Back to the U.S.A!

On the plane to Newark now. Screaming babies. Yeah! Just over 3,000 more miles! Its -65 degrees outside the plane. Hurray north pole! We don’t have the cool flight path thing anymore though, I’m assuming due to heightened security. Security at the Hong Kong airport was a little more intense, we had to go through another screening just before boarding where they went through the carry on, gave us a pat down and checked our shoes. Made me feel a little better considering recent events I suppose.

Its 10 am Buffalo but my body thinks its 9 pm. We were delayed about two hours because of electronic issues with the plane. Glad to have that taken care of before we took off though. We did have a three hour layover in Newark, but now that’s probably going to be more like one. We have to claim our luggage, then go through customs and recheck before boarding to Buffalo. Could be close.

I’ll take this opportunity to wrap up random thoughts I may not have touched on

In Hong Kong the pedestrian/driver relationship is unlike mainland China cities in that people actually obey traffic signals, and the signals are really useful! There are also very few bicycles, just some scooters, which is probably due to the higher income. Still baffled by the Rolls Royces, Maseratis all over

China is not a tipping nation, though ironically we were expected to tip our tour guides handsomely. Our first day in Beijing we were chased down the street for leaving 10 ¥ at the restaurant we ate at. It was about 15% but only worth $1.50 or so. Cab drivers acted about the same way as in restaurants.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned one of the fascinating features of Hong Kong. As I said before the entire city is pretty much high rises. In an effort to prevent fires from getting out of control, any building over 40 floors must have a floor that doesn’t contain anything. Literally nothing. I think they have to have another empty story above 60 floors as well. Some of the buildings hide it in the architecture but you can see it pretty obviously in most, see this apartment complex. (which could probably hold half the population of Buffalo). The building in the background is being built now, and will be the tallest in (I believe China). I think the one in Dubai will be taller still so no claim to tallest in Asia or world.

I think my references to the bottle, bottle opener buildings in Shanghai earlier may have been lost along the way in my head. Here’s a good showing of why they got those nicknames.

At some of the nicer restaurants, they covered our coats that were on our chairs. I don’t think they do that anywhere in the states. I think it is to keep food from falling on them since they leaned in to put plates on the turn tables.

I believe this is known to be the largest floating restaurant in the world. (in Hong Kong)

This guy is made completely from ONE single piece of Jade. From what I remember it cost around $65,000 (U.S.)

There was a reason I took a picture of this door! 9’s are lucky in China. 9 dots across this door in the emperors garden. I guess there were 9 arches, etc. all over

I’ve been taking pictures of awesome Chinese-English translations. Here are a few of the goodies. Apparently Beijing had lots more but they fixed a lot of them before the Olympics. Very disappointing.

Well, that’s all for me. Back in the states safe and sound, and no worse for the wear. So glad I made this voyage and I certainly learned and saw a lot. I don’t know that I will be going back to PRC anytime soon but would certainly stop in to Hong Kong if I were jetting around Asia for some reason. I hope the blog has been somewhat informational but mostly entertaining for you! See you soon. School tomorrow. Hurray for 20 minutes of sleep in 26 hours!

-R-

ps plllease don’t ask me to get Chinese food for at least the next decade. Ok 2 weeks.