Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Guilin

left for hong kong. Bless you taiwan airport for these amazing chairs! on all forms of transportation i always fall asleep and wake up magically right when it's time to go. always. its a natural talent


I arrived in Hong Kong and immediately applied for a visa to mainland china. the visa ended up costing $260! geez. then i went to the national records office to find grandpa's ship.  no luck. i spent a lot of time searching and went to a bunch of places but didn't get anything good.

cool ship in victoria harbor

Hong kong is much bigger than I thought! there's little space and lots of people so land is expensive. the result is lots of skyscrapers. it was a very exciting city and had a cool feel. it was also clean! thanks brits

many many asians

they don't need street lights cuz the signs are so bright and hang over the street!

My hostel was cheap and ghetto and far from the city center. lesson learned - going for the cheapest price takes more time and usually costs more money in the long run (i would have to have gotten taxis to get there at night) At the hostel there was a spanish guy who did consulting for large travel companies. he had to leave because spain's economy is a mess. 

need to put this sign up at sarah's house

i think that sounds like an awesome job for me. but not in spain

my hostel was behind big buddha

next day I went to the midlevels. This is huge escalator that goes up and up the side of the mountain. There are streets with cool restaurants all alongside the way. fun fun

went to the temple looking for the family history center. the internet sent me to the wrong place. i called them a week before to get help but nobody spoke english.



The buildings in hong kong harbor have a really cool light show every night.



I got my passport to mainland china on wednesday.  traveling in mainland china was a challenge. everything was really crowed because of chinese new year and spring festival. many people work in the modern cities in the east and travel west to their home for the holidays. i traveled west at the wrong time!

red packages filled with fruits and candies were being sold all over for chinese new year

When I crossed the border into china I spent a half hour trying to figure out how to get to shenzhen. Then I realized I was already in shenzhen.

should i?

I was surprised how nice the city was. i thought china was supposed ghetto. shenzhen is one of China's most advanced cities even tho they only started building it up twenty years ago. ever since the economic reforms, china has invested tons of money on its eastern cities but has neglected the other places.

I spent the night at a park. There was all sorts of things going on, including some people doing sword stuff

family playing a hackysack kinda game but this was way cooler. the thing had feathers

I realized that not all chinese people are robots like you see on tv or in the news. they are intense about getting ahead in terms of education and career tho.

water buffalo!

because all of china was returning home, the trains were full and everything was more expensive. on top of that i had problems with my debit card, my skype was blocked, everything was in chinese, and i had to move hostels every night to get the best price. i did it. im good

I was getting concerned when these were the only buildings i saw on the way to my hostel




Then I accidentally bought a train ticket back go hong kong for the wrong month! i had to delay my flight a day (free of charge!)

sun and moon pagodas. they looks so much cooler in real life

I stayed with a family on the train for the first night of the new year celebration. it was fun. they gave me food and a red envelope with money. we played card games and did tricks. they didn't speak english and i didn't speak chinese. i taught them how to play BS with just gestures.

I arrived in Guilin before the hostel opened up so i sat outside. i jumped when this huge thing of firecrackers went off right behind me. i thought it was gunshots. in the morning for chinese new year the people set off firecrackers outside their front doors.



chinese people are so loud and pushy and are not shy about any bodily functions. it was annoying!

this is a bathroom

an hour after arriving i went on a cruise to yangshuo. there was an awesome karst landscape. ive always wanted to go here since seeing pictures of it my first days at the chinese buffets



we saw a guy that uses cormorants to catch his fish for him. the bird gets fish from the water and returns to the guy. the guy opens the birds mouth and takes the fish out!
 next i went on a tour of a little town and went on lil bamboo boats.



I spent the dinner with a german group. they were kind of quiet. i think they need beer to have fun

next day i saw the Longsheng rice terraces. it was cool but i wish i had seen it when they flood the fields. I spent all day with spaniards and argentinians. they were cool.






I traveled to some ancient town. didnt know the name of it then and i don't know it now. It was pretty lame but it was fun to go exploring on the way there.


it was weird that people still live in these really ancient buildings. they are historical landmarks



I was so excited to see walmart! they have huge tubs of rice


I rented a bike and biked around all day. I was pretty much lost the whole time but it was fun.

I got a sleeper bus back to shenzhen. tight space! i was so happy i had biked all day because i was able to sleep through most of that ride

the trees were all covered along this highway. modern art?

i went back to hong kong and saw some more touristy things. i was glad to be able to go back for another day cuz i thought i wasnt going to see all the major attractions in hong kong. i saw stars for bruce lee, jet li, and jackie chan. and more importantly...

her name is miranda you can call her miranda!

From the grove to hong kong!

I went way way way over budget on my travel so i tried to limit my eating. there are mcdonald's everywhere in china. i ate there alot because i got sick of ordering food and finding out it has seafood (i couldn't read the menus)

but i had to have famous hong kong dim sum. this was a great experience minus the avril lavine album playing in the background

china = sanitation nightmare!!!! i was so happy to be back in my apartment in my sanitary bubble

i was in a nice grocery store and this huge rat came out. the worker stepped on it and everything was back to normal. business as usual.

here's part of the kitchen of the restaurant i ate at. she gave me a humungous plate of a freshly picked vegetable ( i don't know what it was but it was good)

and i'm back in taiwan!