Shanghai was an interesting city..there wasn't much to see, but I'm sure if we stayed longer I would take some daytrips to the outer areas. I got to walk along the Bund riverwalk and view the amazing contrast of modern day buildings and the older buildings leftover from the Europeans. We also went to the IFC building, the tallest building in Shanghai, and the view was so beautiful! But it cost an arm and a leg to get up there. There was also the Bund Tunnel which goes under the river and it shows the Chinese interpretation of heaven and hell. To be honest, it was the cheesiest thing I've ever seen, with blowup figures and tacky Christmas lights, but it was definitely a sight. I suppose we were just experiencing some of the culture.
Our hotel was right next to the main pedestrian street with lots of shopping, so of course Maibritt and I made several trips, but not much lucky with actual buying. We were approached by the usuals, "bag, watch. gucci, prada!". I got used to ignoring people while I was in China. There was also a mall nearby, and I went there to get Subway, luckily they understood english! Most of the food in the "food" court was dessert! If anything, more locals were going for the sweet stuff rather than real food. It's amazing to see how the Chinese absolutely love sweets now! Everywhere I went in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China there were tons of bakeries and dessert shops.
We traveled to our company visits by coach and many of our lunches were provided. My fave company visit in China was to Philips. We had an excellent speaker who gave us a clear history and Philips' goals in China. There was even a Human Resources presentation which felt like they were trying to recruit us, but hey, why not?
I hung out with Maibritt a lot since we were roomies for the trip and she even got me to do some morning exercises! Most nights we stayed in and caught up on TV via internet since there wasn't much else to see around the city. Overall, a really relaxing trip and a nice change of pace from my crazy traveling before.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Kunming
After the crazy schedule from Beijing, I was ready for some rest, but not too much! Jenny, David, and I left for Kunming in the Yunnan province. I've dreamed of going to Yunnan ever since I saw a Yunnan dance performance at UNC my freshman year. I was so excited to see the ethnic minorities and traditional dress of Yunnan.
Kunming was definitely a bustling city, something I didn't expect. We settled down in our hotel and planned out our weekend. My Lonely Planet guide came in handy the entire trip. The first order of business was to grab some lunch, so we tried to find Mama Fu's nearby, but accidentally went into the wrong one! Nevertheless I got a huge bowl of noodles for less than $1! That's definitely good enough for me. Next, we went to the Chuang Ku, or Loft, art section of the city. Our hotel was centrally located, so we walked there, and it took much longer than I thought it would. But once we got there it was so charming, and there were some cool cafes and art galleries. The art we saw seemed so European, so it was reminiscent of my trek across Italy. Seeing something different like this was so refreshing after all of the traditional Chinese art and buildings. There was even one gallery that was born from an artist from China and one from Sweden.
Afterwards we walked to the East and Western pagodas. They were pretty close to each other, and nice to see, but we couldn't go inside because they aren't really restored. There was some kind of food festival going on in the area too! Tons of dried fruit, nuts, snacks, etc...even ostrich eggs?
It was starting to get dark, so we headed back to the hotel and tried to find a teahouse to sit in and relax since our feet were hurting. At least mine and Jenny's feet hurt, David's a trooper. Couldn't find anything, so we referred to the handy dandy Lonely Planet guide and went to a cafe. We relaxed for awhile and drank some tea, and waited for our appetites to kick in. Jenny and I shared some traditional "Across the Bridge" noodles, which turned out to be more food than we could handle. Oops...
Okay, so I've decided I've gone into too much detail, so I'll try to go for more highlights now.
The next day we went to the Stone Forest and Da Shui Pu Bu, a waterfall. We hired a driver, who turned out to be not so nice at the beginning. We planned on running to Wal-Mart or Carrefour to buy lunch supplies, but he refused because of traffic, so instead he took us to a nice local place at the Stone Forest. We tried some of the local mushrooms, since they are more expensive everywhere else in the world. Some of the best dishes I've had since I got to China! I even asked the waitress to write down the names for me. The Stone Forest seemed pretty artificial, until we found a path that led down and then up to the top of the rock formations! There was no one else up there, so we took our time and sometimes I thought I'd fall. There were no railings, but you could tell which rocks were used as handholds since they were smoother than the rest of the formations. Before we got to the Stone Forest our driver took us to the Waterfall, and I'm pretty sure he got lost for a bit...but once we got there it was just good to get out of the car. We took a cable car down so we could explore the area around the waterfall too. Jenny and I were posing for a picture in front of the waterfall when donkey almost ran us over? Next thing you know its owner comes down running after it, haha, that was pretty fun. Then on the walk back to the car a herd of goats came by...and there were cows by the waterfall. It was an animal filled day for us.
The other highlight was going to the Western Hills. We managed to take public transportation all the way there! We made our own lunches and enjoyed them before the real climb started. We followed the road for awhile, it was strange since there wasn't really a walking path. But eventually we found one and of course it was filled with locals trying to sell us little toys and trinkets. We trekked all over the mountain and found some more paths leading to another side...Jenny and I didn't make it all the way, but we waited so David could get to a higher point. Obviously, David was more gung ho about going the extra mile during the trip. Then we took a long cable car halfway down and walked the rest of the way. The walk was much further than I remembered...
That night we found the real Mama Fu's and I had a hamburger for the first time in MONTHS...maybe a year or something! Crazy! It was so delicious and juicy, I scarfed the whole thing down. The best part was that everything seemed home cooked. The patty was handmade and the bread was fresh..mmm...now I'm hungry and it's almost lunchtime!
Coming up next....the study trip to Shanghai and Tokyo!
Kunming was definitely a bustling city, something I didn't expect. We settled down in our hotel and planned out our weekend. My Lonely Planet guide came in handy the entire trip. The first order of business was to grab some lunch, so we tried to find Mama Fu's nearby, but accidentally went into the wrong one! Nevertheless I got a huge bowl of noodles for less than $1! That's definitely good enough for me. Next, we went to the Chuang Ku, or Loft, art section of the city. Our hotel was centrally located, so we walked there, and it took much longer than I thought it would. But once we got there it was so charming, and there were some cool cafes and art galleries. The art we saw seemed so European, so it was reminiscent of my trek across Italy. Seeing something different like this was so refreshing after all of the traditional Chinese art and buildings. There was even one gallery that was born from an artist from China and one from Sweden.
Afterwards we walked to the East and Western pagodas. They were pretty close to each other, and nice to see, but we couldn't go inside because they aren't really restored. There was some kind of food festival going on in the area too! Tons of dried fruit, nuts, snacks, etc...even ostrich eggs?
It was starting to get dark, so we headed back to the hotel and tried to find a teahouse to sit in and relax since our feet were hurting. At least mine and Jenny's feet hurt, David's a trooper. Couldn't find anything, so we referred to the handy dandy Lonely Planet guide and went to a cafe. We relaxed for awhile and drank some tea, and waited for our appetites to kick in. Jenny and I shared some traditional "Across the Bridge" noodles, which turned out to be more food than we could handle. Oops...
Okay, so I've decided I've gone into too much detail, so I'll try to go for more highlights now.
The next day we went to the Stone Forest and Da Shui Pu Bu, a waterfall. We hired a driver, who turned out to be not so nice at the beginning. We planned on running to Wal-Mart or Carrefour to buy lunch supplies, but he refused because of traffic, so instead he took us to a nice local place at the Stone Forest. We tried some of the local mushrooms, since they are more expensive everywhere else in the world. Some of the best dishes I've had since I got to China! I even asked the waitress to write down the names for me. The Stone Forest seemed pretty artificial, until we found a path that led down and then up to the top of the rock formations! There was no one else up there, so we took our time and sometimes I thought I'd fall. There were no railings, but you could tell which rocks were used as handholds since they were smoother than the rest of the formations. Before we got to the Stone Forest our driver took us to the Waterfall, and I'm pretty sure he got lost for a bit...but once we got there it was just good to get out of the car. We took a cable car down so we could explore the area around the waterfall too. Jenny and I were posing for a picture in front of the waterfall when donkey almost ran us over? Next thing you know its owner comes down running after it, haha, that was pretty fun. Then on the walk back to the car a herd of goats came by...and there were cows by the waterfall. It was an animal filled day for us.
The other highlight was going to the Western Hills. We managed to take public transportation all the way there! We made our own lunches and enjoyed them before the real climb started. We followed the road for awhile, it was strange since there wasn't really a walking path. But eventually we found one and of course it was filled with locals trying to sell us little toys and trinkets. We trekked all over the mountain and found some more paths leading to another side...Jenny and I didn't make it all the way, but we waited so David could get to a higher point. Obviously, David was more gung ho about going the extra mile during the trip. Then we took a long cable car halfway down and walked the rest of the way. The walk was much further than I remembered...
That night we found the real Mama Fu's and I had a hamburger for the first time in MONTHS...maybe a year or something! Crazy! It was so delicious and juicy, I scarfed the whole thing down. The best part was that everything seemed home cooked. The patty was handmade and the bread was fresh..mmm...now I'm hungry and it's almost lunchtime!
Coming up next....the study trip to Shanghai and Tokyo!
Monday, May 11, 2009
Beijing
Wow. I know where I should start, but it's so difficult because my entire trip to Beijing and Kunming was absolutely amazing and breathtaking. I went with a great group of people, which made the trip that much better.
On April 30, I left on a 24-hour train from Hong Kong to Beijing with Jenny, David, and Weck. I thought we had booked a 4-person soft sleeper compartment, but to my initial unfortunate surprise we ended up in 2 different 6-person hard sleeper compartments. Hope that makes sense. It's amazing how people can be packed into a train. All four of us had the top bunks too, which could be likened to a coffin. Kinda scary, huh? But I hardly spent any time up there, we stayed in the dining car for most of our awake time since it was impossible to sit up on our top bunks. Played some Mahjong, read, and finally went to bed. The lights were turned on at 7:00am and then they started serving breakfast at 7:30, but I couldn't get out of bed til after 8. Then we spent the whole day in the dining car, and waited to arrive in Beijing.
Since we didn't get settled into our hostel until around 5ish, we decided to just wait for Linea and Sabrina to get to the hostel so we could go find some dinner. I'm so glad they found the hostel okay since it's located in a hutong. Hutongs are winding alleyways that are a part of history in China. We asked the staff to point out the closest night market, and we finally found Donghuamen Night Market, known for its interesting selection of snacks. I had all sorts of snacks, but nothing too crazy. They had silk worms on a stick...starfish, baby sharks, seahorses, snake, etc. None of us tried the crazy stuff.
The next day we walked through the Forbidden City, Tian'anmen Square, and the Temple of Heaven. Our hostel was located in a great location just 5 mins. north of the Forbidden City. Once we took a winding way out of the Forbidden City we saw the picture of Mao and wanted to get a closer look. BIG mistake. That just led us right back into the gate of hte Forbidden City and the guards wouldn't let us straight back out, so we had to take another 30 min. detour. I was slightly unsatisfied with China's inefficiency at that point, but once we got to Tian'anmen Square we were bombarded by Chinese tourists wanting to take pictures with the Caucasians in our group. At the end of the day we went to Temple of Heaven, but had to stroll through quickly since things were closing and we had to get to dinner. For dinner we went to a famous Beijing dumpling house and ordered tons of dumplings by accident, but the total was only about 70RMB, which is about 10USD for 6 people! Amazing!
The next day was our 10km hike or 6 miles from Jinshanling to Simatai. My quads hurt for a few days after that. But it was all worth it for the views and the satisfaction completing the hike. Linea and Weck were definitely my motivators since they stayed ahead the entire time. Linea would even run ahead up the gravity defying stairs in order to take pics of us etc. I thought she was crazy. Around tower 18 we stopped for lunch and had a picnic on the Great Wall. It was a much needed break and refueling time. There were 30 towers for us to get through. Afterwards we took a zip line down and got to ride a little boat to our meeting point.
It's hard to describe the whole trek across the Great Wall. I know many of my pictures look the same, but each view is different and special to me.
The next day we took it easy since it was the day of our Peking Duck reservation and we were meeting up with Stephen, a fellow UNC Glober. Amazingly we were able to meet him at the Olympic area, so we walked around and went inside the Bird's Nest. Surprisingly, it seemed a lot smaller than on TV. From there we took a metro and found the Hongqiao market, or Pearl Market. Tons of fakes and miscellaneous items for sale there, but I was able to bargain hard for a few key items, like a pearl necklace, blush brush, and "silk" scarf. Then it was time to find Li Qun Roast Duck Restaurant. I was really excited since I looooooove duck and I was going to meet up with my KKG sister!! It was so awesome seeing her again and it makes me look even more forward to getting back to UNC. It took us awhile to find hte restaurant since it was located in a hutong. Dinner was delicious and we were all satisfied afterwards.
Our last day in Beijing was spent at the Summer Palace. A relaxing day and saw tons of beautiful scenery. We even took peddle boats across the lake, but the current was really fighting us. We got stuck under the bridge and had to give up and just go back so our time wouldn't run over.
I know this post is slightly haphazard, but I will update soon on Kunming and all of my pics are posted on Picasa now!
Enjoy!
On April 30, I left on a 24-hour train from Hong Kong to Beijing with Jenny, David, and Weck. I thought we had booked a 4-person soft sleeper compartment, but to my initial unfortunate surprise we ended up in 2 different 6-person hard sleeper compartments. Hope that makes sense. It's amazing how people can be packed into a train. All four of us had the top bunks too, which could be likened to a coffin. Kinda scary, huh? But I hardly spent any time up there, we stayed in the dining car for most of our awake time since it was impossible to sit up on our top bunks. Played some Mahjong, read, and finally went to bed. The lights were turned on at 7:00am and then they started serving breakfast at 7:30, but I couldn't get out of bed til after 8. Then we spent the whole day in the dining car, and waited to arrive in Beijing.
Since we didn't get settled into our hostel until around 5ish, we decided to just wait for Linea and Sabrina to get to the hostel so we could go find some dinner. I'm so glad they found the hostel okay since it's located in a hutong. Hutongs are winding alleyways that are a part of history in China. We asked the staff to point out the closest night market, and we finally found Donghuamen Night Market, known for its interesting selection of snacks. I had all sorts of snacks, but nothing too crazy. They had silk worms on a stick...starfish, baby sharks, seahorses, snake, etc. None of us tried the crazy stuff.
The next day we walked through the Forbidden City, Tian'anmen Square, and the Temple of Heaven. Our hostel was located in a great location just 5 mins. north of the Forbidden City. Once we took a winding way out of the Forbidden City we saw the picture of Mao and wanted to get a closer look. BIG mistake. That just led us right back into the gate of hte Forbidden City and the guards wouldn't let us straight back out, so we had to take another 30 min. detour. I was slightly unsatisfied with China's inefficiency at that point, but once we got to Tian'anmen Square we were bombarded by Chinese tourists wanting to take pictures with the Caucasians in our group. At the end of the day we went to Temple of Heaven, but had to stroll through quickly since things were closing and we had to get to dinner. For dinner we went to a famous Beijing dumpling house and ordered tons of dumplings by accident, but the total was only about 70RMB, which is about 10USD for 6 people! Amazing!
The next day was our 10km hike or 6 miles from Jinshanling to Simatai. My quads hurt for a few days after that. But it was all worth it for the views and the satisfaction completing the hike. Linea and Weck were definitely my motivators since they stayed ahead the entire time. Linea would even run ahead up the gravity defying stairs in order to take pics of us etc. I thought she was crazy. Around tower 18 we stopped for lunch and had a picnic on the Great Wall. It was a much needed break and refueling time. There were 30 towers for us to get through. Afterwards we took a zip line down and got to ride a little boat to our meeting point.
It's hard to describe the whole trek across the Great Wall. I know many of my pictures look the same, but each view is different and special to me.The next day we took it easy since it was the day of our Peking Duck reservation and we were meeting up with Stephen, a fellow UNC Glober. Amazingly we were able to meet him at the Olympic area, so we walked around and went inside the Bird's Nest. Surprisingly, it seemed a lot smaller than on TV. From there we took a metro and found the Hongqiao market, or Pearl Market. Tons of fakes and miscellaneous items for sale there, but I was able to bargain hard for a few key items, like a pearl necklace, blush brush, and "silk" scarf. Then it was time to find Li Qun Roast Duck Restaurant. I was really excited since I looooooove duck and I was going to meet up with my KKG sister!! It was so awesome seeing her again and it makes me look even more forward to getting back to UNC. It took us awhile to find hte restaurant since it was located in a hutong. Dinner was delicious and we were all satisfied afterwards.
Our last day in Beijing was spent at the Summer Palace. A relaxing day and saw tons of beautiful scenery. We even took peddle boats across the lake, but the current was really fighting us. We got stuck under the bridge and had to give up and just go back so our time wouldn't run over.
I know this post is slightly haphazard, but I will update soon on Kunming and all of my pics are posted on Picasa now!
Enjoy!
Monday, April 27, 2009
More Shenzhen
Well, since my last post about Shenzhen, I have been there 4 more times. I went again with Linea, Jenny, Weck, and Daniel to stroll around and go back to the spa. Only the 3 girls went to the spa, and it was absolutely amazing again! I just can't believe how cheap the services are, though it is not a traditional spa, and you definitely get what you pay for. I asked for a pedicure, but they offer nail painting services for extra. The pedicure was just trimming the nails, then I got my feet smoothed. And I swear, my feet have not been so smooth since I was baby! They were so soft! Haha, I really enjoyed that. We ended up staying there and talking/eating dinner for a few hours then finally headed back to Hong Kong.
The third time I went to get some tailor made suits. We found a really nice woman, who I thought was the top recommended tailor, but it turns out her store was literally right around the corner! Either way, I am pleased with the results. I printed out pictures so they would know exactly what I wanted my pieces to look like. She even brought us to the fabric market to help us get good deals, then took our measurements. We went back a week later to get fitted, then had to get some adjustments made, but my stuff turned out pretty well. I ordered one skirt suit and an extra pencil skirt. For the three pieces I paid around $50! The lining is thinner, but I think that's nice for the summer months. I highly suggest you to go to Shenzhen for tailor made suits if you're ever in Hong Kong in the future! It's just a metro ride away and there's also tons of shopping you can do in the area. I've honestly never seen so many fake stuff in my life. I've bought DVD's and a nice little coin purse, as well as some other random cheap stuff. As a result of my many trips to Shenzhen, I've gotten a lot better at bargaining and even managed to get a small makeup bag down about 75% from their original asking price. Success!
The third time I went to get some tailor made suits. We found a really nice woman, who I thought was the top recommended tailor, but it turns out her store was literally right around the corner! Either way, I am pleased with the results. I printed out pictures so they would know exactly what I wanted my pieces to look like. She even brought us to the fabric market to help us get good deals, then took our measurements. We went back a week later to get fitted, then had to get some adjustments made, but my stuff turned out pretty well. I ordered one skirt suit and an extra pencil skirt. For the three pieces I paid around $50! The lining is thinner, but I think that's nice for the summer months. I highly suggest you to go to Shenzhen for tailor made suits if you're ever in Hong Kong in the future! It's just a metro ride away and there's also tons of shopping you can do in the area. I've honestly never seen so many fake stuff in my life. I've bought DVD's and a nice little coin purse, as well as some other random cheap stuff. As a result of my many trips to Shenzhen, I've gotten a lot better at bargaining and even managed to get a small makeup bag down about 75% from their original asking price. Success!
My Dreams have been realized!
On the weekend of March 13-15 I went to Chengdu, the capital of the Sichuan province with Jenny and Daniel. It was like Italy all over again! If you don't know, Sichuan is where the Panda Research Base is, as well as the home of 麻辣, a special spice they use in Sichuanese food. I was so excited a bout seeing the pandas, REAL LIVE PANDAS, in a semi-natural environment, not behind a glass wall.
When we first got to Chengdu we went to the main temple there and walked around a bit, it was definitely made into a tourist destination because the walking areas looked so new. Even some of the buildings looked fake authentic. Inside the temple grounds it was so peaceful and beautiful, and blocked all sounds of construction and traf
fic jams outside. 
Eventually we got hungry, but it was too early to eat dinner, so we checked out a restaurant that looked pretty busy and had the spice in the dishes. I ordered some spicy wontons, and I was so surprised once I started eating! Basically..I kept eating, and I didn't think it was traditional spicy kind of taste. I slowly began to realize that I couldn't quite feel my tongue anymore, and the spice had a pine taste to it..it also made everything taste much saltier. I believe the english translation is Szechuan food, but this was nothing like that, and unlike anything I've ever tasted before. Maybe not my fondest eating adventure, but I enjoyed it and if was cool to try something new. Afterwards we sat in a teahouse for awhile to get hungry again so we could go to Chen's Mapo Tofu for dinner. 
I LOVE mapo tofu, and this place is the number one restaurant to go to in Chengdu. Needless to say, I was pretty excited. We ordered two bowls which turned out to be too much, along with some other small dishes. In contrast to my expectation of Sichuan spicy food from before, the Mapo Tofu tasted more like what I expected. The spiciness was kicked up a notch, and it was cooked with more oil than my mom uses. But I still loved it! And it was super cheap. The three of payed about 2USD each for our fulfilling dinner!
The next day we woke up early to get to the Panda Research Base around 9-10, so we could catch
them at feeding time. We had one hour since we got a deal with the taxi driver to drive us from the research base back to the city. I was running around everywhere like a crazy woman so I could see all of the pandas! I loved seeing the pandas munching on bamboo..looking all lazy. Wow..that's the life. What was even better is that they had great jungle gym type structures and I swear the red pandas could have jumped out at us. There were even peacocks, and we saw one on the sidewalk. I'm pretty sure it had escaped somehow, haha. Before I knew it, my panda adventure was over, but I took plenty of pictures.
Another highlight of the trip? THE BUFFET BREAKFAST! Just in case you didn't notice, I love traveling and eating the local food, etc. But the buffet breakfast had everything and I took full advantage of it. They offered everything from dumplings to waffles to tons of fresh fruit. Mmmm...
When we first got to Chengdu we went to the main temple there and walked around a bit, it was definitely made into a tourist destination because the walking areas looked so new. Even some of the buildings looked fake authentic. Inside the temple grounds it was so peaceful and beautiful, and blocked all sounds of construction and traf
fic jams outside. 
Eventually we got hungry, but it was too early to eat dinner, so we checked out a restaurant that looked pretty busy and had the spice in the dishes. I ordered some spicy wontons, and I was so surprised once I started eating! Basically..I kept eating, and I didn't think it was traditional spicy kind of taste. I slowly began to realize that I couldn't quite feel my tongue anymore, and the spice had a pine taste to it..it also made everything taste much saltier. I believe the english translation is Szechuan food, but this was nothing like that, and unlike anything I've ever tasted before. Maybe not my fondest eating adventure, but I enjoyed it and if was cool to try something new. Afterwards we sat in a teahouse for awhile to get hungry again so we could go to Chen's Mapo Tofu for dinner. 
I LOVE mapo tofu, and this place is the number one restaurant to go to in Chengdu. Needless to say, I was pretty excited. We ordered two bowls which turned out to be too much, along with some other small dishes. In contrast to my expectation of Sichuan spicy food from before, the Mapo Tofu tasted more like what I expected. The spiciness was kicked up a notch, and it was cooked with more oil than my mom uses. But I still loved it! And it was super cheap. The three of payed about 2USD each for our fulfilling dinner!The next day we woke up early to get to the Panda Research Base around 9-10, so we could catch
them at feeding time. We had one hour since we got a deal with the taxi driver to drive us from the research base back to the city. I was running around everywhere like a crazy woman so I could see all of the pandas! I loved seeing the pandas munching on bamboo..looking all lazy. Wow..that's the life. What was even better is that they had great jungle gym type structures and I swear the red pandas could have jumped out at us. There were even peacocks, and we saw one on the sidewalk. I'm pretty sure it had escaped somehow, haha. Before I knew it, my panda adventure was over, but I took plenty of pictures.Another highlight of the trip? THE BUFFET BREAKFAST! Just in case you didn't notice, I love traveling and eating the local food, etc. But the buffet breakfast had everything and I took full advantage of it. They offered everything from dumplings to waffles to tons of fresh fruit. Mmmm...
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Shenzhen
Wow! Two posts in such close proximity?! It's amazing!
Well, I went to Shenzhen last Thursday for the primary reason of conducting some field research about Wal-Mart and Carrefour for my marketing case. Maibritt was pretty excited since it was going to be her first visit to a Wal-Mart ever!! We left pretty early, met at the train station at 7:45 am, which meant a 25 min. walk from my place to the station..oi. I also realized I forgot my passport halfway there, so I ran back, then walked up the giant hill and ran back down. I thought I was going to trip over my feet the whole way down..but I made it safely! It took us only half an hour by train to get to the border, meaning I'm closer to China than to the central area of Hong Kong. Wow. We crossed the border, and the immigration man didn't think it was me, so he had someone else come look at my passport. At least he's careful? I gave him a death glare though, there was no way I was getting detained at immigration.
We made it through and took a taxi to Queen's Spa to prepare ourselves for the 'rigorous' research we'd have to conduct later. Going into the spa was like walking into a different world. Everyone's walking around in a standard issued set of PJ's. There's also reclining seats with TV's where you can sleep! That's where you can order different services, such as foot massages. All of us went for the 90 minute Chinese massage. I'm fine with a 30 min. but 90 min. was all they had. My body felt like jello afterwards since I was so relaxed! Afterwards we indulged in the free fruit and juice bar! I got tons of lychee! And some weird tasting Taro Ice Cream. We took some time to rest in the sleeping seats. Maibritt and I went upstairs to get our eyebrows done while Svenja and Simone got foot massages! We ended up having lunch/dim sum there too. It was strange sitting in PJ's while eating lunch in the dining area since it was decorated nicely.
We finally left and took a taxi to Carrefour, a French-based hypermarket. Svenja took tons of pics for our presentation! Their live market was more extensive than Wal-Mart's. You could catch your own live fish, prawns, turtles, etc. I saw a woman with a fish still jumping around in the net, she handed it to the man at the scale/register and he proceeded to whack it on the floor, which proved to be an effective way to make the fish stop jumping around. Wow.
Wal-Mart was Wal-Mart, just tailored to the Chinese consumer. We bought some wontons, Chinese pancakes, etc. for dinner and sat outside. How lovely. Check out my pics!
Maibritt and I stayed behind in the Lo Wu Comercial Center. There were so many stalls and people yelling at us to come look at bags, wallets, etc. all fakes. I'm glad I'm Chinese so they don't bother me as much, but at every shop they would say to Maibritt, "Hey lady, wanna look at bag or wallet?", "Hey nice lady! come look!", etc. It's like the papparazzi. Really.
And that's my trip to Shenzhen!
Well, I went to Shenzhen last Thursday for the primary reason of conducting some field research about Wal-Mart and Carrefour for my marketing case. Maibritt was pretty excited since it was going to be her first visit to a Wal-Mart ever!! We left pretty early, met at the train station at 7:45 am, which meant a 25 min. walk from my place to the station..oi. I also realized I forgot my passport halfway there, so I ran back, then walked up the giant hill and ran back down. I thought I was going to trip over my feet the whole way down..but I made it safely! It took us only half an hour by train to get to the border, meaning I'm closer to China than to the central area of Hong Kong. Wow. We crossed the border, and the immigration man didn't think it was me, so he had someone else come look at my passport. At least he's careful? I gave him a death glare though, there was no way I was getting detained at immigration.
We made it through and took a taxi to Queen's Spa to prepare ourselves for the 'rigorous' research we'd have to conduct later. Going into the spa was like walking into a different world. Everyone's walking around in a standard issued set of PJ's. There's also reclining seats with TV's where you can sleep! That's where you can order different services, such as foot massages. All of us went for the 90 minute Chinese massage. I'm fine with a 30 min. but 90 min. was all they had. My body felt like jello afterwards since I was so relaxed! Afterwards we indulged in the free fruit and juice bar! I got tons of lychee! And some weird tasting Taro Ice Cream. We took some time to rest in the sleeping seats. Maibritt and I went upstairs to get our eyebrows done while Svenja and Simone got foot massages! We ended up having lunch/dim sum there too. It was strange sitting in PJ's while eating lunch in the dining area since it was decorated nicely.
We finally left and took a taxi to Carrefour, a French-based hypermarket. Svenja took tons of pics for our presentation! Their live market was more extensive than Wal-Mart's. You could catch your own live fish, prawns, turtles, etc. I saw a woman with a fish still jumping around in the net, she handed it to the man at the scale/register and he proceeded to whack it on the floor, which proved to be an effective way to make the fish stop jumping around. Wow.
Wal-Mart was Wal-Mart, just tailored to the Chinese consumer. We bought some wontons, Chinese pancakes, etc. for dinner and sat outside. How lovely. Check out my pics!
Maibritt and I stayed behind in the Lo Wu Comercial Center. There were so many stalls and people yelling at us to come look at bags, wallets, etc. all fakes. I'm glad I'm Chinese so they don't bother me as much, but at every shop they would say to Maibritt, "Hey lady, wanna look at bag or wallet?", "Hey nice lady! come look!", etc. It's like the papparazzi. Really.
And that's my trip to Shenzhen!
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Macau
I guess I'm going to aim for monthly reports! February has flown by, I really don't know where the time has gone...my last exam is April 22nd, so I'm already halfway through! Really? I would say February has been pretty intense with activity. I went to Macau for Valentine's weekend with Jenny, Sabrina, and Maibritt. It's only an hour ferry ride away. We stayed at the Venetian, which I heard has the most square footage of any building in the world? Or something like that. And to explain, Macau is basically the Las Vegas of the east. There are tons of new hotels being constructed, but they already have tons of casinos, such as the Wynn, Sofitel 16, Grand Lisboa, etc. The Venetian is a little further out, but you could spend days in there shopping! Haha. Right when we got to the hotel we were able to check in, and then we took a taxi to St. Paul's Cathedral Ruins. Macau used to be a Portuguese colony, so it was really cool to see European style buildings and streets in an Asian city. It was a nice area with a fortress, tons of almond cookie shops, and Portuguese egg tarts, so we had a sweet lunch there. You could really tell it was all tourists though, so we left around 3pm to head back to the hotel. We got ready for dinner and the Cirque du Soleil show, Zaia.
We took a taxi to a village to have dinner. Everyone stared at us since we were so overdressed and the restaurants there definitely weren't high class, but I was excited about tasting some Asian food with a Portuguese flair! The restaurant we wanted to go to didn't open until 6, and we were half an hour early so we walked around...not much to see, went back to hte restaurant and hovered outside waiting for it to open. A woman was standing inside...not doing anything, so I tried to get her attention, but it didn't work. About 5 minutes til 6, a guy goes in, and it turns out they were fully booked for the night, so we waited for nothing :( Needless to say, we were bitter towards the woman that basically watched us for half an hour. So we went to another restaurant the concierge had suggested called Dumbo. And it actually had a picture of dumbo the flying elephant outside so I was pretty skeptical. But we go upstairs and it turns out to be a nice place with a number of customers already. We ordered the local specialties, such as African Chicken and Fried Fishballs (balls made out of fish..just to clarify). Then we went to another place and got the Sawdust cake, it was really fluffy and whipped with yummy crushed biscuit, making the sawdust part of the cake. Went back to the hotel and watched Zaia. It was amaaaaazing, as to be expected from a Cirque du Soleil show. Before the show I noticed a guy was walking up the aisle and I did a double-take since I realized he was NOT wearing normal clothes. Turns out it was one of the performers from the show and he gave us roses! Ahhhh Romeo!
After the show we went to the casino, I only played slots and lost all my money since I had no idea what I was doing and the instructions were in Chinese. Instead, I lived vicariously through Jenny who played War, and another game called Sic...something. It was really cool walking around the casino, but there were a lot of tourists there, so there weren't many high stakes games going on.
The next morning we had a delicious breakfast buffet at the hotel. There was so much good fruit, scrambled eggs, chicken sausage..mmmmm. I've been missing a hearty breakfast, so I was pretty excited when I saw the HUGE buffet line. Afterwards we spent the whole morning shopping around the Venetian Canal Shoppes, and left around 1pm. We all had work to do :( But it was a lovely Valentine's weekend!
Coming up next, my trip to Shenzhen and the island of Tap Mun!
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Lunar New Year
Happy Lunar New Year to everyone!
I've had a week off for the holiday, which has been so relaxing. Thankfully I was able to contact a travel agent and get a great deal for my friends and I to go to Taiwan for 4 days. We got to stay in a 5-star hotel right by the Main station and round trip air tickets for less than what you'd pay just for the airline tickets! I went with Jenny, Simone, Maibritt, Linea, Svenja, and Sabrina.
We arrived on Tuesday and went to the Shilin Night Market where we had a successful shopping and eating adventure! I had stinky tofu, taro milk tea, and a cream bun. Mmmm, I was so excited that everyone really enjoyed the night market. It can be really overwhelming because of all the people and items for sale. The next day we went to Ding Tai Fung, the famous dumpling house for brunch. We ordered the must-eat dish, Xiao Long Bao. Basically small pork dumplings witha little soup in them. Everyone loved the food and from there we walked to Taipei 101, formerly the tallest building in the world. It took awhile to walk there, but it was so warm and sunny! Perfect weather! Definitely not what I was expecting, so I was wearing Uggs and a sweater. I even had to pull out my UV umbrella to help cool down. The weather really agreed with us while we were there. Went to the top of 101 and got some ice cream while enjoying the view of Taipei. From there we attempted to go to the Maokong Tea Plantation, but the gondola to the plantation was closed for the New Year. But at least I got to see where the pandas are! It was pandamania down there. I will have to save time to go see the pandas when I go back to Taiwan in May.
That night we kind of split up and I showed Linea, Jenny, and Maibritt around the mall under the Main station. We got some snacks, and went back to the hotel to rest a little. For dinner Sabrina, Maibritt, Linea, and I attempted to find another night market, but never did, so we went back to the main station for dinner and shared some huge steamed buns. The guy at the restaurant remembered us from earlier and had a lot of fun talking to us trying to guess where the girls were from.
The next day we had some traditional Taiwanese breakfast called Fantuan. It has shredded pork, a fried dough stick and maybe something else all wrapped up in rice. Then we headed over to the National Palace Museum. Spent a few hours there and we split up. Most of the girls went to Beitou for a hot spring, while Maibritt and I went to the Confucius Temple and explored the markets around there. I later found out that the hot spring they went to was nude, oops! But they still enjoyed it. That night we went to the younger area of Taipei called Ximending. There's always a lot going on, but there were so many people a few of us left early since we were going the next day anyway.
Our last day in Taipei was really relaxed. I took some sticky pics with Maibritt and we wandered around Ximending, the train station and the area around our hotel.
This experience in Taipei has really given me a better understanding of where everything is. Usually my mom takes me everywhere and I don't really think about it. But now I feel a lot more confident travelling around in Mandarin-speaking countries. I can already tell my Mandarin is improving! Jenny felt the same way too. It's different being there with family where we just go out and eat, shop, etc. This time I got to see some different areas of Taipei and fend for myself. We were so nervous the girls wouldn't enjoy Taipei, but I can tell they all enjoyed the hotel and all the things we introduced them to.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
FYI
For letters:
Jamie Yang
Flat 807B, PGH4
CUHK
Shatin, New Territories
Hong Kong SAR
For packages and bulkier items:
Jamie Yang
c/o International Asian Studies Programme
Office of Academic Links
Lady Ho Tung Hall
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Shatin N.T. Hong Kong SAR
Jamie Yang
Flat 807B, PGH4
CUHK
Shatin, New Territories
Hong Kong SAR
For packages and bulkier items:
Jamie Yang
c/o International Asian Studies Programme
Office of Academic Links
Lady Ho Tung Hall
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Shatin N.T. Hong Kong SAR
Sunday, January 18, 2009
I suck
I apologize for my lack of attention to this blog! I was counting on being better at updating it, but lately I've just been so busy trying to settle in in my new school. This semester is already panning out to be fairly busy, but I'm glad I'll have some more variety here. My classes only meet once a week, so I only have class Monday-Wednesday. And to fill in the rest of my time, I've signed up to teach English at a rural primary school in HK on Thursdays! I'm also planning several trips already...like Taiwan for Chinese New Year!! Jenny and I are going to show our friends around since we talk so much about Taiwan and how much we love it.
Basically, I arrived here on the 30th with my mom and sister, and we spent a fun week exploring the island and mainland, and eating LOTS of awesome dim sum!! It was so nice to have them there to help me move in. My room already feels much more homey than my room in Denmark. Though there are ups and downs for each place, but I'm not complaining! I actually have a prime location in my flat with 8 masters/PhD students. I am not on the hallway of rooms, instead my room is in a corner of the flat with a half bath, so I consider it a super suite! Seven of my roomies are from the mainland, and one is an older PhD student from Taiwan. She's helped me out so much, and I feel lucky to have so much help here!
I've mostly been busy with getting everything I need here, books, etc. And catching up on homework, there's not too much yet, but I am definitely behind. I don't know where the time goes!!! On that note, I'm going to get working on cover letters due this week...
Sorry again for the randomness!
Anyway, the three girls spent
Basically, I arrived here on the 30th with my mom and sister, and we spent a fun week exploring the island and mainland, and eating LOTS of awesome dim sum!! It was so nice to have them there to help me move in. My room already feels much more homey than my room in Denmark. Though there are ups and downs for each place, but I'm not complaining! I actually have a prime location in my flat with 8 masters/PhD students. I am not on the hallway of rooms, instead my room is in a corner of the flat with a half bath, so I consider it a super suite! Seven of my roomies are from the mainland, and one is an older PhD student from Taiwan. She's helped me out so much, and I feel lucky to have so much help here!
I've mostly been busy with getting everything I need here, books, etc. And catching up on homework, there's not too much yet, but I am definitely behind. I don't know where the time goes!!! On that note, I'm going to get working on cover letters due this week...
Sorry again for the randomness!
Anyway, the three girls spent
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