Wednesday, May 8, 2013

May 8, 2013

          Wow! Our adventure in China begins. The plane ride was a very long, 16 hours total to be exact.  For some of us this was our first international flight.  It was interesting to have the bilingual flight attendants and to get served 3 meals on the ride over the Pacific Ocean.  Many of people would get up during the flight to stretch and move their legs.  Many of us talked to the people sitting near us.  Many of the people were American businessmen who were headed to China for work.  They shared tips for the trip and cool things to do in the cities we are visiting. 

           We started our trip in Hong Kong. It was great weather today, wasn't super hot but not too cold either. And we even brought the rain with us, as it rained in the evening. After arriving in Hong Kong last night we were able to enjoy a huge meal, great food. And this morning we started the day with a tour of the city of Hong Kong. It's a very different atmosphere in Hong Kong than what we experience in the United States. Most Chinese seem to love Americans; we had a lot of people trying to either take pictures with us or of us. We took a group picture and it seemed like the Chinese just swarmed towards us to take pictures. While on our city tour of Hong Kong, the large number of people in a small space came more and more apparent as everywhere you looked there were buildings and apartments. The roads are also a lot narrower than we are used to, while we were going up the tallest peak in Hong Kong, there were many times we were inches from the rocks on one side and inches from the vehicle in the next lane.

          On our tour of the city we saw, a lot of different things. From apartments with the people hanging their clothes out the window to dry all the way to stores and different sculptures and structures. We saw some of the beaches and local people. We also got to see and take pictures with the Money God statue; it is said that if you rub him you will receive good fortune in money. The task to do so includes first rubbing his head, then rubbing his hands, then his feet, and finally his wallet. After doing that you must act as if you were stuffing your pockets with the money. After that you rub the money box statue that is located next to it. In addition, we also crossed a bridge that is said to add 3 years to your life as long as you don't cross back over it.

          We left Hong Kong, made it through both the Hong Kong and Chinese Customs (in the same building), and are now in our hotel in Shenzhen.  30 years ago it was a very poor village and today it is a prosperous city of over 10 million people!  Tomorrow starts the adventure in Guangzhou.

Downtown

Beach

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