Thailand I (Bangkok)

Thinking back on my time last semester, I'm extremely disappointed that I didn't finish blogging about the rest of my trips.  I've decided that I'll still post some pictures and comments, even though it's been a few months.

John, Matt, and I went to Thailand in November.  We only had about 4 days, so we decided to fly into Bangkok and stay there a few nights before taking the train up to Ayutthaya, the ancient capital of Thailand, and spend a few nights there before returning to Hong Kong via Bangkok.

Some highlights:
Food!  Street-side vendors selling everything from fresh fruit to Pad Thai--it was all cheap and it was all delicious.

 Fresh fruit, cut on the spot into a delicious fruit salad

Another side of Hong Kong

Hong Kong is mostly known for its high rises, bustling nightlife, and delicious dim sum, so I thought it would be worthwhile to make a quick post about the beautiful green landscapes that can be found here!

Yesterday, John, Matt, David and I took a quick MTR ride up to Tai Po Market to go hike some waterfalls that we had heard about from other students.  The bus ride from the MTR stop over to our destination proved to be rather difficult as nobody seemed to know these mysterious waterfalls that we were talking about and we had no real description of where we were supposed to go besides a bus number and a vague "20 minute ride" description.  After some random wanderings and a combination of Mandarin speaking and interpretive gesturing, some road workers pointed us in the right direction and we found our path.

The climbing wasn't easy and rather long, especially with the heat, but the trees gave a lot of shade and once we reached our destination, the waterfall pools provided the much-needed cooling off.  There is a lower fall, the main fall, and an upper fall--all are absolutely gorgeous and a lot of fun on a warm day.  Take a peek after the jump!

The Peak

I guess it's about time I post about Hong Kong itself, hm?

There's probably no better place to start than Victoria Peak, the highest point on Hong Kong island at 552m (thanks, Wikipedia!).  I had been there back in September on a trip organized by the university for us exchange students, but that trip was on a hot sunny day and we were told that the view is even more stunning at night.  Read more after the jump...

Made a friend up on the Peak

Halloween

I can't believe it's November already--that means I only have a month and a half left here...yikes!  The high of 32C today really doesn't help convince me it's November either...

Yesterday was Halloween, and Hong Kong definitely celebrates.  The most famous bar and nightlife district here is Lan Kwai Fong, which spans a few blocks in the middle of Hong Kong island.  I had heard lots of rumors about the LKF Halloween celebrations, but once we got there, I realized that I had no idea what I had gotten myself into...find out more after the jump!

A sign pointing the way in case you didn't trust the crowds pouring in a particular direction.  Police was regulating pedestrian traffic all night.

Vietnam II (Cu Chi tunnels & Ho Chi Minh)

After returning from our bike tour thoroughly soaked and exhausted, we met up with everyone else again and did a bunch of eating and walking around the city--past the Reunification Palace and through local markets, all while trying not to get hit by the thousands of mopeds on the street.  Literally everyone seemed to have one.  There were lots of hole-in-the-wall restaurants with chairs and tables on the street; we had some great Pho at one of these at 3am before we left for the airport at 3:45am on Monday morning.

Hole-in-the-wall restaurant with a mix of tourists and locals

The Irish boys (Chris and Rob) playing with their food

Vietnam I (Mekong Delta)

A group of fourteen (!) of CUHK exchange students went to Vietnam this weekend, Ho Chi Minh City to be exact.  Since we had so many people we decided to split up so everyone could do what they wanted to--a few people went to the beach in Mui Ne, a few people stayed in the city, and 4 of us girls decided to go on a 2-day biking tour to the Mekong Delta.

It was a small private tour, so it was just the four of us plus our tour guide.  We got driven out of the city in a van with the bikes in the back for about an hour, then we got on the bikes and started going, first on paved country roads and then on gravel paths through rice fields and villages.  It was a whole new way to see the Vietnamese countryside; biking in the local traffic really helped immerse us into the culture and allowed us to see, hear, and smell the place in a way that is not possible from a tour bus.

We watched workers peel cashews, sampled fresh dragon fruit, rode alongside children biking to school, plugged our noses from the horrid smell of durians being sold on the street, watched a moped pull a cart filled with three grunting full-grown pigs, and waved at smiley locals yelling "Hello!" out of their hammocks.

Ready to bike

Mainland adventures I (Shanghai & Hangzhou)

For the weekend of October 1st, I went home to see the family in Shanghai and we took a train to Hangzhou, which has a beautiful lake where the emperor used to go chill out over the summer to get some fresh air and nature.

John (a Canadian) and Matt (a Seattle-ite who wishes he was Canadian) came with me to Shanghai, though they stayed in the city for the entire weekend.  The trip started out on a bad note because we missed our flight thanks to the crazy Shenzhen traffic, but thankfully we were able to rebok for a flight about an hour after we got to the airport.

John and Matt, fast asleep.  It's too bad I don't have any more flattering pictures of them from the weekend...

Singapore III (F1 Grand Prix)

Hunter and I got 3-day walkabout passes off of Craigslist, from a woman who had gotten the tickets for herself and her boyfriend, but turns out that he had to go on a business trip and she didn't wanna go by herself...

The Singapore F1 Grand Prix is a. the only night race of the F1, and b. a street track, meaning that it's in the middle of Singapore streets and not on a permanent racetrack.  This way, the race had the lit-up city as its backdrop and it wasn't too hot walking around and watching the race.  The first two days were practices and qualifications, which gave us a chance to check out the location and stake out some good viewing spots.  Katy Perry was supposed to perform Saturday night but canceled due to "personal reasons".  Crap if you ask me, but oh well.  The actual race was on Sunday.  What made it even more exciting was the fact that I got a digital SLR (a Sony A350, part of their "alpha" line) earlier in the day was eager to test drive it, no pun intended :)

 In front of the entrance gate ("Are you ready for the magic?"...Yes. Duh.)

 Of course I had to go see the Porsche Carrera Cup earlier in the day--it was even better thinking that I had sat in the passenger seat of a GT3 RS just like these and experienced drifts on the Shanghai F1 track...

"Forget the stairway to heaven, I'm taking the Porsche..." (quote courtesy of the one and only Scott Lensing)

Then it came time for the actual race and we tried to go see it from one of the spots we had found, but of course there were people everywhere.  Most of them were a lot more determined than us and probably got to their spots a long time before we showed up, so we decided to watch a bit of the race from one place and switch locations.

Waiting for the race to start

Vrooooooooommmmmmm.  Ferrari was definitely the most popular among the fans.

This beautiful bridge/view was part of the race course

This sums up most of the race: fans, race track, workers (coolest job ever?), skyline, and the Johnnie Walker sponsorship sign

Lewis Hamilton (McLaren Mercedes) doing his victory lap

 Racetrack with gorgeous city hall in back

So like I said before, I didn't get to see Katy Perry perform Saturday night, but I did get to see... (drumroll please)

Only 4 of the BSBs performed, but my fave was there:  Nick Carter

...the Backstreet Boys!!!  Yes, they are still performing and recording.  Apparently there is a new CD coming out in October.  They sang some new stuff, some old stuff (best parts of the concert), and each of them sang a song off of their solo albums (mostly awkwardly bad pop songs with a little bit of a Latin or rock'n roll twist).  Overall I'd say the concert was mediocre at best, from the singing to the dancing, but it was still an awesome throwback to the 90s to see the Backstreet Boys perform in Singapore.  It was definitely the cherry on top of this entire weekend.

Singapore II (Chinatown & Sentosa Island)

So I'm still not over how diverse Singapore is--everyone kept telling me that it would be just another Hong Kong, but it was definitely different.  This is gonna be more about the country itself; the next post will be about the Formula 1!

We took a little walk through Chinatown (yes yes, I realize we came from China), and, ironically, the first place we went was a mosque.  My attire wasn't quite appropriate for the mosque, but they have a closet full of traditional robes that they happily lent to me so we could go inside.  I felt very cool but very sweaty in it, and in all my efforts to not overheat I forgot to take pictures.  Sad face :(  We just kind of wandered through the streets and found a man selling ice cream sandwiches--literally blocks of ice cream on colored bread--and decided to give them a go.  I love ice cream, and I love bread, but I guess I'd never thought to put them together...it was yummy, though kinda odd.  Hunter got a brain freeze after one bite so I got to eat most of it while we walked through the Chinatown Night Market by day :)

Enjoying my ice cream sammy

 

The market

The Buddha Tooth Relic Temple is in the middle of Chinatown--it's huge, and it's beautiful. Again, it was not nearly as tourist-y as we expected and fully functional; we caught the tail end of some ceremony with lots of chanting and candle lighting.

The temple 

 

The end of the ceremony 

 

Each god watches over the people born under a certain zodiac sign

 On Saturday, before heading over to the race, we took a little trip to Sentosa Island.  They're turning it into a sort of Disneyland/amusement park place, so there was lots of construction, but we still got to climb atop the Merlion (Singapore's mascot, half lion and half fish), got a great view of Singapore and the surrounding waters from the Tiger Sky Tower, and dipped our toes into the Straits of Singapore!  The weather was absolutely gorgeous.

In front of the Merlion 

Crazy construction in front, the harbor/shipping yard in the middle, and Singapore skyline in back

 Weather forecasting stone...I thought it was funny

 Pretty pretty place

Singapore I (Little India)

I know I'm in Hong Kong right now, and I'll definitely get around to posting about it (promise!), but I had an awesome weekend in Singapore and needed to share :)

The trip was sorta impromptu--booked the tickets 3 days before I left.  I had heard about the Formula 1 Grand Prix taking place in Singapore when I was interning at Porsche this summer, but I didn't think I wanted to go until about 2 weeks ago when I kept seeing more and more things about it.  My friend Hunter was crazy enough to say "yes" to 1. a trip on such short notice and 2. to buying F1 tickets off of Craig's List, so off we went...

...and it. was. amazing.  Singapore is such a multicultural city; we walked down one street where a mosque stood next to a temple which stood next to a church.  Because there was so much awesomeness packed into one city, I'm gonna start with the part of town in which our hostel was:  Little India!

The streets of Little India, by night.  All the decorations are for Deepavali, the festival of lights, which will take place mid-October.

The highlight was definitely Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple (try saying that 5 times fast...):

Outside Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple in Little India

All the shoes lined up at the entrance--one is only allowed to enter barefoot

We expected it to be very tourist-y, but not at all--it was buzzing with devotees praying and performing various Hindu rituals.  I didn't want to be intrusive and tried to be discreet about taking pictures, so they're not of the highest quality, but you get the idea...

Ceremonial milk pouring

Waiting to receive blessings

The entire place was very ornate and colorful.  I don't know much about Hinduism, and this was probably one of the best crash courses on Hindu rituals I could have had.

Of course we had to get ourselves some delicious (and cheap!) Indian food--yum!  We decided our best bet was to find a place where lots of locals where eating, and we couldn't have been happier with our choice:

Hunter, with our food and a fresh coconut.  He'd never had one before.

 More to come soon :)

All life is an experiment...

...and this is one of them:  my blog!

Everyone always seems to be coming from somewhere and going elsewhere.  It's what makes life exciting, but  keeping in touch with people becomes increasingly difficult.  So this blog is my vain attempt to share a bit about my life once in a while, to tell the story of the places I've landed as I wander through this wondrous world.

Here it goes...