting at my table said that we were in Anhui province in a town called Fuyang, and that we were stuck here because of the snow.

The snow?  What snow?  Wasn’t I just sweating to death the day before?  And what were we doing in northern Anhui?  That was practically Shandong Province!

It turns out that one of the biggest snow storms of the last 60 years happened during the night while I was sleeping and our train was stuck at the station until the tracks ahead of us could be cleared out.  Over the next 10 hours I would learn that, not only were we stuck, but our train, being a slower one, had a lower priority so we would have to wait until around 300 other trains had moved first.  (I was told that number by one of the people on the train, but I have a feeling it might have been an exageration.  Still … even 10% of that is 30 trains …)

By the time evening came around I realized that we would be stuck for quite a while. One of my cabin-mates (a nice young man from Qinghai) decided to disembark and try our luck in the city.  Actually, for him it was a matter of necessity.  He belongs to an ethnic minority in China that makes it so that can’t eat the food on the train.  He had brought enough food for the trip, but not if you factor in a day or two of waiting around in Anhui.

We got out of the station, and froze our way in to a taxi.  He accompanied me to a hotel that Ruhi had been kind enough to reserve for me online.  For some reason, though, he didn’t join me in staying there.  Perhaps he just wanted to make sure I was safe? In any case, I checked in to the hotel, marveled that my room had a bathtub and soaked for about 30 minutes in a porcelain bucket of piping hot water.

All was going well so far.  I would check with the front desk on ways to go to Xi’an the next day and after a day or two in Fuyang I could be on my way back to Xi’an, hardly missing a beat.

That is, until I got a visit from one incredibly nasty case of the flu …

To Be Continued …

We spent a week in Macau with Gordon and Maureen Kerr.  Super nice folks who were kind enough to open up their home to us.  Ruhi spent most of the week working with Gordon on a film project and I spent a lot of time in cafe’s and restaurants using free wi-fi to get some work done.  They actually have wi-fi at the Kerr home, but I like exploring too.

After dinner we headed out to Tin Sui Wai to stay with Jack.  Once again they were most hospitable as we re-packed all of our things before our 3:30 ferry to Shekou.  In fact, we were taking the ferry from Tuen Mun to Shekou, a route I had always wanted to take.  It is a better route to Shekou than the one from Hong Kong mainly due to it only taking 30 minutes, the ferry being practically empty on every route and the price being only $45 HKD.  If I had lived in Tuen Mun or Yuen Long instead of Tung Chung I would have probably gone to Shenzhen more often.

We arrived in Shekou and waited at the ferry terminal’s cafe for Ruhi’s friend, Bill.

Bill and his fiance Ting Ting helped us check in to a cheap hotel near the Shenzhen West train station followed by a meal at a local Dong Bei style restaurant.  Man it was nice to eat some Chinese food in China again.  Case in point:

After that it was time to crash for the night.  With not too much sleep the night before it was well deserved and much needed.  Here is a view from the hotel room:

On the 9th (our wedding lunaversary, btw) we had breakfast at the hotel after sleeping in and then made our way to the train station with Dan and Ting Ting.  They helped us find the luggage shipping desk where we checked our 3 large suitcases all the way to Xi’an.  Since we were going to Shandong for a week first it would make sense to have the bags waiting for us in Xi’an instead of lugging them all over the place.  Just 500RMB ($73 USD)  to ship 90KG (198 pounds) half-way across China.  Not too bad.

The Shenzhen West train station was nice and small with not much traffic.  Also, since it was the first stop on this route and right after the October holidays it was pretty empty.

In fact, for almost the entire trip we were the only two people in the soft sleeper car.  We had our whole compartment to ourselves.   The dining car was right next to ours so we would go there to eat our meals or do some work in a more comfortable environment.  It also gave us the opportunity to chat with some of the staff and learn a bit more about how Chinese trains operate.  Since this particular route wasn’t one that foreigners usually went on (slower than the other Shenzhen-Jinan route and it isn’t a popular tourist train route) we were interesting to them as well.

27 hours after learing Shenzhen on the 9th we arrived in Jinan on the 10th.  Unfortunately we JUST missed the last bus to Binzhou, but it ended up working out in our favor.  We got a bite at KFC while I called Jenn and asked her to book us a cheap Jinan hotel through ctrip.  5 minutes later we had our confirmation number SMS’ed to us and we were on our way to a 150 RMB / night business hotel with free internet.

It turns out that KFC coffee drinks are a bit on the strong side because I had a hard time getting to sleep.  It was tricky dragging myself out of bed at 7:30 AM so that we could catch our 9:30 AM bus to Binzhou.  The bus was 2.5 hours long and they were playing the LOUDEST videos in the universe.  I used my ear plugs and it was still too loud for me.  It was vibrating directly through my skull.  After some fitful sleeping we made it to Binzhou around noon and my time to check out the 11th All China Games was about to begin!

It has been about 10 days since we left Haiti.  My dad reminded me that I haven’t blogged in a little while (I have created a monster) so here is a catch-up entry to keep everyone in the loop.

The last day in Haiti (9/21) we did a quick drop-by at CAFT for one last interview.  Then it was off to the airport where we checked in for our flight.

This whole time we had been traveling on non-revenue passes either through my father or Ruhi’s uncle, but fortunately the listings were for business class.  Of course, if there were no seats available in Business class we could easily get bumped down to economy, or even not get on the plane at all.  A few of the flights were close, but we managed to not only get on all the flights between Haiti and Hong Kong, but got to fly Business Class the whole way too.  I can’t tell you how awesome it is to fly business class across the Pacific.

From Haiti we flew to JFK in New York for a small layover.  Then another leg from JFK to LAX where we were going to stay with Trina, Ruhi’s sister.  Originally it was going to be for just a day, but due to the nature of Ruhi’s film project she needed more time to spend with her editor.  We rescheduled our departing flight for Saturday the 26th.

This meant that I had a couple more days to take care of some things.  I ran a bunch of errands to Ross and other stores for supplies, and even got to meet up with Tam and Faye, who were both still in L.A., but will be moving to Beijing in December.  Here is a picture of me trying on a jacket at Ross.

Our flight out was great, of course.  (Business Class, remember?)  We hung out at Narita for a few hours while waiting for our Hong Kong flight and when we arrived in HKG we were greeted by Jack and Joanne.  We’d be staying in Jack’s spare room out in Tin Shui Wai for the next day or so.

Due to the October holiday a train ticket was close to impossible to secure, so we decided to spend a few more days in Macau with Gordon and Maureen.  A week, to be precise.  After a day of packing up my 5 huge suitcases into some post office boxes for shipping to Xi’an, we headed to Wan Chai to get some supplies (I got a lens cleaning cloth for my camera), watched “Surrogates” at Pacific Place, and then caught a ferry from Shun Tak to Taipa.

While in Macau Ruhi will be working with Gordon on their film project.  This is a different project than the one she is doing for the Mona Foundation, in case you weren’t clear on that.  Our plan is to stay here until around the 7th or 8th and then head to Hong Kong.  Spend one night there and arrange shipment of our boxes and then go to Shenzhen to catch the train to Shandong where we will attend the All China Games in BinZhou.  A lot of our plans depend on what day we can get a ticket, of course, so we’re playing it a bit by ear.

After Shandong we’ll head to Beijing for a day or so to meet with clients and project-related peoples.  Then it is off to Xi’an around the 19th, just in time for Ruhi’s birthday on the 20th of October.

I can’t wait to finally settle down for a while.  I need to rest after this year of constant traveling!