Shanghai (the end)

Thanks to all those who have followed the blog. This is unfortunately the end of the journey. We spent our last three days in Shanghai. We've both been back now for a few weeks (we actually are meeting up tonight halfway between our hometowns!), and we do miss Asia a little (maybe a lot). We plan to go back as soon as life permits. Johnna will be going back for her last year in Hong Kong in August. Josh will be working all summer. They will be married sometime next year! We look forward to blogging about our next adventure!

Baby squids on a stick...yummy...well-seasoned and cooked.

We got to meet up with one of Josh's former students and her father in Shanghai. What a great pic, eh?

Hand-made noodles for $2? Yes...three nights in a row actually.

Johnna would probably trade Josh for some soup dumplings. Josh respects their brilliance enough to not be offended by this hypothetical situation.

Birthplace of the communist party in Shanghai. Don't let McCarthy see this one.

Love and peace!

Josh and Johnna

Ningbo

Ningbo is not a city that would make most travel books. An old high school friend lives there with his wife, so we visited them. It was nice to see "an average Chinese city." Average not being non-exceptional in any way...just not a tourist trap by any means. We didn't take many or very good pictures in this city apparently.

When a city expands, the government builds condos and gives them to the folks who have land being claimed by the expansion. Many times these will be sub-leased multiple times. This leads to a couple of interesting situations. Some buildings only have a few occupants. Most buildings have a wide array of incomes and finishes. Our friends have a nicely furnished apartment while the one next door is still cinder block.

My friend had always wanted to try the arcade but felt odd doing so alone. Johnna and I joined him, and we both won little dinosaurs from the claw machine. I don't know if I've been that excited in awhile.

A view of the apartment.

The view from the kitchen (which is kind of screened/glass off). The pic above is looking out of the kitchen towards the apartment. The pic below is looking the opposite direction. With high rises like that, it's obvious how you can fit a lot of people into a small space. This city also has a population similar to Chicago, but you can walk from one end to the other in about an hour. Take that urban sprawl.

Huangzhou, China

Still working on catching this blog up-to-speed. I'm not sure if anyone is reading at this point, but it will at least be our little online record of the trip.

I just realized I am a little out-of-order, but I don't feel like re-doing the image upload.
We spent time in Ningbo with my friend and his wife before moving on to Huangzhou, but Hangzhou will be posted first.

Hangzhou is a moderately sized Chinese city with a population close to Chicago but a size much smaller (they build up not out). It is known for its tea fields and beautiful lakes.

First up, we have a picture of the tea we drank from a balcony overlooking the tea fields. Not iced unfortunately, but everyone else enjoyed it. I'm not a fan of hot liquids.

My friend's wife. They met while he was studying in China. You can see the pretty mountains and tea fields in the background.

Pretty lakes, eh?

So beautiful...oh the landscape is nice too : )

For whatever reason, we tended to feast when with my friend and his wife. Here you can see potatoes with chilies (not spicy, though), bak choi, and small snails.

The ring that will be on my future wife's finger.

The ring is getting re-sized right now, so I thought I would post a pic. It was made by an artist in Nashville, TN especially for us. My ring matches the wedding band. It is the smaller band...just wider with plain silver on the outsides of the floral design.

Some pics from Thailand

Now that the good 'ole internet will allow us to access Blogger and post pics, we figured it was time to get the blog all caught up. I'll start with Thailand and post some more each day.

The small but mighty cook at our favorite restaurant on the island. Could be responsible for some of my favorite meals ever...

Beautiful...too bad the beach, water, and island are a little dirty.

The view from where I proposed on the beach.

Our boat trip around the island.

Beautiful place to be.

Back home...safe and sound

Sorry that China's limited internet capabilities made for an anti-climactic ending to our blog.

We arrived home late Tuesday night. The time has been passing quickly. Josh's friend gets married on Saturday. Johnna did some painting yesterday while Josh moved chairs. The rehearsal and rehearsal dinner are tonight. We will post some final thoughts and photos soon, though!

The Gripe Blog

First of all, let me start with a disclaimer. I remain extremely grateful for the amazing opportunity of this trip and all it entails. With that said, I am not the happiest camper at the moment, and I realized a rant might make a fairly interesting way to make the blog current. Here goes...
1. Our current A/C: There is nothing quite like waking up due to the heat. Granted, most of the world population has either learned to deal with this or is antagonized by it on a daily basis. However, context may be important to this rant, so I'll keep going. Our A/C remote is covered in buttons inscribed with beautiful Chinese characters. We have figured out OFF/ON (the unit beeps and a light turns on and off). The rest is a game of pointing, clicking, and praying. Somehow no combination of the 4 buttons that are not included in the "timer section" (little clock symbol gives that section away) will not make our unit produce cold air. Johnna is sleeping blissfully in what she will likely remember as "that hotel room with the perfect temperature." After tossing and turning for some time, I decided to take a break. How does the sand man feel about whiners?
2. "Hello": We spent the two nights previous to this in a city called Wuzhen. It is about 2 hours outside of Shanghai but felt like a slightly different planet. We spotted exactly one caucasian other than ourselves during our two-day stay. I will add the specific disclaimer that this was pretty darn cool, and I am completely understanding and comfortable with the effect of this situation. The main effect of being an extreme minority was people walking up to us and saying "hello" fairly obnoxiously. The first 5 were fun. The next 50 started to get annoying.
3. "Hello. Come eat here.": In many of the cities we have visited, the sellers of everything (including food) are pretty driven. You buying their products is important. If you are selling something worth buying, sign us up, although we do typically end up buying from the most understated salesperson. The dumpling street vendor gave us an extra free dumpling tonight. He wasn't pushy at all. He knew he was offering the best product. On the other hand, the seared-squid-on-a-stick guy started yelling at us a block away. He ripped me off a little (everyone knows $1.50 is a little high for a stick of squid), but he was cooking some tasty tentacles. Let me backtrack. How do you eat in a city where the English stops at hello? The pointing method. In most Chinese cities, there is a picture menu adoring the wall. If you are lucky, there is an English menu. Here's the problem. The type of noodle we are looking for involves a dedication that does not include wasting time or money on English lessons or a translator for the menu. Introducing the point method! You can steal this when traveling. Find a hole-in-the-wall with a limited number of options. If you are good at a dish in Asia, then you don't go creating an extensive menu. You are smart enough to rock a few dishes well. Make sure that someone at said restaurant is eating something you want. When the waiter (who will also be the owner and chef) comes over, walk them over to the dish you want, point at it, then hold up the number of fingers to indicate how many you want. Johnna and I prefer to split everything. That means we get to try more things. If a place is really good, then we'll hunker down. If there seem to be a slew of awesome places, we'll use the point method a couple times in a row. Let's call that "the multiple restaurant tasting menu" method. Nowhere did this work more wonders than in Thailand. Drinks? Just go grab those from the fridge. Every mom-and-pop noodle shop has a big fridge holding everything (including drinks) at the back. They will not mind that you overcome the cultural divide by grabbing your own soda. If you're smart, grab the one that looks the most interesting. With that said, Wuzhen was pretty slow. So, there were no fellow eaters...no dishes to point at. Also, no pictures on the walls. So, we ended up inside a restaurant where apparently the only English spoken was "Hello. Come in please." We got even by having a few beers, some rice, and a plate of veggies (the staff were rocking this simple combo). That made for a pretty small check. We didn't feel like resorting to the "point to something random on menu" method when the street vendors outside looked pretty tasty.
4. Our debit cards. Neither of us can access money with our debit cards currently. This makes very little sense since we have different accounts (for now? : ).
5. Credit cards. The Chinese are not huge credit card folks. They are accepted almost nowhere (that you'd want to be), and this makes number 4 above an issue. Mom is sending us some cash via Western Union to tide us over for the next two days.
6. E-bikes. Take your pre-conceived notion (and National Geographic video montages) of thousands of folks riding bicycles en masse through the streets of China. Toss that out. Replace it with thousands of folks riding electric scooters. These silent (aside from the horns) little demons tear through the streets in place of bicycles. You'll still see bicycles, but their electric counterpart is making the cash now-a-days.
7. Beer. Seriously Asia. Move past the mass-produced lager. I can only choke down so many warm Tsing Taos before I decide to board a plane and head back to the land of amazing beer (the US and its wonderful microbreweries)! The lax view of drinking (buy a beer at 7-11 in the mall and drink it while shopping and the complete acceptability of discreetly peeing on the street if you'd like as examples) help, though.
8. Ice. Blame this on the fact that the only potable water in every city we've visited comes from a bottle (although it is usually very cheap...say 40 cents per bottle or so). I miss ice! I miss iced tea! Over 4,000 7-11s in Hong Kong. You're not going to walk into a single one of them that will offer a 32-oz. Big Gulp brimming with ice. Village Pantry better stock up for my return.
9. Soft mattresses. Wooden box plus two-inch mattress equals some serious tossing and turning.
10. A good pizza. We have stuck to local cuisine in almost every instance, but we are eagerly anticipating a quality pie upon our return. The Italians may have invented it, but we thickened it, put more greasy things on it, and churned it out for cheap.
11. Facebook and Blogger. China, in its attempt to shield some info, does not play well with these "others." So, we'll have to catch ya'll up on pictures upon our return.
12. Sleeping beauty (Johnna) would probably put doughnuts on this list, and it seems appropriate for that to round out a clean dozen.
We are meeting up with one of my former students tomorrow for a sightseeing tour of Shanghai (birthplace of the Communist party and the Shanghai museum). That will round out Sunday. Monday gives us a day to wander around with some serious anticipation building for our return. On Tuesday, we fly all day (although the time difference makes it seem like we teleport). We'll be back in the States on Tuesday doing our best to fight the urge to let jet lag turn us into zombies.
Much love,
Josh

Ningbo to Huangzhou and now to Wuzhen

Still no luck with posting directly to our blog from the mainland, so the pictures will remain scarce. I will try to have Mom post some while in Wuzhen. Worst case scenario....we'll post a bunch once we get back to the States. After some enjoyable days in Ningbo, the four of us (me, Johnna, our friends who live in China) left for Huangzhou (a 2-hour drive away). Huangzhou has a beautiful lake and a laid-back feel. We ate some wonderful traditional Chinese meals...spicy and amazing. We have a couple of hours before our Chinese friends head home, and we leave for Wuzhen. After Hong Kong (millions), Ningbo (population of Chicago but more compact), Huangzhou (population of Chicago but more compact and beautiful natural scenery), we are looking forward to a city of 60K. Wuzhen is a "water city." Water cities in China sometimes claim to be "the Venice of China." All in all, it will probably be a little touristy but beautiful. We have heard that they restored the old city fairly well.

We have enjoyed a slower pace of travel at this portion of our trip, so don't think you are missing out on a lot. Sleeping in, eating massive amounts of tasty food, and then walking it off by wandering around the city are the normal daily routine.

We have 2 nights in Wuzhen left followed by 3 nights in Shanghai. I am looking forward to returning to the States, but I am not homesick. I'm just trying to savor every moment of the trip and doing a fairly good job thus far.

Josh

Ninbo, Ningyes

China isn't a big fan of its occupants posting or reading blogs currently, so that explains the lack of pictures. Until we take the time to get a VPN (something that will allow us to sneak around the censorship) going, I'm sending this to mom again to post.

Skipping the 23-hour train ride was worth the money. We are now safe, sound, and happy in Ningbo. Despite the fact that the US and China are now enmeshed in a bajillion ways, most US citizens (including myself) could probably only name about two Chinese cities (and Johnna has found that most folks place Hong Kong in Japan). Ningbo doesn't make that short list, and that makes it an exciting destination for us. We are being hosted by one of Josh's high school friends (from Indiana) and his wife (from Ningbo). Upon arrival, our host, his wife, and her parents had a delicious traditional meal prepared. We took a short walk around the city after dinner. Johnna is a little under-the-weather today (no worrying, though!) with a sore throat, so she stayed home while the boys went on a nice walk around the city. It would be difficult to navigate this experience without some hosts that spoke Chinese (very little English is spoken here). We will be in Ningbo for another two nights and then head to Hangzhou together (sweet double-date, eh?).

Sorry for the lack of posts and pictures. With this much traveling under our belts, we are as content with walks around the city followed by naps and reading time as we are shuttling around to "the sights."

Much love,

Josh

PS: The weather in Ningbo is great. My sweat handkerchief made limited appearances today. Yay for that!

By plane, not by train...in Shanghai

Our hotel in Shanghai has internet, so i hopped on to post a new blog entry. Sorry for the lack of entries lately. However, Google and China are not on good terms right now, so I am sending this to Mom to have her post for us. (Hi guys! This is Tina~~For some reason I couldn't copy and paste, so I'm having to retype all this. I'm not as fast as Josh. And no, Josh, we weren't still in bed when you phoned. I was planting flowers at my dad's.)

After Phi Phi Don, we returned to Hong Kong for one night to finish up some business and get ready to board a train for Ningbo. Johnna had to pack up her stuff, re-load her phone card, check-out of the dorm...all the jazz that would be pretty boring to read about. Johnna was able to show off her newly bedazzled ring finger to her Hong Kong friends which was fun to watch. We have enjoyed a blissful existence since agreeing to wed. I had intentionally limited talk of "our" future together this semester to keep the proposal from becoming obvious. Where we are in our travels. We had originally planned to board a train from Hong Kong today. Ater some brief discussion last night, we both realized that spending 23 hours on a train sounded pretty awful. Johnna worked some DIY travel agent magic to hook up a flight instead. We paid a little extra, but I am not on a train right now...enough said. We still have some train time to go, but it is much shorter. We are staying in a hotel near the train station. Tomorrow, we will take a train from Shanghai to Ningbo where Mike and Yi (Josh's high school bud and his wife) will meet us. We are excited to see a less-touristy part of China. In the hour we've been here, we've already noticed that Shanghai is much more sprawling, has fewer tall buildings, and has fewer English speakers. It is a neat experience to be here, though, and we feel very blessed.

Hope all is well in your worlds.

Josh

"The" Post You've Been Waiting For

Dearest blog readers,

Many of you knew a backstory to this blog that, until recently, I was entirely unaware of. Thanks for following along and (for some of you) checking our blog at a frequency that borders on obsessive-compulsively.

About a year ago, I was warned by a recently-engaged friend that proposals are typically less-than-storybook and are often expected, but in this instance...not the case. : )

So, I am overjoyed to say: Joshua has asked me to marry him and I have said yes!



Midway through a romantic sunset stroll on the beach, Joshua gave me a hand-written letter and asked me to read it out loud. Needless to say, I only made it about 1/2 a sentence in before I realized what was happening. The tears (from both parties) kept me from reading any more of his beautiful words out loud, but, as the sun set behind the mountains and the ocean lapped at our ankles, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.

The rest is an emotional blur. Lots of smiles and laughter and sitting in the sand (because my knees just would NOT stop shaking)...amazing. Very storybook-like and romantic and perfectly unexpected. May 10, 2011.

We celebrated the next day with a semi-splurge. We took a private boat tour around most of the island in a local longtail boat. Priced at about $30 USD, it was a worthy expenditure. We restaurant hopped for supper, making our final landing at a seaside, tables-in-the-sand eatery that was featuring $3 cocktails and inexpensive crabs. Yum, yum, yum.










Today, we're back on the ferry. We're traveling back to the Thai mainland this afternoon and then heading back to Hong Kong tomorrow. On Saturday, we're hopping on a 20-some hour train headed up the Eastern coast of China, bound for the Shanghai region to spend some quality time with one of Josh's friends who lives there.

That's all for now! We'll keep ya posted.

Ooops..almost forgot. The ring. You'll just have to wait to see it in person. : )

Our first full day in Phi Phi Don has been amazing...an early morning stroll on the beach while last night's partiers slept off their hangovers, tasty (and cheap!) papaya salad for lunch, some sun and swimming this afternoon...it definitely feels like vacation!

Some pics from our day:




Our bungalow, nestled in the side of the foliage-covered mountain. It's quite a hike up from the beach and the 'town', but it's worth it, as the distance makes it quiet and not too busy.



Our pretty little bungalow.




The beach, the beach, the beach! (Don't be too jealous...the water is a little dirty.)




A little dirty...but totally gorgeous! Although it could easily be mistaken as simply 'poorness', some of the 2004 tsunami aftermath is still really visible in areas. It appears that they prioritized the tourist-y areas over the more 'local' residential sections of the island. So, the beach areas are nice and fixed up, but a few hundred meters inland, you find a lot of trash, half-built homes and piles of rubble.










Off for dinner now...a lengthier post to follow!

Johnna

Beach time!

After a long day of travel (1 hour taxi, 1.5 hour plane, 1 hour taxi, 1.5 hour boat), we are safe and sound in Phi Phi Don. Our little bungalow is nice and comfortable. The island is pretty great: cheap drinks, cheap food, laid-back atmosphere...the antidote to Bangkok which was not our favorite city experience (fine but a little frazzling).

One highlight is the abundance of fruit smoothie stands around the island that sell amazing drinks for about $2. Watermelon, pineapple/strawberry, coconut, and chocolate (Milo) were all amazing. I think we'll work our way through their offerings in the next two days.

The street food is delicious and cheap. Our appetizer last night was a kebab of chicken, pineapple, onion, and pepper slathered in a sweet chili sauce. More skewers of amazing things await us today. Dinner was about $9 including smoothies. We had some pad kee something dishes that were predictably awesome.

Pictures to come soon. We have free wireless in our little cabana.

Off to the beach!

Maps : )

Just in case anyone's wondering where in the world we are (or is as geographically challenged as me, sometimes):

Hong Kong is on the southern coast of China, smack in the middle. Thailand is the orangish-red country to the southwest of China (not the big reddish country, that's India : ). The flight between HK and Thailand was about 2.5 hours, so not too bad.

Thailand! (I can already tell that these maps are not going to be easy to read for ya'll...so I'll do my best to explain where we are.) Bangkok is on the southern coast of the large upper section of the country, close to the middle of the coastline. Koh Phi Phi Don (where we're headed in the morning) is near the bottom lefthand corner of the photo. It's really tiny (so not on the map), and we're looking forward to that change of pace.

Hope that clears some stuff up, Mom. : )

The Thai Buddhists build some amazing temples and make some yummy food

Below: Wat Aroon. List this among the many religiously-inspired edifices for which words are no match. Gold-tiled and gilded to the Nth degree. The center of attention is a small jade Buddha enshrined in one of the many magnificent buildings.



Below: Four-faced Buddha. Each building in Bangkok has its own Buddha to protect the property and offer good luck. Through whatever circumstance, the nicest mall also ended up with the nicest Buddha who receives a lot of attention.



Below: The street food is amazing...it has lived up to our expectations. Cheap cheap cheap and tasty. The prices in general are amazing. Private driver for the whole day today: $70 USD including gas. Beer: $1. Any street food: $1 or less.




I was excited to see some fried bugs at the market. I picked a mix of three (crickets, grasshoppers, and meal worms). Shout out to my college entomology professor Tom Turpin. They were fried, sprayed with soy sauce, and delicious. Johnna did try a cricket (I ate the legs and head off for her). I ate on the bag of crunchy goodness for about 5 minutes before realizing it wasn't worth carrying around all night.



Below: Yummy.



Our Bangkok experience has been a little touristy, but that hasn't been a bad thing. We are a little tired of cities and looking forward to the beach portion of our holiday (we leave for Phi Phi Don tomorrow morning)!

Happy Mother's Day!

Since I'm about 8,000 miles away (at least that is what Hong Kong is) on Mother's Day, I would like to dedicate this post to my mom, Tina Dexter. I wouldn't be here without her love and support...love you mom!

Picture time.

To the right: We enjoyed a wonderful lunch with our Bangkok host at the Intercontinental hotel on our first day here. Nice compliment to the street food we've been blissing out on. All-you-can-eat of every amazing food you can think of basically.

Below: The view from our penthouse...honestly. This is the view from every window you could pick. Our room (although we have every room...we just sleep in one of them) is on the corner, so you can see a view like this either way. The smog is not sexy, and the city is very sprawling. The cost for this pent house would be around $1.2 million if we were in the mood to purchase it. Let's just say it is probably the nicest place we will ever stay.

21st floor penthouse please...oh, throw in the 22nd floor too

We arrived in Bangkok safe and sound. The taxi driver didn't quiet know where our friend's apartment was, so we had an internet cafe stop and some wandering before meeting up with her. A few slightly tense moments but nothing too bad.

We are staying on the 21st and 22nd floors of a luxury condo (friend of a friend of a friend). The only drawback is that it has been vacant awhile, so the furniture is limited. The view, however, is AMAZING. The AC works, and we have a mini-fridge, bed, shower, and washing machine. The whole thing has a wraparound balcony. We're probably talking a place that would cost millions to buy. We made a 7-11 stop to get some sustenance before crashing. Johnna is back at the penthouse hanging up our laundry (appreciate your dryers Americanos), and I walked down the road to fill everyone in. Our friend of a friend is meeting us for lunch at 11am. The street food I passed in about a 3-minute walk this morning looks amazing.

Pics to come soon. We've got two days and two nights here to live (and eat) it up.

At the risk of getting boring, we'll head to a new country : )

Johnna Sue is studying for her final final. I'll be chilling here in the coffee shop while she shows "Climate Change" a thing or two.

Everything since the last post has been fairly logistical in nature. We did enjoy home-made noodles and shrimp wontons at Johnna's favorite place (close to her office) last night for dinner. Early bedtime last night due to a busy and early morning. Packed up our hotel room this morning and went to the immigration office for Johnna's student visa. Some afternoon shopping for clay pots and bamboo steamers. Invites to some Chinese-themed dinner parties are in your future : ).

After Johnna's final we will put a box of non-essentials on a slow boat from China (literally) and eat dinner before heading to the airport. Our first flight together as a couple will take us from Hong Kong to Bangkok, Thailand tonight. We are both excited to explore a new city together. We will be staying in a vacant apartment generously provided by the mother of one of Johnna's co-workers (she lives there). Three nights and two days in Bangkok and we'll board another plane. This time we'll escape the bustle of the city to the fairly-exotic island of Phi Phi Don. We read mixed reviews of how touristy this island is, but it looks magnificent. A beach, a pina colada, some thai food, and I'll be a happy boy.

Some general Hong Kong thoughts:

-The people are amazing. I don't think I've heard a mean word since I've been hear. Everyone seems genuinely pretty happy. Add in the insanely high population density and think New York City with massive amounts of Prozac pumped into the water.

-The Octopus card is amazing. You can pre-load this card with cash and use it by waving it across a scanner (or just leave it in your wallet and wave your wallet) at the MTR (metro, subway) or 7-11 as well as other places. Talk about efficient.

-The MTR (metro, subway) is amazing. Clean, cheap, fast. Getting around the city is effortless.

-The food is amazing. My favorite experience may have been lunch yesterday. I was not about to accept the mall options while Johnnas was workin, so I got a touch adventurous and headed out into the city (after memorizing the name of the mall and address). After a 20-minute walk I ended up in a small local joint sharing a table (totally normal here to share a table with folks you don't know...not much talking...just eating) and eating a sinful soup of greens, meats, and egg for about USD $3 or so. In a blissful food coma, I stumbled down the street just to run into a local bakery and enjoy homemade mochi for about USD $.50.

-Johnna Sue is amazing. She has been a graceful tour guide, and we are really enjoying our time together.

If you have any questions, feel free to post them as a comment, and we'll do our best to reply.

Hope all is well in your world,

Joshua

An evening update (quick one)

I'm a long way from home!

My lunch was amazing!

The happy couple on "The Peak."

I typed this this morning...finally able to post it this evening.

Howdy ya'll,

Sorry for the personal pic-less post. I left the necessary cord at our hotel. I'll explain the photos above as I type.

I'll start with my current situation and work backwards. I'm sitting in a Starbucks enjoying some computer time (listening to Midlake) while Johnna Sue is playing businesswoman (is a businesswoman, nothing sexist meant in that wording I just used of "playing"). She looks exquisite and ready to conqure her upcoming pre-meeting with co-workers and subsequent meeting with a difficult client. I am astounded by her career success. I am also continually impressed with her ability to navigate this chaotic little ant hill of a city geographiclaly, socially, and in numerous other ways. She is an incredible woman.

I, her small-town boyfriend, am less skilled at navigation, so we have precisely crafted my alone time while she is in her meetings. She gave her little boy a toy (her laptop), some Hong Kong dollars, dropped him off in a safe location (the mall), and arranged activities (blog, e-mail, lunch, and the movie Fast 5). For anyone who knows me well, you know how solid and necessary this plan is. Let's just say my ability to get lost in Indiana is impressive, and I am pretty stoked about seeing Fast 5 and not ashamed of that fact.

Ok. Let's backtrack. During the day yesterday we went to see "Big Buddha." If I remember correctly, it is the world's largest outdoor bronze Buddha (how's that for a specific claim to fame?) and was completed around 1992. It is very Hong Kong, but it felt like a tourist trap. I wasn't particularly impressed, but it would be like skipping the coliseum in Rome (oh wait, I've done that : ). I'll post a stock photo.

We checked out the Hong Kong skyline before dinner. I'll post a stock photo for this too, because the fog made last night a less-than-ideal viewing time. The skyline is incredibly impressive, and there is a coordinated light show each evening at 8pm. The skyline was followed by a sushi dinner with Johnna's friends from university. They were a diverse (India, Romania, Sweden, US, Pakistan, Malaysia, and more) and energetic bunch; it was great to meet her Hong Kong peeps. The sushi was high quality and served in massive amounts. The pricing essentially (not technically) worked out to all-you-can-eat for about $15. Going out to the bars and clubs wasn't an option for anyone but us since it is finals week. We will be able to head out next Friday on our return from Thailand. I think it will be a great chance for Johnna to catch up with and say goodbye to her Hong Kong friends after our trip.

We had a lazy morning this morning. Today is the celebration of Buddha's birthday, so let's just call it a meditative morning. The afternoon was spent seekign out a bookstore for some beach reading in English for our upcoming Thailand experience. I bought a new book by Anthony Bourdain ("No Reservations" TV host (chef, writer, traveler)) entitled "Medium Raw." I've wanted to read one of his books for some time now. I watched every episode of his show that even tangentially related to this trip in preparation.

We planned our trip well thus far. The progression of Hong Kong, Bangkok, Phi Phi Don, and the Shanghai area is going to be sublime. We basically have big Chinese city experiences sandwiching a relaxing beach destination (Phi Phi Don).

We are planning on a trip to "The Peak" tonight, a great tram ride to some amazing views.

Hope all is well in your worlds,

Josh

Pics and more pics

Joint post to get ya'll caught up. A day of few pics is followed by many. We are in Johnna's dorm where we had to check the mail. I'll let the pics do the talking. The order is pretty random.

Breakfast today (congee with pork and preserved duck egg (the dark thing)). The reddish stuff is a spicy pickled either cabbage or white carrot. Amazing. This breakfast was so good we repeated it this morning (add the duck egg).

A picture of our breakfast place...called "Eat Together" which is apparently not a perfect translation of what the Chinese name is.

Some architecture pics for Haas. This is a Hong Kong government building that was intentionally designed with a weak spot near the bottom. It was built before the government records were digitized. The purpose of the weak spot is to allow purposeful self-destruction of government records if Hong Kong were to come under attack.

A street food stall. We had some curry fish balls and rice cooked in lotus leaf wrapped in a bread. We also had a waffle the other night.

Just a pretty pic from one of the parks we visited. We went to the Hong Kong Zoo and the Hong Kong Park. Some neat monkeys...beautiful landscaping and view.

The Bank of China tower, an iconic HK building, is behind us. The waterfall is within the park, and we thought it made for a romantic background.

Another architecture pic. Some of the skyscrapers are incredibly tall and many have neat designs.

The little (and mass manufactured) items are part of the whole experience. This is grape with aloe. Josh thinks it is tasty. Johnna is not a fan.

Pretty, eh?

Just us being cute.

Chicken feet! Johnna has yet to try these, and Josh showed off by eating two at lunch. We had lunch with Johnna's co-workers at a Dim Sum restaurant. The chicken feet tasted like the breading of chicken wings...really pretty tasty. Very bony.

The dim sum. Dim sum, kind of like tappas, refers more to a style than a specific item. There are a variety of small dishes that are steamed and served. They are all pretty tasty, and you get a lot of different flavors.

Johnna, her co-workers, and her boyfriend.

Breakfast yesterday. Amazing...

A dessert made from some kind of glutonous rice with red bean (similar to chocolate but not as sweet and a little earthier) with brown sugar sold on the street by Johnna's office.

I hope that gives you a feel for day 2. We are headed up to the Big Buddha followed by the light show and sushi with Johnna's school friends. A couple drinks might finish off the evening.

Mucho love-o,

Josh and Johnna