One day in Hong Kong

We actually visited Hong Kong at the beginning of our time in China. After one day in Hong Kong, I flew with a large SAS group to the Mainland to hike The Great Wall and to visit The Forbidden City in Beijing and then flew on to rejoin the MV Explorer in Shanghai. When publishing the posting on China I actually forgot to include Hong Kong at the beginning .... woke in the night with that OMG thought!

So here are a few pictures and thoughts about Hong Kong ........

Twenty four hours in Hong Kong: From a golden sunrise as the ship came into Honk Kong Harbor at 5 a.m. to an intense rose sunset and later, the brilliant city lights on the waterfront.

Since the reversion in 1997, Hong Kong is certainly part of China though it remains subtly yet distinctly different. This is a busy international shipping port, a busy international financial center, and a widely cosmopolitan city. Packed with millions of people, it is densely settled but there do remain open regions in the interiors of several islands for hiking, etc.

Our walking tour guide stated "People come to Hong Kong from all over the world to make money." It certainly is a city with great appeal.

Oversized Christmas decorations in an oversized complex of several attached shopping malls along a busy street of international designer stores! Mainland Chinese come to Hong Kong to shop. International travelers shop here. We shopped one of several busy Night Markets which is bargain shopping, not couture.

Traditional architecture, skyscrapers, and palm trees.

Every visitor to Hong Kong takes the breathtaking tram steeply up Victoria Peak for the views of the harbor, Kowloon Island, and the New Territories (which were new 100 years ag0.)

A view from the top of Victoria Peak over toward Kowloon. The MV Explorer is docked

just to the right of center across the water on Kowloon Island.

Only a few decades ago Hong Kong Harbor was crowded with sampans, houseboats, and a large fleet of small, active fishing junks where generations of fishing families lived. The words 'Hong Kong' mean fragrant harbor - named for the sandalwood stockyards by early visitors. During the century of congested fishing junks in the harbor, apparently Hong Kong was anything butfragrant. Most of the remaining boats are now gathered in Aberdeen. A boat ride around this side waterway is a visual contrast with skyscrapers behind fishing vessels.

On a walking tour of Honk Kong Island, a visit to the Buddhist Man Mo Temple. The air was think with incense which is lit in sticks, coils, and LARGE coils which burn up to three weeks.

Red sunset beyond the MV Explorer which is actually docked in Kowloon. Hong Kong Island is across the water.

Hong Kong harbor lights from my cabin window..... a spectacular sight to see!

China: ancient and contemporary!

The Chinese people: some traditional amidst many of the ultra-contemporary in the BOOMING economy of China today. In the cities of Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai there are fashion districts with Gucci, Chanel, Armani, Armani Jr., and all the other designer names.

Bright lights, skyscrapers, terrible traffic from all the automobiles, overhead expressways winding through the daring architecture, and evidence everywhere of the rising middle class.

An elderly couple having tea and a picnic dinner at a pavilion in one of the classic gardens.

Our 3-day Tour Guide Lucia works for a national (governmental) agency. She is smart, hip, enthusiastic, and always 'says the right thing.' These tour guides are very knowledgable, having to pass a strident exam every 3 years with the real possibility of being permanently discharged if they miss 10 points from either incorrect answers or complaints. One Tour Guide has bought the license to have a second child ($15,000) and another Guide is contemplating buying and paying taxes for a Mini Cooper car ($75,000).

A Pepsi salesman on The Great Wall.

On The Wall we actually encountered traditional peasant class Chinese with broken English and, generally, big smiles!

Chinese fashion models in a photo shoot.

Working for a tea house, this woman demonstrated versions of the traditional Chinese tea ceremonies - all with the intention of selling tea, tea pots, and other tea stuff.

Hiking The Great Wall of China!

600 years ago the Ming dynasty completed 6350 km. = 4000 miles (built 1368-1644). The Wall was constructed to guard against the Mongols in the NE of China. Human power built this marvel that can actually be seen from outer space. If one were to walk it today, all day, every day, it would take 1 1/2 years. The going is not swift!

Along with 60 Semester-as-Sea students, Faculty, and Life Long Learners, we hiked the Great Wall for two days, and it was exhilarating!

For one long section we left the Wall because "it is a military post" and walked overland, traversed a section of terraced but barren farmland, proceeded past an old abandoned farmer's house, and crawled back up onto the wall. This photo demonstrates how steep down and up some of the section are! Sometimes it was necessary to scramble up broken-away stairs on hands and feet. Sometimes it was necessary to sit on my bottom and reach my feet out for the next foothold.

Looking back mid-way through the first morning: we began our hike way over there by the road along one of the un-reconstructed parts of the Wall. We walked single file because sometimes the trail was only 14"-16" wide with steep slopes or drop-offs on one or both sides.

Sometimes it was scary and all I could do was look down at the trail right in front of me.

In my journal that night I wrote: "Steeper, rockier, more precarious and colder than I'd predicted. Through lack of foresight I had no gloves nor hat (save my stylin' Heathrow Airport Cap). Used Nancy Carr's extra socks for mittens. Sometimes I clamped the hood of my great 'Hot Tomato' Coretex jacket, esp. when my cap might blow away from the wind. Footing was always an issue and when I tired I was concerned that I would take a mis-step. At first the pace was quick led by the "mountain goat" Chinese woman in a hot pink jacket, but they gave us ample rest stops, sometimes just standing, resting, in a long row on a ridge, other times, just crouched in a warm sunny spot."

That part is DIFFICULT and can only be done with both hands and feet!

That part is STEEP!

Here is the Chinese woman who picked me out to help over rubble, steep spots, and difficult

trails

On the Wall are the hikers and coming up the dirt trail is a Chinese person coming to work the Wall - helping people, selling drinks, and selling trinkets (for inflated prices - but, hey, what 'cha gonna do!). Some of these Wall workers told us they walk 2 hours to home and all of them who spoke some bits of English told us they are farmers.

Look all the way to the farthest watchtower visible - that was was our destination on day 2 - and then we walked down thousands (literally) of steps to get back to the tent latrines (brrr...) and the bus.

As the sun set at the end of the first day I was cold and weary, taking care to place each footfall carefully so I would not only be the oldest of the hiking group but also the only one to fall off the Wall!

Gardens

Founded over 2500 years ago, Suzhou, today a 'small' city of only 10 million an hour outside of Toyko, was the traditional city of gardens and canals for aristocrats. We visited Tiger Hill with it's leaning Yunyan Pagoda, a tomb tomb for the king. We visited The Garden of the Humble Administrator and also The Garden of the Master of the Nets, both beautiful classic Chinese gardens with water, bonzai, rocks, and buildings.

During the centuries of Imperial China, the color red was considered lucky. Yellow represented the earth and to wear yellow was forbidden for common people..... at penalty of loosing one's head.

The Forbidden City, aligned on a N/S access in keeping with Chinese fung shui (which allows the energy to enter E/W from the mountains) is a series of gates and courtyards and inner courtyards. In the center are the Imperial residence and Imperial Garden where the Last Emperor, a boy, was allowed to live after 1911 when Sun Yat-Sen took over from the last Qing Dynasty. The boy Emperor was chosen by the infamous Empress Dowager (.... see The Last Emperor)

The Gate of Supreme Harmony

The Imperial Palace of the Forbidden City, Beijing

Imagine freezing COLD temperatures with a brisk wind, which made the

visit to the Forbidden City more of a quick walk than a casual stroll!

Beijing: listed at 15 million but the Chinese tell us just under 20 million people, busy, clean and orderly, many parks, skyscrapers and more skyscrapers, traditional China enclaves nestled into contemporary China, tourists, Tiananman Square, the Foridden City, 60 km access to The Great Wall. Traffic congestion is bad so every day certain cars may not drive based on the last number of the license tag. Just about every photo taken shows a layer of pollution in the sky.

Shanghai: 4500 skyscrapers over 20 stories in the last 20 years; population 20 million but they regularly mention 24 million, traffic, commerce, developing middle class, lights, daring architecture, technology, people, and did I say traffic! Just 10+ years ago the predominant vehicle was the bicycle but not today. The streets are jammed with German and Japanese cars: BMW, VW, Audi, Honda, Toyota, plus Buicks! The import tax is 30% over the price and the limited vehicle tag auctions begin at $9000. Cars from outside Shanghai may NOT drive in the city during rush hours.

City lights: leaving Shanghai harbor

...and then Cambodia!

Three wonderful days in delightful Cambodia! The weather was perfect, the people are warm and engaging, visiting the markets was fun, the meals were delicious, and exploring the ruins and reconstructed ancient temples was magical! The temple and palace sites, which are everywhere under re-construction, seem to ignite primal and ancient memories.

Visitors climb, straddle stones, and crawl up steep stairs, through archways with none of the usual distance-back-behind-ropes-and- barricades.

Celestial Dancers

~ancient and contemporary~

Angkor Wat Temple

Celestial Dancers at Ta Som Temple

There are two 90-meter bas relief murals at Angkor Wat showing all the Hindu gods and their mythologies. Spectacular!

The temples in the region of Seam Reap, Cambodia were built first by the Hindu King Jayavarmun II who declared himself "Emperor of the World" early in the 9th century. Successive rulers over the next several centuries maintained power and continued building temples, tombs, palaces and public parade sites. Many of the temples, palaces, parade fields and arenas that are being reconstructed today were built by Suryavarman II (from c.1113 to 1150) and Jauavarman VII (from c.1181 to 1220).

Our Temples of Angkor tour visited Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm, Pre Rup, East Mebon, Ta Som, Keak Pean, and Prean Khan sites over 3 fabulous days.

By the 16th century, the Khmer rulers and people had largely converted to Buddhism and the capital had been moved to Phnom Penh.

Ta Prohm Temple

Pre Rup (cremation) Temple

For some reason when I saw this Cambodian tee shirt "Dependent Vowels of the Khmer Letters" with the rest of the alphabet on the back side it completely tickled me! ...... anyway,

the alphabet is lovely and rather flamboyant and the language is difficult to learn because it, like several of the Southeast Asian languages, is 'tonal.'

In Cambodia the women and the girls, even little girls, do the selling (and begging). They locate themselves in great numbers outside all the temples with postcards, local crafts and trinkets and just enough English to assault visitors, persuasively playing on sympathies. Often they say "I need money for school" but just as often this is right during school time.....

All the warm Southeast Asian countries have also perfected the Night Markets, open to tourists until midnight after the temples and historic buildings have closed for the day. It is great fun bargaining for the already-inexpensive goods.

At a gas station, a spirit house, a sculpture, plants, and speakers.

Buddhism

Cambodia today is primarily Buddhist, though before the 16th century it was Hindu, and the Buddhism of today seems to be all-inclusive, incorporating some of the Hindu structure mythology into the temples, stories, and contemporary practice. Everywhere there are spirit houses outside homes and businesses, there are temples, and there are evidences of Buddhist practice.

Tonle Sap Lake floating villages

Cambodia has a huge central lake called Tonle Sap Lake where some Cambodians and many Vietnamese in separate movable locations have lived on boats for centuries. As the lake dries up seasonally the houseboats, stores, and schools move "to the outside" in the middle of the lake. As the lake fills up in the rainy season the villages move toward the edges, closer to the land. Boats carry visitors to the current locations; women and children beg for money "One dolla lay la" "One dolla lay la" while families harvest tiny fish in nets they beat behind their houses. The fish are used for bait, for fish meal, and for the many locations in the vicinity where these tiny fish eat the dead skin off of the feet of tourists (and others?) who pay by the 5-minutes. (I thought I would try this but the reality of fish eating off my feet - no doubt they would have had a feast - was too much for me when I got right up to the edge of the tanks!)

Tonle Sap Lake water 'regular' village school - and the English language school too!