xiamen. fujian. china. april 2nd – 4th. 2009

With much effort on Stephens part we arrive in Xiamen the weekend of Chinese National Holiday (some of you will understand…) the hostel is quiet, far from the airport, so again I leave it up to Stephen to figure out what bus will get us there. I am surprised that we are driven through a city of modern high rises, a raised freeway. A 45 min  bus ride to arrive at our connection! For some reason I am stressed and we take a cab the rest of the way. It is dark now, we came through a tunnel to get here and are now in a small quiet street off the main. It is the right place though. I think we warmed to it as we descended the stairs to the building and garden and were greeted by the resident dog and her puppy. The staff is laid back, the space is beautiful, our room small but airy. The other guests we meet on the same page. We don’t wander far for food tonight, but we don’t have to, there are two vegetarian restaurants, fruit stands and a street of restaurants for Stephen within a 5 min walk. We wander our neighborhood in daylight, arrange travel to Yongding, walk along the waterfront, but mostly enjoy the common space of the hostel, our conversations with  Stephen (staff) and Jenny (guest) and the dvds. This neighborhood is really nice too, it is an older part of town near the university, out of the chaos  and modern aesthetic of the core, but still an urban environment. We are hard pressed to leave, but the Hakka Earth Houses are calling, and after arranging a few nights again at this hostel, we make our trip to Yongding.

laurel's xiamen photos on flickr

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shanghai. china. march 27th – april 2nd. 2009

futuristic modern china. sore necks from looking up too much. "hai", my chinese namesake... is there a special connection for me here?

more to come...

in the meantime, here are some photos!
laurel's shanghai photos on flickr
stephen's shanghai photos on flickr

hong kong. china. march 19th – 27th. 2009

Round 2. No lovely apartment this time.  Instead, a smallish, expensive room in what is most likely an illegal space. But we are in the thick of Hong Kong, in Causeway Bay. 

Our stop is brief, dim sum, vegetarian restaurants, a movie (!), stocking up on some basics and meetings with friends, old and new, while waiting for our Chinese visa. Lunch with jimmy, drinks with Phil, lovely dinner and evening with Ron, Eileen and Fleur, highlights of this second visit.  The night time wanderings through the neon streets of Causeway Way, having made peace with our accommodations and visas approved we get ready to re-enter China, next stop, Shanghai, somewhere to which Stephen is drawn and we are eager to continue our journey.

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hanoi. vietnam. round 2. march 17th – 19th. 2009

We have only 2 nights left here. We ‘splurge’ and get a room at another hotel (still on the 6^th floor…) tonight we try meeting with Jackie, after that, it is preparing to leave for Hong Kong. There is a lovely place across the street we revisit for dinner, then a taxi to Jackie’s home, which we never would have found on our own. We are dropped off in a dark lane that almost doesn’t seem residential, but Jackie’s husband answers the door, and we are welcomed to a beautiful environment that the exterior gave no hint of. We have a really lovely evening catching up, hearing of life in Hanoi and meeting two of their friends. The first a business partner/friend of her husbands, the 2^nd, and 18 year old woman, Mei, who is captivating as soon as she enters the room. It is a really wonderful evening full of stories, conversation, though.  We catch a taxi back to our hotel with Mei. and spend the next day preparing for Hong Kong. It is a good way to leave Vietnam, having enjoyed some peace, company and the spaces we last were in.

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halong bay. vietnam. march 16th – 17th. 2009

The beautiful limestone karsts are the draw to this UNESCO World Heritage site. Like everywhere else in SE Asia, our only option to get there is through a guided tour, which in this situation is a good thing, since neither of us can operate or sail a boat! Our boat tour options were numerous and we settle on a recommended tour company who’s fleet accommodate up to 12 passengers per junk boat for a 2 day, 1 night visit. We are about to board and all is well up to this point, until our tour guide asks all passengers to hand over their passports for them to hold on to for the duration of the tour. I immediately refuse to do this and continue to have a disagreement with our tour guide as to why I do not want be without my passport. Basically, I was told if we refuse to turn over our passports  then we cannot go on the boat. He reassured me it would be safe and we would get them back when we leave the boat the next day. So relunctantly, we hand them over and board to begin our tour. Later, as we are on our way to the bay, we found out that one of the other tour operators had all of the passports on one of the other boats!!This infuriated me, but I stayed calm, and hoped just for the best. That was our first hurdle to overcome, which I recognize is my own issue. Not that I necessarily distrusted them in this situation, but it is my passport and my responsibility, and I can’t keep it safe, if I don’t have it. Anyways, I let it go and wasn’t going to let it affect my mood for the trip. And just as I was finding my zen with this, a fellow passenger starts arguing with the tour guide. She is clearly distraught with her situation, which we figured out through their discourse, was because she had to share her sleeper cabin with a stranger who was male. The boat had sleeper cabins that had two single beds each and I believe only 1 private cabin with 1 single bed. After much more discussion, and the tour guide offering no effort to find a reasonable solution, nothing was resolved and she was still clearly distraught at her predicament. The simple solution would have been for the gentleman who had the single cabin, to offer it up to her, but he wanted nothing to do with it whatsoever. So, us being the kind Canadians we are, and me being my Libra self needed to find a solution for this situation. It didn’t take Laurel and I too long to offer up a possible solution. Which was for us to split up for the night. The Lady could sleep in our cabin with Laurel, and I would sleep in her cabin with the strange man. She was happy with this solution and we were happy that we could finally move on and start to enjoy this visit to Halong Bay.

The day was foggy, but it added to the atmosphere of this serene and beautiful place. It also provided a sort of blanket that masked the over population of boats around us. The views are spectacular and vast as we weave our way through the bay and eventually dock, as do all the other boats, to visit the colourfully lit up Thien Cung Cave. After some time docked, we board the boat and get ready to spend the night back on the water. The night is calm, the sky is as dark as can be. Then sleep. The next day, the fog is again heavy in its cover, providing a picturesque backdrop of translucent layers, gradually disappearing into the distance. We make our way back to town and are handed back our passports as we deboard the boat. I learned a lot about myself on this short trip. Maybe learned isn’t the right word, maybe reaffirmed is more appropriate. I won’t get into the details of my self reflecting, but I'll just say it’s all positive.

laurel's halong bay photos on flickr
stephen's halong bay photo's on flickr

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hanoi. vietnam. march 10th – 16th. 2009

An overnight sleeper bus from Hue. A grey and drizzly dawn, with stories of taxi and hotel rooms seems active in our minds we opt to walk again,  packs and all. Not quite as far this time, Hanoi is still asleep and our walk, fairly calm. Overpriced hotels finds us in a decent enough place, but a tiny room on the 6^th floor. Hanoi is not what I expected. It is narrow streets, low buildings, few traffic lights, bustling and chaotic, but somehow in a laid back way. It is a big sprawling, confusing city that lacks a lot of the glaring lights, booming music and ads that have somehow become trademarks of an urban environment. It is cooler and grey here, but I know Stephen welcomes both and it veils the city even more. We wander out mostly for food. Like any big city, there is a large span of prices and choices. We discover (NAME OF RESTAURANT) early on and definitely frequent it most often. Closest in our room, this restaurant is airy, quiet (it is on the 3^rd floor), full of windows and somewhere that we can linger for a few hours. We wander another day and end up close to a site called the Temple of Literature, so we decide to make our way there. Lack of intention aside, there are several other things that make our random encounter there seem exceptional. The admission almost deterring us, taking a path through other then the main and crowded ones, I hear a woman say hello and I  am aware that she is talking to me. I know I recognize her, but am racking my brain to remember how, when she says ‘Nelvana?’, then I realize it is Jackie. Someone I haven’t seen in 10 years since she left Toronto for Hong Kong and who I had no idea as to where she was now. It turns out she is living in Hanoi, with her Husband (!) and she is only at the temple today showing her in-laws around. We make plans to try and contact one another before we leave for Hong Kong ourselves. I hope to meet and catch up. Timing really is everything and I really look forward to the opportunity to reconnect. The only other thing we do in Hanoi meet with a girl named Chi, a young woman living in Hanoi who befriended someone we know from Toronto traveling in Vietnam last summer. She takes us to the Ethnology Museum and we realize at the end of the day that we would have preferred to just hang out with her in a more personal environment. It was nice of her to hook up with us, especially on the word of our friend. I think we had enough of tourist environments and didn’t appreciate the museum (and cost) as a result. That said we are still drawn to Halong Bay and leave Hanoi for 1 ½ days to go spend a night.

laurel's hanoi photos on flickr

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