Qingdao, Beijing and Hong Kong, China

It was a very interesting time to be China, due to the fact that I was able to explore a country in the midst of a rapid economic and social development. Qingdao, where we ported first, was the worst of the three cities we visited. Especially coming from such a clean and pure country like Japan, Qingdao was very dirty, worn down, unorganized, and chaotic. Mike Hoover and I walked all around the city in the pouring down rian, after we stopped caring about getting wet, it turned out to be very fun. I bought a nice zip up jacket of light brown color, that would have been about 70-100 dollars in the US, for seven dollars. Later that evening, we had dinner and a few beers at a little hole in the wall restaraunt. Mike and I had a very good conversation here. No one spoke english so I saw what some other guys at a table were eating (what appeared to be mixed vegies and chicken) and asked for two of those (pointing and holding up two fingers of course). She brought us our dinner, and we dug into something that was definitely not chicken, but some kind of sea urchent. We ate it anyway, and hoped the alcohol in the beer would kill it if it were still alive. In Qingdao, they brew Tsingdao beer, and it is by far the best beer I have ever hard, it makes Pyramid or Henry's taste like warm keystone light. The next day, my Semester at Sea group I was a part of left for Beijing, about an hours plane ride north. The pollution in Beijing was unexplainable. One could not see a half mile ahead because the distance would just fade into a brown haze. People everywhere. People riding bikes through the streets, seemingly unaware to the vehicles that almost crushed them at every turn. In China, I learned pedestrians DO NOT have the right of way. You know when your in a car, and you have to hit the breaks fast or swerve from hitting someone or another car, and your butt kind of puckers up off your seat? Well I felt that about every three minutes as our tour bus almost crushed a little Chinese person walking or riding their bike on the street, they all seemed like they didn't even mind though. Crazy little bastards. The second day we were there, we got up early and went and did some Tai Chi excersizes, then headed to the Great Wall. We drove into the sharp and jagged hillside towards the great wall until it appeared in the distance. It, of course, was a very touristy location, but a phenomeonal one at that. The Wall was massive, and very steep. The steps constantly changed elevation, and this horrific hike made me glad to know I was doing this in my youth, as I witnessed many older people struggling for oxygen under the humidity and heat the sun casted down. There were praying mantace everywhere as well. A few of us, made it to the highest point of the wall, and the view was incredible. You could see the wall dissapear into the hills miles and miles away. I must of heard over two dozen languages while climbing that wall, which was really interesting. I conversed with some folks in Spanish from Spain, Colombia, and Mexico, and in Portuguese with some from Brazil.
The following day we headed to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. I always remembered seeing Tiananmen Square in my history books, and reading about the massacre of students in 1989, so it was really surreal to be here. We were told to keep that event out of our mouth while here in China, as well as Tibet and Taiwan. Three T's that are forbidden to talk about in China. Tourists crawled all over this place, but I managed to get a good picture of myself in front of the building with the big picture of Mao on it. We walked under Mao, to the entrance of the Forbidden City, which was huge. I mean this place, had to be at least four our five square kilometers. We explored many temples and palaces, and explored as much as we could of this place, the headquarters for Ancient Chinese civilization. At the end of the palace, was the garden, which included all types of rocks, cypress and bonzai trees, as well as various statues. After we ate lunch at a Mongolian hotpot, we went to downtown to Silk Street Market, which was a five floor market selling everything and anything. Lacoste Shirts for about six dollars, Dolce and Gabana purses (some of them great knockoffs) for about twelve dollars, all types of jewelry and electronic, etc. The hagglers all spoke English and often used physical contact to get you into their store, as well as keep you there! I had to ripp hands from me and use some wreslting moves to get by some of them. It was interesting to see hagglers and foreigners from all over the world, using English as a common language to communicate. Globalization at its finest here. The next day, before our flight to Hong Kong, we visited the Summer Palace, a huge palace surrounded by a lake where we rented paddle boats and trekked around for about two hours. The palace is where the Emperor spends his summers, hend the term ''Summer Palace.''
Hong Kong was like a different country, almost a peer into the future. Hong Kong people consider themselves very different from mainland China, and they are. Seperate currency, seperate language (Cantonees instead of Mandarin), and they drove on the opposite side of the road. The British had been occupying the area since about ten years ago, so I think that is why they're a little more ahead of the game. The city glowed with skyscrapers in every direction, casting out every color of neon lights. Huge signs on big buildings read ''Samsung'' ''Nokia'' ''Dell'' along with any other major corporation you could think of. The first day was a bit frustrating, as I spent the entire morning looking for an ATM to pay for a gift I wanted to send my grandma back home, I finally found the damn ATM, and it didn't take VISA. It was a local one. SHIT! I then walked around in the humidity (it was raining too) for another half of an hour until I finally found one, hailed a cab, and told him to take me to the post office. I did a little shopping that day, at Stanley market, about an hour a way from Hong Kong. I didn't know this until I saw them while driving through the steep hills along the beach, but Hong Kong has beautiful beaches lines with beautiful rain forest. It was really a sight to see.
All in all, I liked seeing the historical aspect of China, and experiencing it. However, the people were not all that nice, it was pretty dirty (except for Hong Kong) and the pollution unbearable. Hong Kong was magnificant though, I would definitely return to HK.