I meant to put all of this up yesterday in addition to my post about Christmas, but I finally succumbed to fatigue and went to bed when Blogger started having issues saving my post. So, apologies to those who were expecting more of an update. I promise this one will be quite interesting. It has a lot of pictures, as you can probably tell. Yay pictures! I'm not naturally a photographer, though, which means I frequently forget I have a thing like a camera and don't take pictures. Sorry. You've probably noticed that though.

Alrighty. Let's start at the beginning of this second journey to Hong Kong. First of all, Lany wasn't able to get tickets for Jeff and I the day we had been planning to leave. The way the train system works in China is unique, to put it simply. You generally can't buy tickets anywhere until three days before you plan to travel. And if you're not quick about it, you can end up with hard seats like we did to Beijing. Obviously Jeff and I could've survived going on hard seats...but we really didn't know what we would do with our luggage. The buggers probably weighed about forty-nine pounds each, and there really wasn't much room on the train in the hard seating area...so Lany kindly got us beds. Hard beds, I think, technically...which was nice. There were two trains from Xiangtan to Shenzhen (the last stop in mainland China before Hong Kong). Both left late at night. The one we went on left at 11. I think. I should probably pull out my train ticket and look...

Anyway, I got the bottom bunk and Jeff got the top bunk. I put the suitcases down on the floor between the two bottom bunks (there were six bunks to each "compartment"), and we settled in for an eleven hour train ride to Shenzhen West railway station. Most of the passengers in our train compartment got off before Shenzhen, so it was very comfortable toward the end. We met someone named Yuri (I think--I'm bad with names) who had gone to school in the U.S. and worked as a truck driver for a while before coming back to Xiangtan and his parents. He had a little girl that absolutely loved him that was fun to try and talk to. Children in China are not afraid of strangers at all--they love to meet new people. Parents are more than willing to let them, too, for they treat everyone as revered uncles or aunts. Construction workers are referred to as uncles by students, actually. It'd be nice if we could trust strangers enough to be that way in the U.S...but I don't see that happening anytime soon. When we arrived at Shenzhen, the little girl started sobbing because her new friend was leaving.

Feeling rather grungy and groggy (it isn't that easy to sleep on a train, even with a bed), Jeff and I went to the ticket office to get tickets to Hong Kong. Lany gave us a stipend to do so. Unfortunately, after an hour in one line, I was told I needed to be in the next line over in rather broken English. And after an hour in that line, we were told that we would have to go through Guangzhou, which made no sense at all. The woman I ended up talking to after a confusing conversation involving three Chinese men who spoke a bit of English said we'd need to pay 300 RMB for tickets to Guangzhou. I counted our money. We only had 150. I told her that, and asked her for hard seats. They were 200. So, Jeff and I decided to go and find a bank in order to withdraw some money. I was rather discouraged by the whole situation, especially since we had to drag our luggage around behind us while trying to find a bank in an unfamiliar city (and it didn't help it was nearly that time of month). Jeff was great, though. He kept telling me it would be okay somehow and that we'd make it to Hong Kong, even if we were a day late. We had no cell phones, and no way to contact Mom and tell her what was going on--though, he did suggest we could use an internet cafe to contact her. Which was a good idea. But Shenzhen was very different from Xiangtan--much more modern. Which meant there were wide roads, and fewer shops crammed next to each other.

We found a bank and decided the best course of action would be to go to the main railway station and try and get tickets there. Of course, we had no idea how to ask a taxi driver how to get there...so we tried showing our tickets to one and told him not to go to the Xi railway station...but he didn't quite get what we were saying and took us back. Which was okay. I didn't have to drag my luggage back, which was happy. I was starting to get blisters on my hands from doing so, as we had to drag our luggage through construction.

I told Jeff it was his turn to wait in line. He did, and he got to speak to the fluent English-speaker first--who told him, after maybe half an hour of waiting, that we needed to go to the other railway station. She wrote the characters down we'd need to give to the taxi driver. I was happy and frustrated and felt a lot like crying. We went out, found a taxi driver, and then spent the next half hour going from one end of the huge city to the other. It was an expensive ride, but I really didn't care.

We arrived at the main railway station and were immediately confused as to where to buy tickets. So we wandered around for a bit, dragging our heavy bags, until we spotted some foreigners. Jeff asked them what we needed to do, and they informed us we had to go through customs in order ride the MTR. Which made no sense to us, but they said we could get tickets through customs. So we dragged those confounded suitcases behind us and then went through customs to get out of mainland China. We passed over a huge fence with barbed wire, and then went through customs to get into Hong Kong. We found out that the MTR stood for the subway/train system in Hong Kong. Jeff exchanged all the yuan he'd withdrawn into Hong Kong dollars, and we then bought tickets electronically to Hung Hom (I didn't know which station was close to the Marriott, and didn't know we could've bought tickets straight to the building the Marriott was connected to). Once there, we hired a taxi which took us across to Hong Kong Island (another expensive ride) and ended up a the front door of the J.W. Marriott in Hong Kong. The bellhops took our bags (we were so confused) and directed us inside. I must say, I felt like I didn't belong at that hotel the moment we stepped in--we smelled funny from our train ride and were all grungy from a day of pulling heavy suitcases. But they took us anyway. We checked in, got our keys, and then went up to Mom and Kathy's hotel room. Kathy is my mom's sister, and was kind enough to arrange the whole trip and hotel room and whatnot. She's a nifty aunt.

Jeff got in the shower and I pulled out my computer to see if there was wireless internet (there wasn't). Moments after I hibernated my computer, Mom and Kathy came in. Mom was very excited to see us. She hugged me for probably five minutes straight before letting me go. And probably did the same to Jeff--I don't know though, as I went and got in the shower as soon as he was out. I felt really icky after everything I'd been through in the past two days--the waiting room at the train station in Xiangtan was full of smokers, for example.

Once we were all cleaned and caught up, we went out on the town to explore the Temple Street night market. Vendors set up little booths full of very sparkly jewelry, random electronics, movies, fans, baubles, and anything else they can sell to primarily tourists. Then we stopped for a more traditional Chinese meal. It wasn't spicy. Which was very different. So was watching Mom eat with chopsticks (just kidding!). By the time we got back, I was pretty much a walking zombie I was so tired.

The following day, we had a tour of Lantau Island. We rode cable cars up the mountain and then went to a very large statue of Buddha. Apparently this Buddha was constructed in the late eighties and finished in the early nineties by a nearby monastery (which we visited as well). It isn't a big fat happy Buddha, like you generally see--he is more of a triumphant Buddha. I would've liked to take pictures inside, for there were some really neat paintings and a piece of Buddha's neck bone up at the top (the size of a grain of rice) brought from Sri Lanka, but we weren't allowed to take pictures. Apparently only people of faith can see the holy relic from Buddha. I think I might've seen something--but you have to stand twenty feet back from the relic, and it's put inside of a capsule inside of a cup inside of a jar, so I'll never really know if it was really a piece of his neck bone or a jelly bean.

After touring inside the big Buddha, we went down to the monastery that paid for the statue. There was a lot of incense burning. There were a lot of tourists, but also some Chinese people worshiping. We were allowed to take pictures inside of the monastery. I didn't take many, though, 'cause I felt it was disrespectful to those who were there to worship. The picture to the left is the main monastery. They're trying to save up money to add a new building of 10,000 buddhas. It will apparently be five stories tall. I think on some level they're desperate to get more tourists to visit. Which might not be the case, but Lantau island is languishing a bit because it doesn't have the major metropolitan influence like in the rest of Hong Kong. It's very beautiful, and there are hardly any large buildings, which was done on purpose. Sadly, most of the residents have been moving out, and new residents aren't allowed to move on certain parts of the island. They built the new international airport on Lantau island--they actually reclaimed land from the sea to do it. Practicing Buddhists are often vegetarians. In fact, we were asked not to eat anything with meat in it before visiting the Buddha. There was a vegetarian cafeteria nearby the monestary. If we'd had more time, it would've been cool to try their spring rolls and stuff...but we were on a rather strict schedule. Unfortunately, not all of the people on the tour realized that. We waited for them for a while, which was rather aggravating. As we waited, I took a picture of this neat rock. It has Chinese characters inscribed on it. I have no idea what any of them say, sadly. The only character I can recognize is the one for yuan. It looks like the pi symbol with a line over it, for those of you who are curious. Many monasteries have similar stones--I saw some pictures from Jeff's co-teacher of similar things. I imagine it's probably something to do with good fortune and blessings on the monastery, but don't quote me on it.

After visiting the monastery, we took a bus down to a fishing village. Mom and Kathy got to smell fish drying in the open air for the first time. We didn't get to spend long there, though, because we needed to catch a ferry back to Hong Kong island. Due to the fact that it was New Year's Eve, it was getting pretty crowded along the harbor. The picture I took in the village was of a wall toward the harbor. Apparently when Jeff and I were at the airport, the typhoon that kept us stranded in Hong Kong sent a wave tall enough that it came over this wall. It caught the villagers unawares--some of the houses are still flooded.

The ferry was probably my least favorite part of the tour. I get seasick really easy, and the waters were all choppy thanks to the numerous boats in the harbor. Of course, it was a nice ferry, but by the end of that ride, I felt icky. Still, I was more than willing to go with Jeff, Mom, and Kathy to the night market again. We found a restaurant that served amazingly delicious duck with the bone in it and everything. They gave us normal utensils and chopsticks. I tried the fork and spoon for a while, but gave up because I kept using them like chopsticks. We saw some of the lights and fireworks as they counted down to the New Year and then promptly all fell asleep.

New Year's Day, we were scheduled to go to Disneyland. We awoke bright and early and got a sluggish start when Jeff stayed in bed...but that was okay, because we ended up at Disneyland half an hour before they opened. The train to Disneyland is really cool. I took a picture of Mom and Kathy (they look a lot like twins, don't they?) after Kathy took a picture of me and Jeff. Anyway, the train is decorated with Mickey Mouse windows, and the handles you can hold while standing have Mickey on them. There are also statues of different characters throughout the train. I was pretty excited to go.

We got into the park and went to Tommorowland first. There was hardly anyone there, so we went on Space Mountain twice, and even went on Autotopia (which isn't very fun). We went on all the rides and moved on within half an hour. Hong Kong Disneyland isn't very big. At all. And it wasn't very crowded, either. We saw the Golden Mickey's show, which was pretty cool. Mickey and Minnie spoke in Chinese and there were English translations on a screen. All of the songs were in English, though. We got to see Mulan in the show. But, sadly, not in the park. I did take a picture of her cow. I mean...horse... I was sad that we didn't get to see Mushu anywhere either. The characters we saw were Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Donald, Alice, Merlin, and Piglet. There weren't any Minnie Mouse plushies dressed up as princesses in the stores, which was a bummer. Mom wanted to get one dressed as Mulan for Lydia, and I would've liked one. They didn't even have any merchandising for Mulan in the park, really.

Still, it was fun. We finished all of the rides by about four in the afternoon and went to the hotel because there was literally nothing else to do. They need to add a few more rides, I think. There's a lot of beautiful plants and landscaping, but more people would probably be inclined to go if there was more to do. Mom was pretty exhausted, so we vegged in the hotel that night. We had McDonald's. I was tired too, so we called it an early night.

On January 2, Kathy went to visit Guangzhou at an insanely early time. Jeff, Mom, and I went to Ocean Park--the other theme park in Hong Kong--in the morning. It's a very big park--not because it has a lot of rides (though it does have a considerable amount), but because it's on a hill. It isn't as well marked as Disneyland, and the map isn't entirely helpful. But we did manage to find the panda exhibit. Three of the four pandas at Ocean Park were asleep. And the fourth one's exhibit was crowded with people taking pictures. The Chinese are very proud of their pandas. I can see why. They're very cute. Jeff was really excited to finally see live pandas. I think he was sad that there were so many other people, but that's okay. There are always a lot of people in China.

The rest of the park was pretty. There was a large aquarium with lots of big freaky-looking fish (which was crowded as well). And rides. A lot of them are like the ones at Lagoon. The Dragon, a roller coaster, was actually built in Clearfield. It was fun. Mom was afraid to go on it, but Jeff and I did. It went upside down three times. And it wasn't very fast. I think the Chinese are still getting used to the idea of theme parks--there aren't any roller coaster junkies out there yet. I'm sure some day they'll start building huge parks like in the United States. They played Christmas music over the loudspeakers, like they had at Disneyland. Hearing it after the New Year's was weird. Especially since it was so loud.

There was a really neat seal and dolphin show at Ocean Park we saw. It was sunny, and very hot waiting, but worth it. The dolphins were very well trained, and the seals were hilarious. The show was in English. The picture to the right is of my view of the park. We didn't go on many rides, though. Mom and I weren't feeling spectacularly good. So, we decided to head back to the hotel and chill around lunch time.

After eating, Mom thought it would be really fun to find the temple. We went to the concierge desk to ask them how to get there, and ended up with directions to the administrative building. However, they were more than willing to explain how to get to the temple there. We saw six or seven elders in the lobby talking. All but one were from Utah. After receiving directions, we hopped back onto the MTR and went to the temple. For future reference, the stop to get there on the MTR is the Kowloon Tong stop. It's on the side across from Hong Kong Island.
I finally got a good picture of the temple! Yay! It wasn't foggy or anything. So there you are. After that adventure, we went back to the Temple Street market (not the same street the temple's on) and mom got some pretty pink pearls at a pretty decent price. I helped her haggle. She thinks I'm really good at it. I don't like it. We had goose again, and then we went back to the hotel.

The next morning, it was time to go back to our home away from home away from home--the airport. Kathy gave us the rest of her Hong Kong dollars (thanks again!) and Jeff and I bought some jade bracelets and Ben and Jerry's ice cream! Yummy! The flight wasn't too bad back to the states. My first impression upon seeing Salt Lake was thinking that all the buildings are really short. Of course, in China, they're all at least three stories tall, so that's understandable.

So...that was our Hong Kong trip! Wahoo!

I know that this is a rather late update. I should've updated ages ago about Christmas, but Jeff and I had an apartment to clean, and grades to do, and group reports that I looked over and checked for grammar and whatnot... Excuses are easy to come up with after the fact. Especially when it's this late after the fact...

Anyway, I'm sure you readers are curious as to how Jeff and I celebrated Christmas in Xiangtan, China. I'll start with a few days before Christmas. On Sunday, December 21, we attended our last group meeting for church. Afterward, we had a white elephant gift exchange. Jeff ended up with a really cool statue of Chairman Mao that weighs a ton. (I brought it home.) I ended up with a weird mushroom plushie. I left it in China...

On Monday, I had one of my classes do their final presentations. For about seven classes, I had them work on developing a product as a group to present and try and convince me to invest. There were some pretty interesting inventions--like an umbrella that changed colors according to your mood and then could fold up to the size of a piece of candy, a flying car, paint for walls that changes according to mood, apples with different letters on them with flavors like chocolate, and contact lenses made entirely of water. I got some chopstick holders made by one of the students for their demonstration (they're pretty cool) and got to see a bunch of really good advertisements. After teaching, Jeff and I were invited to a feast compliment of our school's dean. It was very delicious...except I made the mistake of picking up the duck head from the plate as my first bit of meat. I didn't realize it was the head at first until I poked one of the eyes in. It was very hard to get to any of the meat inside the duck, but I did try the brains. They were a nasty texture, so I decided I'd had enough of the duck head and put it down with my garbage. Our Chinese hosts jumped to the conclusion that I didn't like Chinese food (though I now love it), so I ended up eating tons of it afterward to try and make up for it. It was a very relaxed dinner--and quite delicious. I really miss all of the spices...
The following day, we were invited to a 5-star hotel by Lany for a Christmas party. It was pretty intense--and buffet style! They had crab, and duck, and oysters, and seafood, and chicken, and weird jelly-like things--and fried rice! I finally had fried rice in China on December 22. Crazy, no? The buffet was set up very beautiful. My picture of it is blurry. But oh well! It's above, and a picture of my first plate of food is below.
Right. So, Jeff and I rather stupidly decided to just take the number 10 bus home and consequently didn't say goodbye to our foreign teacher friends (I felt really dorky when I realized that) but we were really tired. We didn't stay for any karaoke or anything, and we didn't really participate in the program. We had a host at our party, and Lany kept trying to get us to come up and play games, but we were all quite tired. I did win a raffle prize, though. It was a pretty neat tea set--but the tea kettle was made of glass, and I didn't want to have it break on my way back, so I left it in Xiangtan. Besides, I'm not a particularly big fan of tea. I took one sip of green tea and didn't like it. Milk tea is good, though.

Jeff and I thought that we had English Corner on Christmas Eve...but apparently not. It was sad not going. But that was okay. We vegged and watched movies. Both of us really wanted to watch Nightmare Before Christmas, but I got that for my birthday in Utah, so I couldn't show it. Christmas was Thursday, as you are all aware. And it was my last day teaching. Wahoo! I had my students choose a movie on Monday and Tuesday to watch (I gave each class five choices and had them vote before they started their final product presentations). I ended up watching The Princess Bride, Stardust, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. My students loved The Princess Bride. It was fun watching them watch it since they'd never seen the ROUS's or anything--several of my students screamed when Westley was attacked. And after class ended, I heard a lot of them say, "As you wish!" to practice. Oddly enough, that movie doesn't have English subtitles--I don't think they understood Inigo Montoya at all... But that's okay. My next class really enjoyed Stardust also. And though I started early and ended late, I still had to cut them off before they saw the end--they were really into it. Not so much for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But that's okay. They watched it at least. When Veruca was carried into the garbage chute they thought that was pretty funny. And they thought it was funny when Mike Teevee came out after being pulled by the taffy puller.

Anywho, after Jeff and I finished our classes, we went downtown and feasted on...McDonald's! Yay! We heard Christmas music, and I said "Merry Christmas" to the cashier. Other than that, it was basically like any day. Jeff and I didn't get each other gifts. Sad, no? Oh well. It didn't really feel like Christmas. It was quite warm, and there was no hint of a white Christmas anywhere.