Thoughts about my China Trip (1 year after)

I can't believe it's been a year since my trip to China last summer. It seemed like a couple years ago that I went. So much has happened in just a year! This summer is nothing compared to last summer (but still somewhat eventful).

Anyway, I thought I'd give you my thoughts on China one year after coming back. But, first, I'd like to re-share some pictures of the trip with you guys. I warn you. It's a lot. I wish I could share more but it would be just too much. I'll post the links of the posts I wrote about my China trip a week or two after I had come back.


Beijing:
 The Great Wall of China

my drink after the hike up the Great Wall

In one of the towers of the Great Wall of China. The stairway is so narrow and steep. I don't know how soldiers were able to move quickly!

Tiananmen Square

In the airplane, on the way to China.

At a garden. It started raining! 

This was the street food. I think it's mainly for the entertainment for foreigners. 

This was in front of the Mao Zedong sculpture. 

 Part of my Dad's Village in Taishan (台山)
In Taishanese, the city is pronounced hoisan. In Cantonese, it's pronounced toisan. Taishan is the Mandarin pronunciation.

 Macau

 Hong Kong

And, my favorite:

Wang Leehom! =) I love his music! 

So, that was a brief, VERY brief picture overview of my trip to China last year with my family. It was a month long trip.  Sorry with bombarding you guys with a lot of pictures. I warned you though! I wish I could post more pictures but I think that would be too much. 

The trip to China is probably once in a lifetime experience. I got to see where my parents grew up. The feeling was just overwhelming and it's hard to explain. I really enjoyed the peace of mind I had when I was there. I was thinking things like, "This is where my roots are. I must never forget it." When I have children, I would bring them back to the village too (somehow). I still occasionally talk to one person from the village online. I don't know what will happen in the future to the village, since the young people are moving out to the cities. But, I hope that it will still be there. It's amazing how they inscribed ,into a wall, the name of almost every single person that had lived there since hundreds of years ago. They even have a mural with pictures of couples that had lived there (well, from when cameras existed). 

I can say it was a very humbling experience for me. When I wasn't in my parents hometown, my parents did most of the talking because my Mandarin wasn't that good. I learned a lot and had a great time. But, the culture and environment is very different. In the big places such as Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, you will see that they look a bit more industrialized and Westernized. However, even in those parts, there will be parts where it's underdeveloped. 

You will learn to accept a lower standard of living. Forget the air conditioning and good toilets. The weather is humid and most of the toilets are still holes in the ground. There will be places with air conditioning but most use fans. It's humid there and rains at the most unexpected times. My family was taking a walk one afternoon and it was sunny. One minute after, it was pouring rain. 5 minutes later, it was sunny again. 5 minutes later, it rained. After that, it remained sunny and hot the rest of the day. I got too many mosquito bites in China. I remember on the Northern China tour, there were two families from California that we met. They had children around my age and one family lives in the same city as us. The other lives in San Fran. We all got along and they were all nice (and all Chinese). I mention this because one of them sprayed mosquito repellent on them everyday. Yet, they were the ones that received the most mosquito bites! 

I did have fun climbing (walking) on the Great Wall of China. There was just so much to take in. But, it was fun and educational. I learned a lot on the trip and met relatives I've never met before. 

I hate to say this but I'm scared that as future generations come, there will be less connection the heritage and culture they came from. I hear that after the 4th or 5th generation, they are basically Americanized. In my heart, it's important to know your heritage and culture and to know where your roots are. 

I really don't know what else to say about the trip. It was just a wonderful experience and made realize how lucky I am and how lucky Americans are. You won't believe some of the living conditions I saw in China (I've only seen those conditions in documentaries until seeing it in China). Yes, there were some extraordinary conditions too, that were better than American standards. 

Here's the link the first post I wrote about my trip to China. From there, you'll be able to find the rest of my 5..6 posts I wrote. I apologize for my writing, spelling and grammar on those posts. I guess I felt a little jet lagged. My body also had to adjust to a new time zone.  

China Trip Part 1 (continue on from there to see other posts I wrote about my China trip)

Do you have any questions about my trip to China? Ask away. I'll be happy to answer your questions. 

Have you ever traveled out of the country? If so, how was it like?

Did your perspective on things change after traveling out of the country? If you haven't traveled out of the country, do you think your perspective on life will change if you do travel? 

My Hong Kong Trip Pictures

Hey Everyone! I promised you guys that I'll post my Hong Kong pictures. Well, here they are. Enjoy. I'll have a new recipe up by tomorrow.

green tea red bean sundae

McDonald's toys

my breakfast at the local diner, but I didn't eat the sausage and the yolk. 

in front of the hotel on the last day

These cakes at the bakery!

This is more cakes at the bakery!

This guy is break-dancing in the streets. 

This is the vegetarian food.

my outfit for that day. 

on top of the world!!!

This is the police boat. I also saw a fire boat too.

 I see these a lot in Hong Kong. Who do you think is better?

I say, Wang Leehom. I just wonder why Justin Bieber would be on a bus in Hong Kong.

 I hope you enjoy these pictures! Be ready for a pancake recipe tomorrow!

Have you been to Hong Kong? If so, where?

If you haven't, what places do you want to go to?

Have you guys been on any exciting trips?

My China Trip, part 7

This is the last of my China trip series. It's been nearly a month or so since I've been in China, but my memories of the trip are still pretty good. Anyway, the last place we went to before coming back to the States was Hong Kong! I'll post the Hong Kong pictures in the next post.

I love Hong Kong. For one thing, the weather was so much better there. I'm assuming that it's because of the weather. Their streets are more modernized and they have Disneyland there as well as Ocean Park. However, depending on where you walk to, you will see poverty within Hong Kong. It's just that tourists usually don't want to go in that area.

Anyway, we took a bus from Taishan to Hong Kong on Friday the 13th. The bus left early morning. The bus ride took about 3 or 4 hours, but of course, I took a nap. When we finally arrived, my family had to lug around 7 suitcases through customs. It was a nightmare lugging around all that luggage since it was so much. When we put the luggage through the security screening and it came out the other side, one of my suitcases hit my leg, where I had some mosquito bites! It hurt a lot and it started to bleed. I'd rather not go into detail about the mosquito bite. But, we had to keep going. Then, we went on another bus, which took us to our hotel.

We didn't do much that day. We went to eat at this local diner for lunch and it was pretty good. I got myself some toast , sweetened condensed milk and coffee! Oh, I missed coffee when I was in Taishan for 2 weeks. Anyway, next to that diner was a vegetarian restaurant. I'll talk more about that later.

We decided we wanted to explore the nightlife in Hong Kong. It's quite amazing. There's also more diverse tourists there, compared to the mainland. Anyway, we walked around and my siblings wanted to go to McDonald's for dinner. Well, that day, they had just released the Hello Kitty Frog Princess. We got to buy it. They also started selling their green tea red bean sundae, which I got. It was delicious! They also have wasabi sauce and honey mustard sauce for the fries/chicken nuggets, but I only ate the fries. Their fries are better than the ones in America.

Anyway, we finally came across the shopping area. The flee market. There were so many things. I wanted to buy a hello kitty wallet but it was still expensive. The flee market filled at lest 3 streets. On top of that, it was so crowded and there were so many people!

We finaly made it to one of the main streets and we saw many people performing on the streets. There were people break-dancing and there were people singing. It was awesome. We finally made our way back to the hotel, where I stopped by that vegetarian place to eat dinner. They had mock chicken, mock bbq pork, mock whatever. It was delicious though. They had other things, but I just got a sampler plate.

The next day, we went on tour. I was very skeptical about the tour since locally paid tours aren't as good as the ones that you pay for here in America. However, this tour surprised me. It was pretty decent. We went to one of the historic sites where Hong Kong and some other places agreed to change of government. We also went up this tram up the mountain. We got to see the mountainside as we went up. It was pretty scary but it had an amazing view. I think there were some Australian people on the tram too, because of their accent. It wasn't quite British, but it wasn't all American either. We took so many pictures once we got up. It's basically a shopping center.

After that, we went to this one beach place. It has historical significance but it was also dirty. There were a lot of beautifully crafted and painted sculptures though. There's this sculpture of a fish and there were many people that were trying to throw coins, hoping it would go into the mouth. My dad got it in on the first try. :)

After that, we went on a tour boat. It was pretty cool. I got to see sea houses, where people live in the sea on their boats. We went to a jewelry place after. They had free drinks.

Finally, we went to Ocean Park. Ocean Park was really fun, but we only had 4 or 5 hours to spend there. We only got to go on 2 rides, but we chose good ones. Anyway, the first thing we did was walk through one of their aquariums. It was alright, but the Monterey Bay Aquarium is much much better.

Then, we took this "submarine" to the top of the park. It's built on a hill. We went to a restaurant, where we waited a long time to finally get a table. Then, we realized how expensive the place was, but the tour company gave meal tickets for that place. The food was decent, but it wasn't really vegetarian friendly, unless you count the fruit salads.

Then, me and my siblings went on their water rides. The line wasn't that long, thank goodness. We got soaking wet. Everyone did. There were so many little kids that loved spraying us with water. I was quite shocked since I didn't get that wet on the similar rides on went on in California Adventures and Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. Me and my sister decided to go on an upside rollercoaster, the hair raiser, after, hoping to dry off. When we were waiting at the front to actually go on the ride, there was this one girl that was sent to the front of the train. She didn't want to be in front, but me and my sister were in the middle. To be nice, we traded with her. The ride was pretty fun, but it went by too quickly. Their seatbelts are very secure though, which is a good thing.

Anyway, we didn't have time after that. We just walked around, took pictures, and then it was time to leave. That was about it. We went back to the hotel, went out for a walk, ate and that stuff. The next day was pretty relaxed though.

The next day, we walked around looking at the stores and the placed they had. We went into this mini mall at around 11, but not many were open. Apparently, most of them open at 12. The longer we stayed, more and more stores opened. I ended up buying a new dress.

We walked around more around the city and we stopped by the bakery. I got the green bean bun and green tea sponge cake with red bean filling. It was good.

We also went to this huge mall. It was an actual mall, the biggest one I've ever been too. But, it was also attached to a hotel. Anyway, the mall had at least 6 stories. There were probably more. There were so many stores, but the stuff was really expensive. It cost more than Americas! They even had a grocery store in it. Me and my sister wanted to go to Yes Style in Hong Kong, but as it turns out, it was at the other side of the island. We didn't get to go. Hopefully, we can go to the one in San Francisco.

Anyway, we went to a flee market after, but this one was for buying fruits, veggies and that stuff. I felt really uncomfortable there though. The streets were dirty and I did not like how they handled the food.

For dinner, I finally got some authentic Hong Kong waffles and it was delicious. My siblings got McDonald's. Don't you see how often we went to McDonald's? The trip alone, we went to McDonald's more times that we went to America's in a year. It's surprising. I didn't mention all the McD's trips we had in China.

The next day was our day to go back to America. We went to that same local diner one last time for breakfast, where I got oatmeal with egg whites. Then, we were off to the airport. Their airport is huge! I can't believe it. And, guess what. Out of all the people that I could have been at the airport, I saw my best guy friend there. I knew he was in China, but I didn't know when he'd be leaving for America. As it turns out, we had the same flight as well. It was nice seeing him though. He was traveling by himself. We talked and then we had to board the plane.

I didn't sleep at all during the plane ride. I don't know why. I was really restless though, just sitting there the whole time. Finally, we made it, but the plane arrived there late. We had to go through customs again, which had a huge line. But finally, we met up with my uncle who drove us home. I do not miss the humid weather.

That's the end of my first trip to China! I hope you guys enjoy reading about it ( I know, it was probably boring). Anyway, the next post will be pictures of this trip and then I have a pancake recipe you guys have to try!

My China Trip, part 6

Sorry for the long wait! I have to talk about Hong Kong and Macau! I'll start off with Macau, since we took bus there one day while we were staying in Taishan. We only visited Macau for one day, the gambling city. By the way, almost everything was either in Chinese or Portuguese. It was once colonized by Portugal.

The day started off with waking up very early. We had to get to the bus area. Then, we had to take an hour and half bus ride all the way to Macau. I fell asleep on the bus ( I have a bad habit of taking naps now, since I kept taking naps on the bus in China).

When we finally reached Macau, we had to go through customs, twice. It was such a hassle. Meaning, we had to wait in a long line, twice. The first one was to exit China, and the other was to enter Macau. I thought that since Macau is part of China, we didn't have to go through anything, but I was wrong.


Anyway, after that, we took a bus to a hotel casino. That's how you get free transportation. You get free bus rides to casinos. What's cool is that the driver is on the right side instead of the left! Anyway, since my whole family was there, we couldn't even go in to look around. They stopped us. It's different here though, where little kids can run around. Anyway, we decided to walk around and we came across this old Portuguese area where you can tell there was European influence. There were old buildings and there was a shopping street there.


We walked around the shopping places. There were so many places selling these dried smoked meats as well as Portuguese egg tarts. I've been wanting to try Portuguese egg tarts, but I didn't end up buying any at that shopping street. They looked so delicious though. We ended up going to this one place where they sold all these "candies". There were galletas, for sure. But, there were also these candied peanuts, and other types of biscuits too.  We ended up buying some of the peanuts (the coconut one and the sesame one). So delicious, but we ate all of the sesame while we stayed at Taishan. At least we had the coconut here at home.

After, we saw this historic site, but I really don't know the names of the places. It'd be great if you guys can tell me the names of the places on the comments below. Anyway, we also went to this place where it was basically a museum. We had to climb up many stairs to get to the top though. There were canyons (the ones used for war) and other things. I'll show you guys pictures, once again.

As it turns out, it was on the roof of a museum! It had such a great view of the city, some good and some, you could tell they lived in poverty. Anyway, we walked down and went back to the shopping street. There was a parade going on there. It was a mini parade but there were so many people.

We went to a restaurant to eat after that. Then, we walked around and we decided to go to the other part of the island. We took a bus to another hotel, on the other side. The hotel was so fancy! There were stores in it. So expensive though. They casino was huge. They also had places where they held shows. Unfortunately, all we did was walk around and take a few pictures. It was fun though. They had this huge screen where there was the sea and mermaids swimming. Everyone tried to take a picture with the mermaid!

After, we went back to the other side and we went through customs and everything. After customs, there's a shopping area, where we stayed for a while shopped before the bus came. The shopping area was so huge. It's really easy to get lost there. It was around dinner time and they decided to go to McDonald's to eat. I got an iced coffee that had ice cream in it ( there weren't any veggie burgers or anything). Then, we went to this bakery. There were so many types of baked goods. We bought some egg tarts (yes. the Portuguese ones, as well as the regular ones). We also bought coconut bread. I ate some of the coconut bread, but it the coconut was salty. I like it sweet. The Portuguese egg tarts tasted alright. They're not as sweet, but they still taste good. I think the filling I make for my egg tarts taste better though. Anyway, after that, we went shopping and there were so many stores to go to. I don't know how I got lost walking around myself.

Anyway, finally, it was time to leave and then we went back on the bus and went back to Taishan. By then, it was around 9 or 10 at night. We found a taxi van to drive us to the apartment. Then, I ate a Chinese egg tart because I was hungry. They used lard in it. It did not taste good at all. I guess some Chinese still use lard in their cooking (before, China was really really poor and pig fat was used to cook things with since they couldn't afford oil. Also, it's an easier source for fat).

That concludes my day at Macau. I guess I'll write about Hong Kong on the next post! This post is long enough as is. I hope you guys don't get bored reading this.

Adios! zaijian!