One more time...

“Lucky, lucky girl you are…”

My friend Kahung wrote that line in the comment section of this blog. And he is absolutely right…

My travels were thrilling, joyous, uncomfortable, peaceful, highly emotional, slow at times, lighting speed otherwise, and full of big moments. I will NEVER forget…

…snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef, swimming back to the boat, hand in hand with Amber….

…truly living in the present, in trepidation of every turn and step as Jenn and I went black water rafting in the Waitomo Caves and were humbled by Franz Josef…

…the awe-inspiring views as Mike and I hiked along Jinshanling, with the true understanding of why it is called the GREAT Wall of China…

…and the simple pleasures of kaiten sushi, karaoke and onsen hopping in Japan.

I am now back at home, back to work, and back to real life. At first glance, nothing was truly different when I got back…unless you consider me, of course. I am different. How? I am more of myself. Travelers understand what this means.

Mike says that we travel for no one else but ourselves, a profound statement I am only now beginning to understand.

I want to thank all of you who followed my blog entries, wrote comments and emailed. I am overwhelmed by how many people read my entries. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

To Mike, Amber and Jenn, you made my travels rich, and gave me the biggest gift of all: the ability to share these experiences with people I love.

My next adventure will soon come, because traveling is part of who I am. And then, I will re-open this blog and invite all of you to join me again.

“At moments of wonder, it is easy to avoid small thinking, to entertain thoughts that span the universe, that capture both thunder and tinkle, thick and thin, the near and the far.”

And this is all the reason you need to pack your bags and go see something new!

Macau - casinos anyone?

Back in Hong Kong, we decided to take the ferry to Macau, a former European colony that was handed back to China in 1999. This is part of what makes it so interesting, because you can see the European influence in the architecture and certainly, in the food.

Old meets new in this building

But the shocking part was the number of casinos! My goodness! There were dozens and dozens of casinos, and unfortunately, we are at the end of our trip and the money is running low....maybe we should have gambled and tested our luck!

Shanghai

Shanghai is totally alive! The bikes, the shops, the food, and of course, the Bund, makes Shanghai a fun city to explore.

The city is exactly that: a true city in every sense of the word. It is polluted, full of people and terrible traffic jams, filled with all the shopping you can handle, and food from around the world. In fact, my impression of Shanghai was that it is fairly westernized, especially when compared to other places that we visited in mainland China. For example, we had to really search for authentic Chinese food, depending on the neighbourhood we were in. And often, I thought there were more foreigners than Chinese people surrounding us!

These are two views from the Bund, which is Shanghai's waterfront. The pictures really don't capture how pretty the skyline is, especially at night.

This is Nanjing Donglu, one of the main pedestrian-only shopping strips in Shanghai. I went crazy buying silk here. Hey, at least it's light to carry!

Mao's presence is felt here too. Every once in awhile, we stumbled upon Mao statues or portraits.

Mike at the People's Park. We had a lovely afternoon here, and ate lunch overlooking a small lake.

The traffic is CRAZY! These bikes will kill you if you're not paying attention. It's like they aim for you!

This cold noodle dish was fantastic! It looks like noodles and broth but it was so much more than that. I've never had anything like it, even the consistency was different. It was delicious!

Bye bye mainland China - we took a 24-hour train back to Hong Kong.

Yangzi River and the Three Gorges

One of the things I wanted to experience in China was a cruise along the Yangzi River, the third largest river in the world. Along the river, there are 3 incredibly beautiful Gorges: Qutang, Wu and Xiling. Over three days and three nights, you sail through these and enjoy the view, together with other stops for shorter trips.

Sounds nice, doesn't it? Not the way we did it!

We wanted to do this in an authentic manner so we got tickets on a chinese boat. Bad move. I will not go on and on here about how bad this was. All I will say is that I cried, didn't shower for 3 days, and was covered in bug bites by the time we finally left the boat. Instead, I will share the pictures of the best part: the scenery!The three Gorges are beautiful, but more impressive were the Little Three Gorges. We got off our "cruise boat" and went onto a smaller boat to be able to sail through this smaller area, and it was an amazing few hours. The water in this part is much cleaner, and looks green. You get really close to the gorges, and get to see its lushness!

We boarded an even smaller boat to go through the Little Little Three Gorges (no, the names of these sights are not original). Our chinese guide sang throughout the sail, people clapped along, and even though Mike and I had no clue what was being said, we laughed with everyone else and had a great time.

Once we got off the boat (thank God!), we visited the Three Gorges Dam, a controversial project the Chinese government has undertaken to build the largest dam in the world. A million people will be displaced because of the rising of the Yangzi river as the dam is finished, and there are also questions about its safety. Even unfinished, it is quite impressive due to its size.

The Terracota Warriors in Xian

Xian is a city in the middle of China that became an overnight tourist centre when an army of Terracotta Warriors was discovered in 1974 by farmers digging a well. They were built by a total of 110,000 people over 38 years in 200 BC, ordered by the first Emperor of China who wanted the warriors to protect him in his afterlife.

The pits are still being fully excavated about an hour outside of the city centre. So you have to be driven out there to see the warriors.

One of the MANY tourist scams in China is to take us on a "tour" with an "English speaking guide" (I say this VERY loosely, since I don't believe that saying yes and no, and a couple of other sentences constitutes an English speaker), where you actually get driven to various tourist traps and left for half hour at a time to "shop". I booked the tour through our hostel and asked point blank if it had any 'shopping' and was assured that all it included was a trip to the museum.

You see where I'm going with this: I was lied to! We were taken to:

...a silk factory...

...a farmers' paintings exhibition...

...a terracotta souvenir factory...

...a furniture store...

...and an expensive restaurant for lunch, where we were given no choice about the menu or location. GRRRRR!!!!!!! The scam is blatant and ridiculous. There are "workers" s None of us on the tour bought anything, which angered our guide. His loss!

After 5 hours of this run-around, we finally made it to the warriors:

There are 4,000 of them just in this pit.

Mike taking pictures with his favourite camera.

An overview of the pit. with warriors that have been re-constructed lined up.

Mike and I at the first pit. We hung out here for awhile, admiring the work of so many Chinese workers over 2000 years ago.

Some of them are missing their body parts....it takes days to reconstruct just one.

A close-up of one of the warriors.

All in all, it was worth the experience to see the warriors. But next time, I think I'll take the bus there myself!

I couldn't resist putting in some more food pictures. We found the Islam quarter of Xian and there was a magnificent food market, where we indulged (yes, again) in lots of things we can't name.

This is an overview of part of the market.

Although this looks like potatoes, it's actually a jelly-like substance. After we got used to the texture, it was actually pretty good!

Mike getting ready to attact the dumplings!

The Great Wall of China

This was without question the best day I have spent in China thus far, and the within the top 3 experiences in my trip overall.

We chose to go to a section of the wall called Jinshanling, where it is far from the crowds of tourists. We drove almost 5 hours from Beijing to get there, and it was magical!

The climb from Jinshanling to Simatai was 10 km long, and some parts were so steep! We loved every moment of it!

My first glimpse of the wall above.

Mike was in his element, running up and down the wall, trying to catch his breath between taking pictures.

You can't believe how massive this wall is!

The views from the wall are breathtaking. We were lucky enough to have a perfectly sunny day with blue skies and a constant gentle breeze.

On the way down from the wall, we had the option of 'zip-lining'. I was terrified but I could see in Mike's eyes that he really wanted to do it, and so......

.....I did it too! It was exhilirating, and when I worked up the courage to open my eyes, I had the most incredible view of the Great Wall.

Summer Palace

The Summer Palace in Beijing is exquisite. It is the summer home of the Emperors of China, mainly for when they wanted to leave the Forbidden City quarters.

We took an hour-long boat ride to get there...

Even the archways and overbridges were beautiful.

We spent an afternoon walking throughout the paths and visiting different spots around this massive park, but we certainly could have spent the whole day there.

Sorry that this photo isn't upright but I can't figure out how to fix it because the program is in Chinese. I still wanted to include so you could see the background that we're trekking through - gorgeous!