Xiamen

I woke up before sunrise today to fly to Xiamen, home of the Nanputuo Temple. It was extremely hot (about 90° F; of course I still don't use Celsius, come on) and teeming with Chinese tourists. I love it.

At the temple, there was this great sign that forbids you from leaving your own turtles or birds in their ponds. It really makes you wonder how many people have left random animals, that they need to put up a sign. Two signs, even.

Yes, that's my finger in the picture. The full-size picture is of me, pointing to the sign and looking mournful. I thought it best to crop it.

I had lunch at a restaurant where the plates were wrapped in plastic, like new. Apparently they wash them and repackage them after every use.

Not really much else to say about this place...there were loads of people selling delicious mangos in trucks on the street. And when I say trucks, I don't mean your typical food trucks, no, that would be silly!
Here's a picture.

I saw about five of these trucks all on one block. I can't for the life of me figure out why they're all clustered in one area, but I won't concern myself.

On the second day of this little trip, I went to the Hudong Mountain and saw the Tianluokeng Tulou Cluster (a group of buildings nearby the mountain). It was a three hour cab ride from Xiamen, which is probably infinitely more convenient than traveling by bus. As the cab pulled into the ticket office parking lot, I watched as tour guides desperately chased after us to try to drum up business. Tip: if you're trying to get rid of an unsolicited tour guide, instead of shooing them away like you normally would, try shushing them. Shuts them right up! (kidding, kidding)

The cluster was full of vendors selling cigarettes and loose tea; it was quite interesting. And this was basically the last I saw of Xiamen Island (although I suppose this mountain isn't technically part of Xiamen) before heading over to Gulangyu Island.

Hong Kong

Funny story. I’m writing this from the plane, as my flight from Hong Kong has been delayed for two and a half hours. Something about a typhoon in Shanghai, I think? My only regret is not removing my contacts before checking in my contact lens case.

Anyway, I spent the past few days exploring Hong Kong. I visited loads of tourist attractions, such as the Hong Kong Times Square, the Avenue of Stars, and the Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple (I know, it's a mouthful).

The food was wonderful and reminded me of childhood. I had dim sum at a fairly nice restaurant, where it is customary to rinse your dishes with hot water prior to your meal.

I've been craving chicken feet for at least a month.

Tastes like childhood; my sister will back me up on this.

I also had a meal at Yung Kee, a restaurant famous for its roast goose. Its beef chow fun was one of the best I’ve ever had. The crab, however, was not particularly noteworthy.

One of the highlights of the trip was the trip to see the Big Buddha (yes, I believe that’s the official name), which primarily entailed hopping on a cable car. I made it my mission to wave to as many passing cable cars as possible. I estimate that I had about a 5% success rate. I’d like to note how much I appreciate cable cars; I certainly could not have managed the trek to or from the Big Buddha.

Wendy, if you're reading this, I know you would have waved with me.

At the top, there were sleepy, fluffy dogs everywhere. It kind of reminded me of my trip to Athens a few years back. Here's where I would link to my post about Athens if I had written one. Oops...

I feel you, sleepy dog, I truly do.

Since the locals speak Cantonese, I was afforded the opportunity to eavesdrop on people's conversations! Sort of. I really only understood bits and pieces, but that’s definitely more than what I get in Shanghai.

Ocean Park is Hong Kong’s aquarium. But it also happens to be a theme park and a zoo, all wrapped up in one! Why they need another theme park when they have a Disneyland is beyond me, but it’s undeniably unique. The Hair Raiser and the Abyss were quite fun.

The view from the top of the Flash is amazing. For some strange reason, Hong Kong is prettier upside down.

However, one of the downsides to this park is how annoying it is to navigate. The paths are rather circuitous and the road signs aren't always helpful.

Take this photo as proof that I didn't spend the entirety of my time at Ocean Park on sub-par rides.

Overall, I loved Hong Kong. Would definitely go again, although it might have been slightly better to go with someone who spoke Cantonese.

P.S. This update is several days late because I was trying to figure out how to add pictures. It just refused to load.

I like fluffy things

Today, even though it was raining for the third day in a row, I went to the zoo! The red panda was the cutest thing and the giant pandas spent the entire time eating bamboo leaves; it was so adorable I wanted to explode)

But can we talk about how lax they are concerning certain rules? Like no smoking in a temple, when I saw more than one person smoking at one I visited earlier. And the more relevant rule: no feeding the animals at the zoo. There were so many people throwing bread and carrots at the animals.

See, this bear is sitting here, waiting for more bread.

Moving on. Afterwards, I went to this Bavarian restaurant, Drei Kronen 1308 Brauhaus, and befriended approximately twenty people. Everyone was so friendly! There actually seems to be quite a large population of Germans in Shanghai. At least more than you would necessarily expect.

Good morning

I know I promised to complain less, but this isn’t a Shanghai-specific complaint, so it hardly counts. Here goes: the new iOS 8 update is the bane of my existence. That is all.

This was meant to be posted about 15 hours ago, but for some reason, blogger wouldn't load.

Please curb your child

I began my first full day in China by attempting to make good on my promise to run. I don't think I've gone for a run in weeks, to be completely honest. And I'm trying to avoid gaining vacation weight as well as justify my decision to bring my sneakers and athletic wear.

So at 7am, I was out and about, jogging through the neighborhood in the pouring rain. Turns out this part of Shanghai all looks the same, which did nothing for my fear of getting lost. Make a right at that store with the bright pink awning, go around that bridge, don't get hit by these scooters... Aside from the part where I was constantly watching out for cars/scooters/bikes, it was a great run! I might have to buy an inexpensive watch to keep track of the time, but I can't wait for my next run! After all, I can't ignore this opportunity to explore the neighborhood! Not that I can really understand the words on all these store awnings.

When I returned, my father and I had a lively discussion concerning the detriments of donating blood, the death penalty, illegal immigration...everything under the sun.

We went to this lovely garden, the Yuyuan Garden, where I was a huge camera whore and this nice German woman complimented my smile. Seriously, I probably ended up with about a hundred new pictures, just from today. And I’m stupidly happy about it. Afterwards, we had lunch at this soup dumpling place, where I posed for a few more pictures. There was this really cool crab roe soup dumpling that caused me to burn my mouth. More than once. Patience is a virtue that I do not have.

I saw four chickens in front of someone's house nearby the garden and almost paused to take a picture. Honestly, I should have. They weren't even fenced in; they were just there, pecking at the grass.

If you'll remember, in an early post I mentioned what I'd heard about the state of the restrooms in China. So I was mentally prepared for hole-in-the-ground bathrooms in more rural areas, but I figured since I was in a nice soup dumpling restaurant, the restrooms would be fine, right? Wrong.

In other news, today I came to horrifying conclusion that I desperately need Google to survive. All I can say is thank goodness my college still allows me to use their VPN, years after graduation. I am truly grateful.

Initial Impressions

This will be a short one!

• People seem to be really into their smoking around here. As soon as we got outside to the bus stop at the airport, several people lit up, as if it would kill them to wait a bit longer.
• Okay, to be fair, I guess if you’ve been on a plane for fifteen hours, you might be going through withdrawal or something.
• In the cab on the way to the center of the city, we passed several buildings that were Barbie Dream House pink.
• There are an extraordinary number of people riding about on scooters; it’s kind of adorable, but simultaneously (speaking as a pedestrian) massively annoying.
• Apparently, attaining a wireless card for a macbook is incredibly inconvenient. Additionally, you are required to provide identification in order to purchase one of these babies. 
• The man who sold me my wifi card had abnormally long pinky nails. Abnormal to me, at least. I was informed that this was actually something of a tradition among Chinese men. In fact, on the following day, I noticed a man on the subway with similar fingernails. It was kind of amazing.
• There are so many KFCs in this city; I've seen at least five so far. It reminds me of when I went to Copenhagen and came across two 7/11s, technically on the same block. Chinese people must really love their fried chicken. I know I do.

P.S. We're still pretending I posted this on the 17th, okay? Okay!

Here we go!

I actually wasn't going to blog this time, until it was suggested to me. But it's a brilliant idea, so here goes!! Warning: my writing will probably be all over the place. I should also apologize for all my run-ons. There will be a lot of them; I do tend to ramble on...

My father has been telling me that he wanted to take me to China, his birthplace, for years and years now. So here I am, on a place some five thousand miles away from Manhattan, returning to "home country," as my cousin would say. It's rather uncharitable for me to say that I haven't seriously believed he would take me, but that doesn't make it any less true.

I think he's imagining that I'll be incredibly bored during some parts of the trip, and I suspect he's correct. There is no universe in which I would enjoy touring six temples in a single day (something my sister complained about in one of her postcards, if I recall correctly). Additionally, I have to confess that I'm not particularly interested in the history of this great nation. I kind of tune out when he talks about it.

He's spent quite a bit of time warning me about how I'll have to beware of pickpockets, that they're worse in Shanghai than anywhere else in the world. I've also been appropriately forewarned about the conditions of certain restrooms in the country ("sometimes it's just a hole in the ground and you have to squat"). If they're to be believed, I would probably prefer urinating in the woods, wiping myself with leaves.

Although I did have some reservations about spending such a vast amount of time with my father, especially considering the stressful nature of traveling and my extraordinarily short temper, I'm sure this will be an incredible experience. One that I will talk about for years to come! For instance, words cannot express how much I am looking forward to riding a camel. I have been informed that you can, in fact, ride camels in the Bronx Zoo, but it's simply not the same. Or maybe it is, how would I know until I actually do it?

Fifteen hours flights are no picnic. First of all, this one flight attendant can't seem to stop telling me how sweet and soft my voice is. It's kind of really off-putting. But more importantly, in preparation for my flight, I attempted to pull an all-nighter, despite the fact that I was definitely packed before 11pm. I still can't quite tell if that was a good idea, but in defense of my decision, I did manage to nap several times, in between The Wolf of Wall Street and 10 Things I Hate About You. (I cannot get over how thin Julia Stiles was.) I also managed to watch Frozen for the tenth time, though I fast forwarded through all but two of the songs.

I promise my future posts will be less complainy.

P.S. Pretend I had a working adapter and posted this on Wednesday, the 17th.