Back from China!

It's been about a week and a half that I've been back from my trip to China. We joined a tour and went to Beijing, Nanjing, Wuxi, Sozhou, Shanghai, Hangzhou and finally Guangzhou where the tour was dismissed. Then we made our way to Hong Kong and flew back to San Francisco from there.

The trip was good. My main concern was DH getting a culture shock with the food. Not only he didn't complain and ate a lot, but he also didn't get sick! What a relief. Well, we visited big cities, it should be much safer than visiting say Xian or other remote areas.

In preparation for the Olympics, the Beijing National Stadium (or the Bird's Nest) was already there, we drove by and could have a look. It was either a very foggy or smoggy day, we couldn't see well. Streets in big cities were clean and I noticed significant reduction in number of people spitting (almost none!). I have to give them credit, every time I go back to China, I can see significant improvement: they evolve at very quick pace!

When we got to Guangzhou where the tour was dismissed, we finally got to eat food other than "tour-package-deal" meals. DH was very pleased. Guangzhou is known for good food. We met up with my relatives and they took care of taking us out. We tried local specialties like free-range chicken, fresh fish balls, dumplings with fish-meat wrapper, wild caught shrimps, and even pigeon! We stayed in Guangzhou for 2 nights and then took the train to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong was charming. It was great for walkers! For 2 days in a row, we walked 21,000 steps per day! (Daily target is 10,000 steps). We were proud to show our friends and relatives what we walked.

On the first day, we walked from Central to the escalators to mid-levels, visited the zoo (open to public, free admission!) on the way and then walked to the tram station to go up to Victoria Peak. After seeing the view of the city from high, we walked back from the tram station to Central and finally from Central to Causeway Bay. We stopped on the way for afternoon tea and visited Cisco office in Wan Chai. We met up with DH's cousins in Causeway Bay for dinner.

On the second day, we visited The Hong Kong Museum of History in Tsim Sha Tsui. It was free admission on Wednesday. We walked North on Nathan Road from there to Mongkok where we shopped and experienced the crowds in Hong Kong. We went as far as Gold Fish Market!

Thursday was a relaxing day, we took it easy and had a day trip to Shenzhen where we indulge ourselves with half a day at a SPA.

Friday was the last full day in Hong Kong. We occupied ourselves with last minute shopping and last minute meeting with friends and relatives.

Saturday morning, we head out early at 7:30am to catch bus E22A from Tseung Kwan O (near Po Lam MTR station) to the airport. It took us 1hr15mins and costed HK$24 per person. The ride and flight were uneventful. We met up with 4 tourmates who took the same flight home. The flight was nice, the flight attendants were courteous. I was tired and slept most of the flight. Never has a trans-Pacific flight seemed so short (about 12hrs)!