Beijing

When we moved to Hong Kong, number one on our list of places to see was the Great Wall.  We finally made it there!

The weekend before last we travelled to Beijing for PJ’s baseball tournament.  This was the first trip to Beijing for all of us except Meg.  She went with her classmates last year for school.

Dave, the girls and I spent Friday touring some of the sites in Beijing: Tiananmen Square, Heavenly Temple, Forbidden City and Zhongshan Park.  Here are a few things by which I was struck:

                 The skies were a hazy, brownish-grey, but the weather was quite nice.  I didn’t feel the 

                 effects of the air quality, but Dave, Grace and PJ did.

                 The architecture in Beijing is much more interesting than Shanghai.  It was quite a 

                 beautiful city from that standpoint.

                 The security at Tiananmen Square was far greater than any other attraction.

                 The Forbidden City was a little too commercialized for me.

Some interesting things we saw:

                 At Forbidden City, with people all around and public restrooms nearby, parents put 

                 newspapers on the ground and let their two little boys squat and take care of business right 

                 there.

                Toddlers running around in pants with the back slit open…or perhaps they were made that 

                way??  I saw one with a diaper, but the others had nothing on underneath.  Interesting and 

                less expensive way to potty train.

               All of the locals wanted to take pictures with Meg because she is blond.  She had warned us                        

               this would be the case.  At the Great Wall a group wanted a picture with Dave.  He felt 

               awkward so he had PJ step in too.

The Heavenly Temple was very neat and well worth the trip.  Beautiful grounds.  I had heard mixed reviews, but we definitely enjoyed it. 

Zhongshan Park (next to Forbidden City) was beautiful.  We saw many military cadets marching through the park.

The Great Wall was well worth the trip!  Just amazing to see the way it rolls over the mountains and the sheer massiveness.  We rode a cable car from Mu Tian Yu up to the Wall.  Walked along the wall for a bit.  The section we were at was in very good shape.  I know there are some sections in disrepair.  Then we rode a toboggan down.  Grace, Meg and I rode the brakes while Dave and PJ went so fast that the attendants were telling them to slow downJ

Here are a few pictures:

Tiananmen Square

Tiananmen Square

Tiananmen Square looking across to Forbidden City

Zhongshan Park

Zhongshan Park

Zhongshan Park

Forbidden City

Cool bike.  They were everywhere in Beijing.

Outside the Forbidden City

Heavenly Temple

Heavenly Temple

Heavenly Temple

Great Wall

Great Wall

PJ pitching in the championship game

Occupy Central

For those of you following international news you may have heard some talk about protests in Hong Kong.  In 2017 Hong Kong is due to elect the next Chief Executive.  Many Hong Kongers would like this to be a democratic election.  Beijing would like this to be a traditional Chinese Communist Party election, meaning one in which a small group in Beijing determines which candidates are acceptable.

Activists here in Hong Kong have been threatening to protest and shut down the Central financial district.  They followed through yesterday.  Last night PJ went downtown with a friend and his father to witness the protests.  He said it was an unbelievable experience.  They watched as one protestor stood his ground against the police.  They saw the police dawn their gas masks and knew that something was about to happen.  Then they witnessed the growing cloud of tear gas headed their way.  They decided it was time to leave when they saw the police coming over the barricade towards the lone protestor who appeared to be the cause of the unleashing of tear gas.  As for the tear gas, PJ now knows how that feels.  “My eyes were watering and I had snot running all down my face.”

This morning PJ and I had to be in Central by 9:00am for a doctor appointment.  When I asked the taxi driver to take us to Central he told me he couldn’t; “All shut down.”  Instead I had him take us to the other end of the MTR line in Chai Wan and we took the MTR into Central.  I take the MTR from Chai Wan to Central 3-5 days a week on average.  It is never crowded in Chai Wan and certainly not at 8:00am.  It was complete chaos.  However, when we came out of the exit at Central the streets were not crowded at all.  I think that because people knew some roads in Central were closed they all decided to take the MTR and figured they better get an early start because it would be crowded.  PJ tells me that last night the protesting was confined to in front of the Chinese Embassy and we are a little ways from there.

You can add this to the list of experiences we never would have had without moving here.  As my brother said, “Who got the, ‘May you live in interesting times’ fortune cookie??”

PJ took some pictures for me, but he thought I should use these from Huffington Post instead:

Carts and Trash

It has been awhile since I have posted anything, so I have a few to post today.

One thing I have noticed in our time here is that the overwhelming majority of people do not return their carts (shopping or other) to the proper place.  It is common to walk up to checkout at a grocery store and have several shopping carts blocking your path.  I have been in line and had the person in front of me leave their cart blocking the register.  I have become the crazy lady who returns 5 carts while waiting for the cashier to ring up my groceries.  This phenomenon does not only occur at the grocery store.  The other day we were in line to board a plane to Beijing.  The woman in front of us had taken a cart to push her purse.  She and her husband got in line in front of us; she removed her purse and left the cart blocking our way.  Most people will just walk around the carts and wait for someone else to take care of them.

If you come to visit us you will notice there is always trash on the sidewalks.  When my father was here last November he asked if that was from the “spoiled expat kids”.  No, it’s not.  It’s actually the locals.  There are trashcans about every 500 yards on our loop, but all of the local workers leave their trash on the sidewalk.  Lunch trash, cigarette packs, water bottles, etc.  Everyday there is an elderly woman whose job it is to sweep the sidewalks and she takes care of all of the trash along with any tree limbs or other "natural" debris.

The “someone else will take care of it” attitude is one that makes me crazy.  There is plenty of this in the U.S., it just seems to be a little more “in my face” here.  To use the words of fallen Marine Travis Manion, “If not me, then who?”  I find these words appropriate to so many facets of life.  And please don't say, "The elderly woman who comes by everyday.":-)

Sombrero and Pancho

Dave sent me an e-mail from work on Tuesday saying that he had to go in costume to a work dinner Friday night, could I possibly get him a sombrero and poncho?  Well, that would be very easy if I were living in San Diego or Yuma, but I wasn't sure how easy it would be here.  As luck would have it, costumes are extremely easy to find in Hong Kong and the best place to find them is a block away from where I go to CrossFit classes!  The CrossFit box I belong to is in the Central district of Hong Kong, about 45 min to an hour on the bus and the MTR.  One of the biggest tourist attractions in Central is "the lanes".  These are little alleyways filled with shops and vendors.  One particular lane, Pottinger Street, has a lot of costume shops.  I walked into the first shop and asked for a sombrero.  Sure enough, hidden back in the corner she had several and matching ponchos to boot!  Here are a few pictures of "the lanes":

And here is a picture of Dave's sombrero and poncho:)

Paddle Boarding

I tried something new today, paddle boarding.  Since we returned to Hong Kong in August, Dave has been talking about getting a membership at the water sports rental in Stanley.  He really wanted to try paddle boarding.  Unfortunately he has been extremely busy at work and we haven't had a chance to do it.  A couple of days ago I decided that I would ask a friend to go with me and I would give it a try in advance.  Neither of us had been on a paddle board before.  Thankfully the water is quite calm and neither one of us had any trouble.  We were able to paddle from Stanley Beach to Turtle Cove (the beach right below our house) and back.  In the picture below you can see the white sand of Stanley beach off in the distance.

Although it was hot and we both had sweat dripping in our eyes, it was very enjoyable.  Of course when we got to Turtle Cove we heard some big rumbles of thunder.  Thankfully we made it back before a storm rolled in.  I have to tell you, neither one of us wanted to enter the water.  There was a lot of floating trash and a couple of dead crabs.  The ocean water in Hawaii is still my favorite!  Next on the agenda is to rent kayaks from the same location!