The Return

While I got by the jetlag in Hong Kong pretty well by staying up from 6 am local time when we landed through the evening of that - which worked, I was fine the next day - that hasn't been the case returning to AZ. The first difference was that I got in around 6 pm here, which means it should have been bedtime close to my arrival home, withholding the opportunity for me to exhaust myself before sleeping. I also wasn't able to sleep at all on the plane, which should have been nighttime in Asia - my body time - so when I did try to go to sleep, I was wide awake. Got to sleep; wide awake at 4 am. The next night was a little better, but then today I woke up close to my alarm, still tired, so I shut it off ... and woke up again at 3 pm! Shit. That's 6 am in Singapore. Back to where I started. I'll have to be more careful tomorrow and the days to follow to get myself back on schedule. By the way ... it's now past 3 am here, and I'm wide awake ...

It got hot here! When I left it had hit 100, but was mostly in the mid-90s ... now it's between 105 and 115, and we're starting to get a few thunderstorms, not monsoon season yet, but enough to give it a little humidity. It's been fascinating though these past few days because on Wednesday, lightning struck southwest of Phoenix and started a 1000-acre (or more by now) brush fire along a canal. The smoke from this, for three days now, has been visible from Tempe and given us pretty good cloud cover (shade!), and best of all, in the afternoons turns the sun into a bright pink disc that you can look at directly; it looks like a pink moon. Here's a picture that shows the plume of smoke, the cloud cover, and the sun.



It's always a strange feeling to return home after a time away, the longer in duration the more so, certainly, but I think there's a factor that has to do with place as well. When I travel between Home (CT) and home (AZ), I always get a version of this feeling in being in a place I know well but haven't seen go through the recent seasons, haven't been there for certain changes to the neighborhood, seen the kids across the street growing up. But that is gone soon enough ... it's home, it's a place I know well, well enough to adjust my own personal remembrance from past to present without much trouble. And in Arizona, as the other place I think of as home, it's the same sense of one's own place, so jumping between the two doesn't feel like such a far leap.

This sense of displacement has been stronger this week having returned from Asia. Beyond the 15-hour time change and the fact that I am no longer surrounded by Asian people (oddly enough, I wasn't like "Hey!" when I saw white people in Asia!). As different as Hong Kong, Beijing, and Singapore are from America, what was really cool about this trip was that I realized, as I walked around these cities, that while there may be Buddhist temples, Chinese script, ginkgo trees, and a new landscape all around ... they are still cities. Regardless of the side of the street people drive on, there are streets, and there are traffic lights and pedestrians and tall buildings, and with a map, you can find your way. I have walked around Tempe and ASU's campus this week and felt a wonderment at being here when 24 or 48 hours ago I had woken up halfway around the world, but I've found the displacement to be less extreme than I would have thought. I think in some ways it has to do with settling as well, and the fact that I was changing cities and/or hotels every couple days meant that I was never able to put down roots, and leaving me with relief to finally get back to somewhere where I could. The strongest I have ever felt this displacement has been upon the return from Belize. All 3 times. I'll close my eyes on a bus, or at home, or walking through town, and see the rainforest, expecting to find myself there in camp when I open them, and being disappointed. It's a state of mind that takes days to get through. I think it has to do with the fact that we do set down roots there. I think it has to do with culture shock (my first trip I flew into ands spent the first night in central Manhattan!). It's a combination of being a place that feels like a home, but is different enough to feel the absence of the place, and to miss it that strongly. I'm happy to be returning to Asia in the near future, but it hasn't engendered in me the same kind of nostalgia and drive to return as Belize does.

More Singapore Photos

A few more pictures to add from my last few days in Singapore. The first is the one I promised before ... this shows Depot Road lined on both sides with the rainforest trees that spread out into a canopy over the roads. You can also see the epiphytes growing along the trunks. I was amazed by the similarities between the rainforests in Southeast Asia and in Central America. The next picture shows another example ... Belize friends ... look familiar? There were several species of tree in Singapore, at the MacRitchie Reservoir reserve where we hiked, that had spiny defenses similar to the escoba and baial (spelling?). Fortunately, I survived this encounter well enough (yes ... I've had issues with these before!). The third picture shows the species of monkey we saw there ... the macaque. They're small, and quite used to humans. Several of them came up to us on the path and seemed to be both hoping for food and posing for us (we all had cameras out). Even this one was almost within arm's reach. But here, on the other side, was what seemed to be a family of sorts: a couple adults, several young ones (really cute!), and an alpha male sitting over the path; they seemed unnerved by our presence around the little ones, so we stopped taking pictures and moved on. Next is a shot of the jungle from the top of a 5-level observation tower; you can see some of the city in the far background. And last is a picture I took out of the window at the Hong Kong airport, showing the mountains of Lantai Island (I think), with the tail of a Cathay Pacific plane in the foreground (the airline I flew).

Coming Home

This will be my last posting while in Asia, though I do have a few more photos I want to upload once I get back and don't have to rush off to pack, sleep, and jump on the first of several planes. Tomorrow will be an extra-long day, and I'm not just being dramatic ... I'll actually arrive in LA before I leave Hong Kong! Once I've returned and settled a bit, I will also put up a schedule (as it stands now) of my trips to come. But for now, thanks for reading, and I will be back amongst you all soon. Goodnight.

A Night of Firsts

Though this entire trip has been full of things I haven't done, seen, or tried before, last night seemed to be a little more saturated with them than usual. We went to the Arab quarter of Singapore for the evening, for Katie's birthday. From the time we spent walking around it, my general impression is that it consists of several streets literally lined with open-air textile storefronts: silks, carpets, etc. There was a beautiful mosque at the north end of one street we walked up, though my guess is that it's more central to the quarter; we just didn't see the other side. I took some really nice shots of this mosque, with the sun going down ... but with Katie's camera! I'd left mine at the hostel. Figures. I'll post them once I get them.

We had dinner at a restaurant in this area, on one of the streets (i.e. nestled between fabric shops), and sat at a table out on the sidewalk (which is overhung by the shops). I had a drink called karkelah (? ... my sense of spelling goes to shit with certain languages. Arabic is one of them. Chinese is another :-), which is an exract from the hibiscis flower, and actually tastes remarkably like pomagranate juice. For dinner I had quail ... which is a much smaller bird than I realized. They taste good though. Afterwards, Want and I shared a double-chocolate sundae ... certainly not something new, but even with all the Arabic desserts on the menu, how can you resist that? I mean really. And Katie got a rose hookah ... so I smoked for the first time. Anyone who knows me at all shouldn't be surprised by this ... or that it was a hookah, a completely non-addictive kind of smoking! It tasted (smelled) like some kind of potpourri I remember from a long time ago, which was nice, but I'm not crazy about inhaling smoke that deeply, pyro that I am.

During dinner, jet fighters were making flybys very close, right overhead sometimes and, when the buildings permitted, we could see them a few times: one on its own, another time 4 clustered together, with a fifth off to the right of them. Very loud. Katie got annoyed; Justin and I loved it (when we saw them at least). And as we were walking back to the MRT (train) station, the mosque behind us, we heard them playing the evening call to prayer, which I haven't heard before. While Justin and I were looking at the mosque, he said he'd be interested to go to a service, even though he wouldn't understand it. I didn't really feel that calling, as beautiful a religion as I'm sure it is. Justin's also an ex-Catholic ... it's amazing how many of us there are. I guess the trick is to replace it with something else. I guess for me Islam feels like just another organized religion with a long series of guidelines. There's only one guidebook, and it has surprisingly little to do with rules and rituals ...

Singapore

Singapore is an interesting place. It's an island, but doesn't feel like an island. While places like Hawaii, Bermuda, Hong Kong are islands that feel like them, Singapore feels big enough not to be, and the development is somewhat focused on the interior, so you don't often see the ocean. Even at Marina Bay, where some of the below photographs are of, the water you see is at the outlet of a river. It's tropical - warm and humid - with the occasional thunderstorm, which is great. And it's rainforest. Jungle. Like Hong Kong was, and this is further south. The trees that line the streets, rather than ginkos in Beijing, are canopy trees: thick trunks go up and then fan out into a broad, flat-topped tree, and these are spaced along many streets to provide full shade. I'll try to get a good picture of them before I leave. There are many cool species, of trees with epiphytes on them, of flowers, of birds. Twice I've seen a small bird that looks like the honeycreepers in Hawaii, but closer in size to hummingbirds, and they almost hover; it's like an evolutionary step between the creepers and hummingbirds (though they didn't eveolve from each other!).

On Thursday, Katie and I went down to the Marina, which is along the river near its outlet and just next to the financial center. The look of it is a mix of a modern city with the British colonialism: kind of like Boston in places - glass and steel juxtaposed against stone. Katie told me that the mascot of the city is a "Merlion" - half mermaid, half lion, and Singapore means "City of Lions." So there are statues of them everywhere. It's funny though, because it was named this on a misconception, an early settler who thought he saw a lion in the jungle ... but lion's don't live in jungles, or on this continent!

Today's pictures: First, part of the cityscape looking across the river, including the theater, which resembles a local fruit called a durian, and the largest ferris-wheel (I think) in the world. Second, me, with a similar background. Third, St Andrew's church, part of the historic look. And fourth, a large statue of the merlion spouting water into the river ... what's wrong with this picture? (think corporate globalization)

The Past Few Days

Okay, I'm back online. It's been a few days since the airport hotel in Beijing didn't have internet, and Want and Katie's apartment here in Singapore doesn't either. I'm in their office now at the university, with a view of the harbor. Later this week, once I check into the hostel, I should be on more regularly. Since I knew I was heading into a dark zone, I wrote my blog entries in a notebook, so I will enter them here, from the past 3 days ...

6/13/08
I wish now that I'd learned more Chinese. I'm leaving tomorrow, and in Singapore everyone will speak English, but all along while in Beijing I've felt a space between me and all the people of things I cannot say. That they can't understand. Many of them do a wonderful job with English, despite their limitations, and I would love to reciprocate that effort. Still, in any conversation (or at least an exchange of words), we reach a point of smiles and shrugged shoulders when we arrive at the banks of this river and can go no further, standing on opposite shores. There is a loneliness in this: walking through any public space and knowing that I am not able to communicate with the people around me. An isolation of incommunicable words, an alienation beyond my appearance. The word 'communicate' comes from 'commune' - here, I am as alone as these peoples' understanding of English makes me.

I've parted today from my traveling companions of the past week and a half. Our paths have diverged, and I think Leah's will be the road less traveled by. She is off to Southeast Asia with Clint and Ari soon; Chris will return home. Regarding the above isolation, Leah and Chris have been my stay against confusion - joyful, willing, and faithful travel comrades. Safe travels, to both of you.


6/14/08
It's strange that I wrote about loneliness and isolation yesterday, for today I've come face to face with another, more terrible, kind. It is a sad day when a friend or colleague doesn't come through for you, when you understand that you cannot trust them, and that you never will again. In this public forum, it is my intention to be brief, and vague. But for those concerned, know that - though I am left without a stay against this confusion - I remain in good company now, and am learning from the experience.

Today was a long day of travel: up at 4 am to go to the Beijing airport, flight to Hong Kong, layover, flight to Singapore where I met Want and Katie around 7 pm. Singapore - like Hong Kong - is a city built on a tropical island. The warmth, the jungle surrounding everything, the humidity in the air - they are all quite welcome.

The more I fly, the less I mind it, and I have actually begun to enjoy being in airports. During my layover in Hong Kong, I sat down with my iPod for over an hour near my gate and looked out the tall windows at the islands and the channel between them and the hills. These islands jut abruptly out of the water into high, forested peaks; there are no plains between, no gradual rise. I watched planes come in to land, queuing up in the sky to land, appearing as a dot of gray among the white of stormclouds, or the flicker of its landing lights. The peak nearest me was sporadically covered by the low clouds that drifted slowly across its side; as the vapors reached the slope and lifted over it, then down again on the other side - all in extreme slow motion - these tendrils appeared as a stampede of wild horses.

In the evening, here in Singapore, Want and Katie gave me an orientation to the public transportation system, and we went to dinner at a hawker stall - a local outdoor food court where they've come to know one of the cooks, an Asian expat from the former Soviet Union. On the plane here, I sat next to - and spoke at length with - a white South African who, at 44 now, had lived through apartheid. I also had my first Singaporean beer - Tiger Beer - which is decent: a bit like Coors or Bud, but a little more flavor (doesn't hold a candle to Belikin though :-)


6/15/08
I'm sitting now in Want and Katie's apartment in front of their seventh story balcony, the windows thrown wide, the sheer white curtains serpentine in the breeze. It's warm and humid here, even inside; we only A/C the bedrooms. But I got used to it quickly. Still waiting for rain. They say they get thunderstorms most afternoons, but not for the past few days. These storms break the heat, and I'm looking forward to that, too.

Today's been the kind I haven't taken yet on this trip - I've gone no where, except to the convenience store in the basement of the apartment tower. Slept in, read, took it easy. So ... more to come when I've seen more of Singapore (and probably once I'm at the hostel later in the week).

The Lama Temple

I feel like I'm 5 years old ... without parents. We had ice cream for dinner tonight - continuing the obsession. This was from a gelato place in a mall, but again was more like very smooth, creamy ice cream than real gelato. We had a very late lunch, then were writing and drinking frappachinos (I know, I know), and I think the week's catching up, so our appatites were gone. But hey, you're not the boss of me, I don't have to justify this to you ;-) We also went to a tea store tonight - where they sell loose leaf tea - and I bought a very fragrant oolong. I wanted to find a nice white tea, something unique, but for some reason, they don't really have those here. I've asked in several places.

We ventured out this afternoon on the Beijing subway system, which - as with many of the city features I've found both here and in Hong Kong - works just the way subways work in NYC or Boston. We went north up to a big Buddhist temple (I keep typing Tempe for that word ... odd) called the Lama Temple. I forgot to mention this after the Forbidden City and Ming Tomb tours, and every temple-like building we've gone into ... they build these thresholds on the entrances with lips anywhere from about 6 to 15 inches high that you have to step over; our first tour guide (at the Forbidden City) said that this was to keep evil spirits out (because they don't have knees and can only hop on their toes) ... I kept getting stuck ;-)

The temple itself was my first real experience with Buddhism. The entire facility was as ornate as the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven, but what surprised me was how blended the religion was with the tourism industry. There were guided tours, tourists with cameras, and maintenance people walking around, talking, doing their own thing while people were burning incense to the buddhas and praying. I saw one woman prostrated in prayer with a tray of incense sticks in front of her, and a custodian (of sorts) came over and cleaned out that tray while she was praying. It just seemed so distracting, I can't imagine trying to pray - or certainly to meditate - with cameras and tourguide lectures and everything going on all around me. It was also much more commercial than I expected - with sourvenir shops everywhere and a 25 yuan charge for entry - and it reminded me of many of my concerns regarding organized religion, and how most of it is a business. It shouldn't be. That's one of the reasons I left the Catholic church (and one of the reasons I like Praxis), but even my complaints about Catholicism don't go this far: I've never been charged entry into even the most ornate or popular cathedrals, and I've never seen a souvenir shop inside a cathedral or church (that doesn't mean they don't exist). I've also never been inside a church/cathedral (even as a tourist) and had the atmosphere be anything other than hushed reverence; here, people were talking at full volume, shouting, tourguides lecturing, etc. Can religions organize - "Where two or more are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" Matthew 18:20 - without taking this further step into commercialization?

Otherwise, the Lama temple was amazing. The last building - in a series of quite a few - had a buddha carved from a single tree trunk and stood 18 meters high! I couldn't believe, and couldn't have guessed, that it was all one piece of wood. But the most extraordinary was a mandala they had preserved in a glass case: these are sand paintings that are typically done, then blown away into the ocean as a way of commemorating transcience. This sand painting was so ornate and intricate that it looked like an oriental rug; the sand was even piled up in places to give it a 3D texture. It was flawless. Unbelievable. But ... photographs were not allowed to be taken inside the buildings, so I can't show you. I guess you'll have to come to Beijing.

One More Photograph - For Your Viewing Pleasure

A Day of Cafe Extremes

This morning we began with a walk to the mall/plaza we found yesterday, in part to see what it was like - quite commercial-American - in part because the hotel breakfast ended at 10 and we had either been rushed or missed it altogether. Marqueshia had come here yesterday and told us there was a Starbucks inside, the first we've seen in Beijing, so we went there to eat and caffeinate. Chris had read to us in a guidebook that this mall was rather high-end for the area, and that the local people came to look, then go across the street to the hudong (the market where we were most graciously invited to shop - i.e. grabbed) to buy food. We sat in an area outside the cafe itself within the mall space and watched people walking around for a while, and it seemed true ... many to most of the people didn't have shopping bags. I wonder how these places stay in business if everyone just looks, and if there are that many tourists that do shop. Or maybe a few sales per day in this economy is enough. I don't know. Though the mall is huge, we didn't stay to explore it. It was very western ... we'd seen enough.

Outside, we walked the rest of the plaza, stopping at a "foreign language" (English) bookstore, then decided to try to find our way back to the hotel using backroads instead of retracing our steps. It was here along these smaller streets that we found a tea house! Actually, several, as we continued. So we went in and had tea; having tea in a Chinese tea house had been on both my and Leah's lists of things to do while here. Inside, the house was very ornately decorated with dark, carved wood, Chinese calligraphy, and paintings hung on the walls. The tea itself is brewed in a rather complicated ritual, which we could see from where we sat: hot water poured into the cups to heat them, the tea flash-steeped, perhaps to decaffeinate it some, then strained several times as it's brewed. Leah video-taped it with her camera. The teas seemed to be steeped briefly, and what was brought to us, while fragrant, was light in color. I ordered a jasmine tea, but Chris and Leah ordered teas with Chinese names, so we don't know what kind of leaves they were. The ceremony of it was a nice and interesting contrast to the familiarity of the Starbucks we'd come from.

I had to take out my map on our way back because, as we realized later, the street names change every block or so, so we crossed our street and continued further to the west; fortunately, the Forbidden City is two streets to the west of us, which makes it difficult to get lost in that direction. The street we finally took back paralleled ours, and along it we came across a string of small art galleries, which I hope to return to and see how expensive the paintings are. I have a feeling they are run by the painters themselves. Also on the way back, Leah and I stopped in a little shop on our street to get ice cream. She has joined me in my ice cream obsession (we stopped again after dinner!) ... it's warm here and summertime, and it seems to be a rather common thing here. There are many shops - in Hong Kong too - that call their product "Italian gelato"; it's not, it's more of a smooth ice cream. But it's good. Yesterday, we were just getting ice cream bars on sticks, but they have some really cool varieties here!

I forgot to point out before ... with the pictures of the Great Wall you can clearly see the air pollution in Beijing. Yes, that's smog. Our tour guide told us that the city's location was chosen in part for its defensibility, but also for good feng shui, which is helped by the mountains to the north that block the "strong wind" from the city; unfortunately for us now, that means these winds don't clear the air. When we first flew in, it had rained that day, so the air was very heavy and hazy, and we were worried about it, but the skies have cleared up some since then, and I think I actually saw blue yesterday. Ari's friend, who has lived here for the past year, said that last summer was worse: they've turned off the industries in preparation for the Olympics.

Beijing Tour Photographs - Great Wall 2

Here's us at the Great Wall. First, from left to right - me, Leah, Chris, Marqueshia. Second is Chris, Leah, and Marqueshia playing camera tag.

Beijing Tour Photographs - Great Wall 1

Here's a selection of seven photos I took on Monday while touring the Ming Tombs and the Great Wall. First, some scenic shots of the Badaling section of the Wall.

Adventures Around Town

Our new hotel is in walking distance of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, so once we'd checked in and rested for a bit yesterday, Chris, Leah, and I went for a walk, thinking a major public site like that would have shops and markets and tea houses and restaurants everywhere. Nope. It reminded me a lot of DC's museum and monument areas, where it's all big stone government buildings, and anything like what we expected to find would be associated with those places. After trying a few random streets and being followed around by a Chinese tourist - who was apparently trying to find his tour bus, but we suspect it may have been a kind of scam - we walked back toward the hotel to try a different direction.

That's when we found the mall. Didn't go inside the mall itself - we're saving that for today ... it's big - but the entire street looked very much like a Times Square (but without the huge billboards): stores and a big McDonalds sign and lots of people. We spent probably an hour in an 8-story bookstore, which was full of people sitting on the floor or standing, reading. Leah and I agreed that if we walked into a B&N or Borders in America and saw that, we would wonder where we were. I bought a copy of C. S. Lewis's novel, Till We Have Faces, in Chinese. Books are cheap! It was 25 RMB (ren min bi, the currency of the people, or yuan), which is about $3.50 USD. And that's typical. I wonder if it's comparable to our prices based on average income, or if books in Chinese are one of the few things I've seen so far that they have no need to raise the price for tourists.

After the bookstore, we walked around this plaza-street a little more. We found a tea shop, which is different from a tea house. In a shop, you buy loose leaf tea. A tea house is like a cafe where you drink it (still looking for one of those nearby). On the way back, we walked down this alleyway that was lined with food stalls grilling skewered things (normal stuff, but also squid/octopus, snails, beetles, stuff like that) and other market items. We turned at an alleyway-intersection down a path lined with touristy souvenir stalls, and once we'd walked all the way to the end of it, Leah and I didn't want to walk back through (Chris did, but we cut through a store out to the main road. These vendors were so competitive (they all had the same goods) that they would literally grab our arms while saying, "Hello sir, just look." I had to remove their hands from me, which is just crossing the line of being friendly for me.

For dinner, we found a place right on our street that - like our first night in Beijing - was close, inexpensive, and really good. This one seemed quite authentic and not steered toward tourists, which is what we wanted. After, we stopped in a cigarette and liquor store and bought cigarettes (Chris), wine (me - a cabernet), and Leah got a kind of liquor she'd seen, but had no idea what it was. It's 56% alcohol, and nearly lethal. The wine was good. We also stopped in a laundry place to ask about prices ... we'll go back with a phrasebook.

Driving around Beijing on a bus is good for sightseeing (also can't get lost!), but it's fun to walk around a new city. Many of these streets are lined with ginko trees. I think today we'll go back to that mall area and continue exploring, and continue the search for a tea house.

Beijing!

Despite some of the web pages being in Chinese ... I can blog! I just have to remember what the sign in site is asking for, since I can't read it. So ... I have a few days to catch up on, but have to check out of this hotel in a half hour to go on to another in Beijing, so I'll make this the quick version.

Our trip here from Hong Kong on Saturday was rather complicated, but in spite of all that, somehow worked out rather smoothly. There was an accident on the road we would take to get to the airport, so we had to take a bus to a train to get there; when we arrived at the train station, we learned that our flight to Beijing was canceled. But there was another flight 35 minutes later that we were all finally able to get seats on, and the tour guides were still waiting to meet us, even though we were late.

Sunday was the first of a two-day tour of sites in Beijing: the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, and the Summer Palace; Monday was the Ming Tombs and the Great Wall. In between these visits, they brought us to places where they wanted us to shop - pearls, silk, jade factories - and to restaurants for lunch. It was interesting, and I was able to keep my wallet closed! Here's a picture from yesterday ... more to come later.



It's been an exhausting three days, and all of us had a hard time waking up this morning, but we're planning to take the day to chill, explore the town a little, and recover. This is not an easy city to get the hang of, even if only because the street names are hard to remember! (I have a map though ... haven't got lost). The streets aren't grided or numbered like New York; I guess that's what happens when a city's 3,000 years old (Boston's nowhere close to that, and it's a mess!). It's also quite polluted, the air here, and apparently so: a hazy smog reduces visibility quite a bit, and you can tell when you breathe in - not quite a smell - but it's there.

In the evenings, we've gone out and tried to find out of the way, local restaurants. Last night, we missed a little, because they gave us menus that were different from the ones everyone else - Chinese people - got. So we might go back and ask for the "real" menu. But on Sunday night, we happened upon this little place not far from the hotel, which was inexpensive and really good, and our waitress's English was more than passable. She was really cute about it too ... we ordered duck, which was brought out with little fajita-like bread and a sauce, and we asked her how to eat it. So she mimed putting the meat in, folding it, dipping it in the sauce, then taking a bite. Then laughed, a little self-conscious. Leah said she melted a little to see that.

Anyway, need to pack and go now. Just up the street I think. I'll try to upload more photos soon.

Leaving Hong Kong

As I noted before, I don't know when my next post will be since China restricts internet use, including access to blogs (it's that whole freedom of speech/press thing I guess). I have no new pictures now - woke up this morning to thunder, which was pretty awesome, but it makes it hard to go out with the camera. But I will be taking plenty over the next few days, and I'll post them as soon as I can get back on here. Leaving for Beijing this evening.

Last night I was invited to come back here. I went to the same restaurant for both lunch and dinner - because Jewell likes it, and we could get there without going out into the rain, and it has a huge panoramic view of the harbor - and one of the waitresses remembered the drink I'd ordered at lunch, and asked if I wanted it again. When I did later during dinner, it was very easy to order, especially since I didn't remember what it was! As we left, she asked if I'd be in tomorrow, perhaps as a joke, perhaps not. And I said no, we would be flying out. So she told me that the next time I came to Hong Kong, which I said I thought would be in September, that I had to come to the restaurant again, and she would remember my drink for me. We'll see.

I think I've delayed repacking long enough, though the mess next to me begs to be left alone a little longer. I'll post again as soon as I'm allowed. Until then. Goodnight from Hong Kong.

Is Starbucks An Addictive Substance?

On Wednesday, my first day in Hong Kong, from the ferry tour of the harbor I saw this huge, waterfront Starbucks just adjacent to our hotel, and my first thought, after deciding to photograph it, was that I wanted to spend some time there writing. Is it possible to feel a kind of addiction, or at least a draw, towards certain places? I know it isn't the caffeine, which for many people it is, because I never drink coffee unless I'm in a cafe writing. Or traveling sometimes. Or with Mike. But that's because of him ;-).



Well, I got my writing time this afternoon. This photo is the view of the harbor and Hong Kong island behind it from inside. I really do understand why people find chains like Starbucks irritating, and do in some ways prefer independent cafes. But there's something comforting about being able to go most places in the country - and now even the world, apparently (come on Belize!*) - and have a place that's consistent in look, manner, quality to what I know at home. Especially when I've spent so much time in this kind of place, writing. It's the comfort of familiarity. And if I have an "addiction" or at least a preference in this, it comes from the atmosphere (not the caffeine). [I also have respect for the company itself, which I know treats its employees well, and has good policies about its farmers, communities, and environment, but I won't get into that.]

It's been raining all day - just pissing, really, most of the time - and my colleagues got a good soaking going up to a big Buddha statue at a monastery on Lantau Island (where we tried to get to yesterday). I got out briefly this morning, then to write in the afternoon. I was hoping the view from inside the cafe might be a little clearer, but ironically, the visibility had by this point cleared up considerably! When I was at lunch with Jewell, we couldn't see the mountain at all behind the city, just the first few layers of buildings. But it's a wonderful view, and one of the best Starbucks locations I've seen yet (yes, I've become a sort of connoisseur of Starbucks cafes and their locales). I told Jewell earlier that I was stuck at the next scene I had to write, because another professor over the spring had told me it didn't work, and I had no idea how else to write it. But I have always found inspiration on the water, and I also said that if I couldn't break through this block here, I would have to circumvent the problem because I never would. Well, I did. I have a lot of work ahead, but I do know now what needs to be done.

* Actually, I'm not sure I would want a Starbucks in Belize, for the record. I'm happy with my Ceylon tea!

How I Got Here

So yeah, Hong Kong ... wtf, right? That's kind of what I thought too. Six months ago, As we were planning this trip, it was designed to be a couple day layover in Singapore to recover from jetlag and visit other colleagues teaching there, then teach creative writing to English faculty, undergrads and graduate students at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China for a week or so, then take a train to Tibet, and fly back. Yeah, cuz that happened. First, we had to use Hong Kong for our layover instead of Singapore because of the airline we used. Then while I was in Belize over spring break and out of touch in the rainforest, the Tibetans rioted, 150 or so people were killed, and 2 ASU faculty from my program were evacuated from Lhasa. So that was out. Then last month the earthquake hit Sichuan not far from Chengdu, killed about 80,000 people, and really just threw the entire province out of balance (to be intentionally vague and general). So that was out. But we had tickets, vaccinations, visas, fellowship money ... so here we are. 4 days in Hong Kong, a week in Beijing (starting tomorrow), then 10 days in Singapore. A little different, right?

If any of the above sounds like a complaint, rant, or railing against the fates, I'm listing things quickly to spare you from reading a hundred pages. I expect to return to China soon enough to teach the planned curriculum in Chengdu, though adapted to address writing about tragedy, the earthquake, recovery, etc. I continue mentoring the professor of English there by email, who I've worked with all semester. I don't see this as an opportunity taken from me or missed, but one I was delayed from for my own safety ... I'm just fine with that.

As I was out of the country (Belize again) when the decision was made to go to Hong Kong instead of Singapore, I didn't have an input, and honestly was disappointed (which is why I planned to end the trip there). I knew nothing about Hong Kong. Why is it that we often assume the unknown is bad, dangerous, boring, scary? Hong Kong is amazing. It's a city of blended lines: the city is built between mountains and the sea, encircling a channel harbor between the mainland and Hong Kong Island; it was still a British colony 25 years ago, but the population is 90-95% Chinese. You'll walk through a street that you can lie to yourself is in midtown Manhattan (a little narrower, perhaps, a bit more humid), and turn the corner and find yourself in a rural Chinese style outdoor market. As Mike commented on one of my first posts, it's jungle and Starbucks ... does it get any better than that? :-)

I'm leaving for Beijing tomorrow evening. Again, I have no idea what to expect really, as this was only planned about 8 days ago and I hadn't the time to do much research beyond the hotels. But clearly, the unknown does not translate into a bad thing. I was told this morning that the Chinese restrict access to blogging within their borders (apparently Hong Kong still doesn't quite count), so I don't know if I will be able to post after tomorrow afternoon. I expect to post again later tonight or tomorrow, but if I don't have anything new for about a week, that's why (and in Singapore, it may take a few days before I have internet there). There are a couple people that may be reading these - I won't name names, Mom - that would worry. No need. It would only be an issue of access.

Here are two more pictures for your viewing pleasure ... no new ones today, it's been pouring rain all day, and I had a 3 hour meeting with Jewell (with a window view of the harbor ... beats Tempe). These show a view from near the top of our hike yesterday (which isn't actually the peak, it's kind of on the ridgeline between two peaks) and it shows the hills and jungle, the harbor and city. The second photo shows the harbor and the color of the water; Hong Kong island on the right, Kowloon on the left.

Hong Kong photos

Okay, so posting photos isn't that hard at all. Here are a few from yesterday and today. This first one shows Hong Kong Island from Kowloon. You can see the low clouds coming down across the peak of the island.




This photo is the view looking north from close to the top of the peak of Hong Kong Island, looking down over the city and into Kowloon.











And this is the view looking south from the peak.

Peng Chau and Hong Kong Island

Today - my second here in Hong Kong - we took a ferry from Tsim Sha Tsui on the Kowloon Peninsula to Central Pier on Hong Kong Island, then another heading east to a small island called Peng Chau. That wasn't the plan, though. We were heading to Lantau Island, a larger one a little further east, but the ferry we caught was one that didn't go that last step; because of the timing of the ferrys, we decided to save that monastery visit for another day. We hiked up a small hill there and walked through a few markets, then had lunch at a bakery before heading back to Hong Kong Island. There, we took escalators up through the city, which is set on a mountainside, and by the top of that, mid-way up the slope, were somehow compelled to reach the top, and hiked all the way to Peak Tower, a surprisingly commercial - Starbucks, McDonalds, Burger King ... you get the idea - outpost at the top with a view of both sides from the island: north to the harbor and mainland Hong Kong, south across Aberdeen and the ocean beyond. But this is a tropical climate, jungles everywhere there isn't city or town; it rained as we hiked, and there are always these low, heavy clouds, which actually cloak the peak from below most of the time. The water of the harbor might actually be one of my favorite things about this place, odd, I know, but I have a thing about water. It's green, but in a clean, tropical way, the color of Caribbean shallows, pale, almost milky, though this harbor is said to be naturally deep enough for the drafts of ships.

Yesterday actually began on the plane at what we have to call about 5 am because that was the time here, which is fifteen hours ahead of Arizona. But you can't go to sleep when you arrive without sacrificing your recovery from jetlag. The airport is on Lantau Island, and we drove from there to our hotel on Kowloon, checked in, had breakfast, etc. Spent the day walking around town, which translates to being harassed by Rolex salesmen (right ...) and tailors who will come up to you on the sidewalk and offer to make you one though, strangely, I have yet to see a tailor shop. I found a jewelry store called Opal Mine, which specializes in Australian opals; it's very nice, but despite their claim that they beat the prices even in Australia, they are rather overpriced. We walked through a park, which had a maze, then down to the harbor where we took an hour ferry tour of the channel between Kowloon and HK Island. On the way in, I saw that there's a big Starbucks right there on the boardwalk along the harbor, so of course I had to go see it, and we ended up sitting outside for a while at what has to be the best Starbucks location I've ever seen.

Though your Thursday is probably just about beginning, mine's coming to an end already, and I need to sleep off the hike from today! I've taken about seventy pictures already in two days ... once I figure out how to post them here, you'll see a selection.