Flowering House Hostel (still)

Still in Beijing. It's already 13 o'clock today so it's getting late for the Forbidden City visit. Will probably just visit the Lama temple today.

Yesterday visited the National Aquatic Center, also known as Water Cube, where in 2008 the Olympic swimming events took place. Our goal was to swim in the same pool where the Hungarian waterpolo team claimed the Olympic gold. The building has been reopened to the public this July after being under renovation for 10 months.

Visiting the Cube costs 15 CNY, but for 50 CNY you can add swimming to your visit. When purchasing the swimming ticket you learn that the pool is open from 13 to 21. While making your way towards to pool you learn about more regulations and hidden costs. First, you cannot swim in the main pool (where the Olympic competitions took place), but only in the warm-up pool. Then you are required to purchase a swimming cap (34 CNY), without it swimming is not allowed. Finally you are given a choice: either swim in shallow water (0.8-1.2m) or pay an additional 20 CNY to apply for the "deep-water swimmer's certificate" (includes medical examination). We decided to buy one cap (has a Water Cube logo on it, so it can be considered a nice souvenir rather than a hidden cost) and share it while swimming (and walking) in the shallow water. The pool was almost empty. Later it turned out that Biros and co never played in the Water Cube: the water polo events took place in another building.

Spent the rest of the visit sitting by the main pool watching the dancers of Moscow City Ballet practice for their evening performance. That must explain why the banks of the main pool are decorated with fake bushes and garden swans.

The Water Cube building is nothing spectacular inside. Probably was designed to be looked at from the outside, and during the night and from the air. Then it is glowing (in blue) impressively next to the National Stadium (popularly known as The Bird's Nest), which is glowing red and gold.

The square between the main Olympic buildings is huge, much larger than Tian'anmen Square (which our guidebook claims to be the largest in the world).
Around sunset the square got crowded with kite flying people, unfortunately the kind who want to sell their kite to the tourist. The vendors here are very persistent and they only know numbers in English. Learned the Chinese word for "no" (bù yòng ?) and got to practice it a lot.

Flowering House Hostel, Beijing, China

Yesterday night landed in Beijing and somehow managed to find a hotel by 1AM. An HI Hostel that we were looking for wasn't there so we ended up in a local business hotel. We were completely unprepared in terms of hotel bookings, maps, GPS coordinates, basic knowledge of local language, etc. This morning changed the hotel for a youth hostel (which is also a bit cheaper).

First observations:

• Beijing is BIG. We have a map with no scale marked onto it, so it's hard to estimate how big it actually is, but walking doesn't get you anywhere.
  
• There is a major language barrier: we only know "ni hao" (hello) and "xie xie" (thank you), that's how far I got when I was learning Mandarin a year ago, and locals know "sorry" and "no" in English. It is possible to order food in McDonald's and get basic directions in the metro though. The local people are quite helpful.
  
• The metro costs only 2 CNY (= 0.3 USD) for any distance (?) and functions well. Only yesterday Line 2 was partly down (or closed for the night?) and we had to travel part of the distance by taxi.
• The taxi driver didn't speak a word of English (in many other countries they are usually the only ones that do) and needed some pushing to return 10 CNY change from the 40 CNY that he was given.
• The climate is hot but much more pleasant than Hong Kong, or the rest of Southeast and South Asia where we have been travelling until now.
  
• Internet is partly blocked, e.g. we haven't been able to access Dropbox (that hosts our website), Blogger (our blog), Picasaweb (our photos), YouTube (our videos), and Facebook. GMail works though and this blog post is made via email which should function I guess.
  

Terminal 1, Hong Kong Airport, Hong Kong

About to board a Dragonair flight to Beijing. Highlights in Macau: the colonial city centre, The Venetian casino with its Rialto bridge and (an indoor version of) Canale Grande, yesterday's fireworks by the Macau Tower (especially the Taiwan's team's performance).

An internet cafe, Macau

After an hour smooth boat ride we arrived to Macau from Hong Kong. It was quite interesting that these two parts of China are treated as separate countries. Unlike to China, here we could enter without  visa, but had to go through immigrations and customs at both ports.

As anticipated, Macau is very different from Hong Kong. There are a few skyscrapers concentrated mainly at the seaside, but it is by far not such an urban jungle as Hong Kong. Interestingly, after 10 years that the Portuguese gave back their colony to China (funny enough that the Portuguese tried to give back this tiny land already in the 70s, but China did not want it), still everywhere the signs, street names are in Portuguese. According to some schoolgirls we talked to, only very few people actually speak Portuguese. Probably removing these signs would cost too much... English is not widely spoken here and in most of the restaurants the menus are only in Chinese, so dining is quite difficult (of course at fancy places there are English menus, but these are over our budget). We probably will not try the famous Portuguese-Chinese fusion cuisine, because these dishes seem to be also expensive and I doubt that there is anything for vegetarians.

Yesterday we walked around in the area west from the Hotel Lisboa (the landmark building that our guidebook uses as a point of orientation). It is kind of like in Europe, the buildings are very European (protected by UNESCO, listed as a World Heritage Site since 2005), they are in a very good condition. The streets here were very clean and there were many tourists, but almost exclusively Chinese and no Westerners. This distribution of tourists might of course explain the lack of  English signs and language skill of the locals. The downtown area was very touristy. The main souvenir hit seems to be dried meet, that is pressed into big sheets and that is cut by scissors to the desired size. In that area we visited the remains of the catholic Sao Paolo church (burned down in 1835, so only the facade remains) that curiously is decorated with Jesus, Mary, some saints and Chinese lions and hydras with 7 heads. Next to it, on the top of a hill is a fort that is in a very good condition houses the Museum of Macau and offers nice views to the city. Unfortunately the view to the sea is blocked by the tall buildings (mostly hotels with casinos), so it could not fulfil it is original duty to watch over any danger emerging from the sea, meaning the Dutch.
Today we will walk around in town a bit more and try to visit some casinos (if they let us in in our run down outfit: washing cannot effectively remove any more the stains of a year of travelling).

Burger King, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Still in Hong Kong, the antipode of Ahmedabad. Until yesterday waited for the Chinese visa but Hong Kong is enjoyable and there is a lot to see for one week anyway.

2010-09-02 Visited the China Resources Building and stood in line for an hour to hand in the Chinese visa application. Then visited the ifc mall, enjoyed the cool conditioned air and multiple antiseptic hand sanitizing stations. Adjusted the ferry trip back to Kowloon to coincide with the 8-o'clock light show.

2010-09-03 Visited the Science Museum. Quite informative and fun. Started out late so managed to fully explore only the bottom floor. Had dinner at a mock meat restaurant.

2010-09-04 Completed the visit to the Science Museum (we had purchased a 7-day multiple-museum pass the day before). Then visited the Temple St. Night Market. Considered buying a Chinese iPhone 4 knock-off for 2900 HKD (eventually the price went down to 1000 HKD, i.e. 10x lower than for the original iPhone 4). Didn't buy
because wasn't convinced by the seller's claim that the clone is 99% identical to the original. (Later turned out that at Chungking Mansions the Indians sell them for 450 HKD.) Watched tai-chi at the Kowloon Park.

2010-09-05 Visited The Peak for some fascinating night time views to the Hong Kong Island. Moving around on the Hong Kong Island as a pedestrian is a remarkably pleasant experience as one hardly has to interact with car traffic.
For example, it is possible to reach The Peak from the Kowloon's Tsim Sha Tsui without crossing a single street: first enter the metro at Tsim Sha Tsui and walk underground to the Space Museum and from there to the Star Ferry pier. Then take a ferry over to the Hong Kong Island's Pier 7. Then walk on the elevated pedestrian walkway from Pier 7 to the lower escalator station, and take the set of escalators (longest escalator system in the world!) to as high up the hill as possible. Walk downhill on the sidewalks and pedestrian streets to the Zoological and Botanical Gardens (free entry). From there walk downhill to the lower cable car station, and take it to The Peak.


2010-09-06 Visited Disneyland. It's far away from the centre but easily accessible thanks to the Hong Kong metro system. Hong Kong's Disneyland is very similar to the one in Orlando that I visited in 2006 (maybe that's the point), i.e. apart from the few rides it is mostly about shopping and fast food restaurants. Did almost all the rides, the best is "It's a small world" that takes you through all the main regions of the world (North Pole, Europe, Africa, Asia, Americas, Rainforest, Islands) represented by a set of characteristically dressed up dancing puppets who continuously sing the same song "It's a small world after all" (in different languages).
Also took photos with all the animals who were around (Pooh, Goofy, Mickey, Minnie, Pluto), Donald wasn't.


Yesterday collected the Chinese visa (150 HKD for single entry with regular application processing speed). Then visited the 55th floor of the ifc II building. There are 88 floors in total but only the 55th is open to tourists (given that you present your photo ID) because it hosts a museum and a small library of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. More incredible views to the vertical city of Hong Kong. Finally visited some markets at the Mong Kok district (electronic goods, goldfish and other pets, e.g. puppies and kittens in tiny cages, flowers, birds).

Today will try to visit some beaches on the Southern side of the Hong Kong Island and later in the evening some museums. Tomorrow will go to Macau (world largest casinos and a UNESCO World Heritage downtown).

11st floor, B-block, Chungking Mansion, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Yesterday morning successfully arrived in Hong Kong. It is good to be in a clean, quiet and civilized environment, e.g. where you can walk on the sidewalks without worrying about stepping into cow shit, stumbling over a sleeping person, being bitten by a rabid dog, being spat on, and run over by a auto-rickshaw.

Our new home is in the Chungking Mansion (Tsim Sha Tsui district), a labyrinth-like 20-storey building full of guest houses, all scattered over the whole building, e.g. our tiny room (including a 1m2 bathroom containing shower, sink and toilet) is on the 6th floor C-block while the guest house reception is on the 11th floor B-block. Interestingly, the building is full on Indians (and their food and music) and Africans. So we haven't been quite able to leave India just yet. But this place seems to be one of the few that offers reasonably priced accommodation (180 H$ = 23 USD) in Hong Kong.

Yesterday evening promenaded the southern tip of the Kowloon peninsula (the Avenue of Stars) and watched the laser show --- the skyscrapers of the Hong  Kong island lighting up by the rhythm of the music and a few green laser beams shot into the sky. The view to the Hong Kong island with the lit up sky scrapers is impressive even without the laser show. The show could have actually been better (maybe the foggy weather made it worse), plus the background music sucked and the sea stank.

Finished the evening at an Irish pub eating sausages with beans and mashed potatoes, and drinking beer. (To appreciate the significance of this consider that all of this stuff was illegal in Gujarat.)

TODO-list for Hong Kong:

• apply for the Chinese visa (will take at least 3 days)
  
• visit several museums: Art, Space, Science, Zoo
• visit Disneyland
• consider buying a new camera (the flashing and focusing capability of our 5-year-old Lumix has been deteriorating over the recent months)
• visit the 55th floor the IFC Mall
• visit Macau
• visit several markets: goldfish, flower, bird, night food
• climb to The Peak and/or to The Great Buddha to enjoy the views to the city
• visit the Kowloon Park and swim in its Olympic-sized swimming pool
  

Mumbai Airport

After 9h in train, then 1h in taxi have completed the escape from Amdavad, the city that held us hostage for 10 days. In 8h fly to Hong Kong.

Relief Cyber Cafe, Ahmedabad

After 10 days we are finally leaving Ahmedabad. We are both fit now and ready to go on. Considering the natural catastrophes unfolding and the different epidemics, we decided to go to Hong Kong. We will visit India during an other trip. Our flight is on the 1st of September. We will probably spend a week in Hong Kong with a side trip to Macau and then fly to Beijing.
Yesterday we did our first sightseeing here, visited the house where Gandiji spent 15 years of his life.