Sunday, January 30, 2005

Photos from Beijing, China

The Great Wall of China

posted by n@


Here are my photos from Beijing:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/natalllya/slideshow?.dir=/507a&.src=ph

I forgot to mention, as I was climbing down the Great Wall, a bunch of non-Chinese Asian people started to frantically wave at me. I waved back and said Hi. In broken english they asked me to pose for a photo with their kids. I did just that, then the video camera came out. After that about 5-6 other peopple asked me to pose for pictures with them and their kids. So here I am at the Great Wall and peopple are taking pictures of the white kid not the world wonder that the wall is lol. I think it was the first time that my whiteness was a good thing in Mainland China.

Back in HK from Beijing

To all of you in Canada all I have to say is HAH HAH for your -20 C weather, its 17 C here right now at 8.30 pm.
So last Sunday ( a week ago) I went to Chinese Church, it was interesting, totally different then Polish or Canadian Church. Lucy’s family is constantly taking me out for lunches and dinners and no one will ever let me pay. All I eat is breakfast at home and go to mad restaurants for the rest of the day. Lucy’s family belongs to every country club in Hong Kong so I get to live the HK high life here. Checked out some more markets in HK, they are insane! You can get so much for so little (speaking from a CDN $ point of view) but you can’t be a bit claustrophobic, these markets are jam packed with goods and people and you usually have a narrow corridor to squeeze yourself into between the masses of people and goods. Anyways, my flight to Beijing, Mainland China was leaving at the break of dawn on Monday and nothing was running that early on Hong Kong Island (where I am living for the duration of my trip) so Lucy’s brother offered for me to stay at his vacant 2nd house at Lantau Island (where the airport is) at Discovery Bay so that I could catch my flight on time. There are no cars on that island and only public transportation so it’s a breath of fresh air from the crazy busy HK Island. Anyways, I stopped by the supermarket to grab some tea and found all sorts of interesting things: curry flavoured chips, chicken wing flavoured chips (Q I know you’d be all over that one), ready to go EVERYTHING and strawberry shots of alcohol in toothpaste like tubes for on the road convenience lol.
Anyways, I booked the Beijing trip with a Hong Kong travel group, I was the only white kid there. I told the guide not to worry about me and just tell me when and where to show up in English so I don’t get lost. She spoke a bit of English but it was so broken she might as well be speaking Cantonese. I just read body language and that got me through. Beijing (or Peking in Cantonese) reminds me of Communist era Poland. It was very gray, military like and drab. Mind you its full blown winter there and no city looks pretty mid January but I found Beijing to be really dirty. It looked nice at night cause it was all lit up and you couldn’t see the garbage in the streets. I am used to the cleanliness of Hong Kong so Beijing was mad dirty to me. In HK they drive fast but not unsafe, in Mainland China they drive like maniacs, and there are 100s of bicycles on the road just making the situation so much worse. Everyone has the mentality of “they will stop for me if I go” including all buses and pedestrians. Stop signs and Red lights are a joke, and so are police officers. Crossing the road there is taking a chance with your life. The cops are dressed in Russian style military gear and stand around like Buckingham Palace guards. They literally just stand in public places and don’t move. Bathrooms in China are horrid, you don’t have to ask where they are cause you can smell them way ahead of time. They are completely unsanitary and most of the time they are literally holes in the ground, if you plan to go there, hope you got good balance ( jenn – thank god for open eye festivals and your cottage lol, prepared me for Beijing). I would not drink anything all day til 8 pm (when I came back to my hotel room) in hopes of avoiding the bathrooms at all costs. I think I must have gone through a litre of hand sanitizer when I was there. There are next to no foreigners in Beijing ( saw a total of 5 white people and 2 black guys the whole time) so I was pointed at a lot. People aren’t as nice there as they are in HK. They don’t seem to like to take care of themselves or their surroundings and liked to walk into me a lot (whether it was for pick pocketing purposes or discriminatory purposes is beyond me). They also think that horking, drinking and smoking is acceptable everywhere, even in museums. Men liked to point and sometimes follow me, the women just asked for money or for me to buy stuff. If I kept my hood on my head and didn’t look up then people left me alone, if my hood fell off or my blond hair poked out it was instant pointing and staring. I was fine in touristy areas, but on the streets, I would not survive 20 minutes on my own. No one speaks English there, some speak Cantonese (Mandarin is spoken in Mainland China and Cantonese in Hong Kong, the languages aren’t even close to each other), so if I got lost (and thank God I didn’t) I would have a lot of trouble finding my way anywhere. And as you all know, I always tend to wonder off on my own. I know now why Hong Kong people distinguish themselves from Mainland China people, its 2 very completely different people and societies. Anyways, the weather was cold! It was – 7 C most of the time and I know that’s not that bad but spending 10 hours outside a day made it cold. The people in my group were nice to me, although spoke Cantonese to me 90% of the time. I would guess what they were saying by their body language and answer back in English. It wasn’t til the last day that they realized that I actually wasn’t from Honk Kong and apologized for not speaking English more. I have no clue what I have been eating for the last week as no one could tell me the names of anything in English, all I know is that I ain’t sick yet so whatever sea creatures I been eating can’t be all that bad. I got to see a lot of things when I was in Beijing: Temple of Heaven, Tian’an men square, Summer Palace, Forbidden City, Bai Hai Park, Ming Tombs, The Great Wall, Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum etc. I also got to go to a few Chinese markets (some funky crazy food on sale on the streets), got to go to 2 traditional Chinese medicine shops, a jade shop, silk museum, a Chinese “changing of the faces” show and a tea house. I also took a rickshaw ride through Beijing streets but I nearly had a heart attack, I never want to set foot on a Beijing Road ever again. Since the year of the rooster is coming up, there were roosters EVERYWHERE I looked. All in all, the trip was good, scary at times, but despite all my HK Friends’ premonitions I survived China lol. I am very very glad to be back in safe and warm Hong Kong!
Yesterday I went to MOng Kok with Angela, it’s a crazy shopping area with seas of people on the streets. Its soooo easy to get lost there and you have to watch your stuff like a hawk. I went for dinner with Angela’s family. Hong Kong people gather before the Chinese New Year so there was about 16 people around the table. They were trying to make me eat some funky stuff but my “ I will try anything once” attitude went out the window when they tried to make me eat fried fish skin and chicken feet lol. Afterwards we hit the bar district on Hong Kong Island ( 10 -15 minute walk from Lucy’s house). Its crazy, tons of people and light and music. It looks like a festival but its like that every weekend. The streets are shut down and no cars are allowed within the district. It felt more like Canada since I saw people of all nationalities and cultures as well as bars and clubs catering to all sorts of western and asian tastes. Today I went to Stanley Bay (on the south side of HK Island, I am on the North) with Angela, her bf and friends. Its mad humid out (at 95% right now, Toronto is about 60% in the summer) so it drizzles a lot. Tomorrow I am off to Ocean Park (amusement park), should be good.
Anyways, that’s the end of my weekly essay. I should be sending some Beijing photos soon.

s*t*a*r*s

"Shoot for the moon! Even if you miss you'll land among the stars!"

-- Les Browning

Saturday, January 22, 2005

Hong Kong Photos

Me and Fanny at Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour

posted by n@

My photos from my first week in Hong Kong:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/natalllya/slideshow?.dir=/b3ad&.src=ph

I love HK

Hong Kong has been awesome, I’ve been running around doing a tonne of stuff. The weather is amazing as always, at least 17 C everyday. For me its like summer but for HK peeps this is winter and I see some people wearing down jackets and hats while I am prancing around in a t-shirt, no wonder I get odd looks. People here have been extremely nice to me. Everyone is so fashionable here. All the girls walk around in mad stiletto high boots, crazy fashion skirts, perfect makeup and mad styled hair. I think Angela, Fanny and me are the only girls in Hong Kong wearing jeans, running shoes and t-shirts. I’ve been to a few of the malls here, they are incredible! They are massive in size and look more like fashion museums then malls. Everything is mad clean and shiny and you will find only the most upscale names and brands there. Eaton’s centre is a joke compared to these malls. The streets of HK are incredibly clean, there is no graffiti either. Reason is the heavy HK $1500 fine that you can score for littering. HK is always busy and always lit up like Vegas, its crazy busy and its got mad energy. I’ve also gone to a bunch of side street markets, you can find tons of hand made quality stuff and argue the price til its next to nothing in Canadian dollars ( CDN $1 = HK $6). I’ve visited some crazy hip youngen malls and the Philipino mall (tons of maids here are from the Philipines). The supermarket here has all sorts of crazy stuff I’ve never seen before. The price range here is huge. You can spend 1000s on clothes and the crazy malls or next to nothing at the markets, all depends on your style and which part of town you are in. Same goes for food, I can spend HK $10 on lunch or HK$100 for the exact same dish, it all depends on wether you shop and eat local or shop and eat poshy. In the middle of this crazy night and street life right in the middle of downtown you can find large parks. You literally walk into one of these and all noise and lights disappear and you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere. it’s common to find people practicing tai chi in these parks and sometimes you run into monks. I’ve had a chance to eat at restaurants all over the place. Yesterday I had lunch at a traditional dim sum restaurant. You sit at your table and ladies wheel around all sorts of food while screaming out the name of it, you wave them down and they place the order on your plate and keep going, for each dish you have to wave down a different lady. Most of the time they only speak Cantonese so I have no idea what I am eating, all I know that its been all good so far. Lunch in HK is from 1 pm – 2 pm and I avoid being in dining hoods at all costs at that time, the crowds are crazy and its like heards of buffalo stampeding to get their eat on. I’m comftorable with HK now enough that often I venture out on my own. The subway system and ferries are easy to figure out and I more or less know where everything is now. Its really safe here and there’s a ton of cops everywhere I go. Today me and Lucy hiked up to the top of Victoria Peak. It was kinda cloudy so my photos didn’t turn out that good. Took about and hour and half to get up there. We took the tram (crazy ass street car) back down. I took the double decker bus home and sitting on the upper floor made me feel like we were going to slam into every wall and every other bus with the crazy turns the igor driver was making. The maid here rocks, she does all my cleaning, cooking and does my laundry. I don’t even get a chance to do anything cause the minute I get up she makes me food and does my bed, as soon as I finish eating she cleans up after me and as soon as I get home she polishes my shoes. I am getting spoiled rotten. Lucy’s Mom keeps wanting to take me to country clubs, I think I am a novelty item to her and her friends. Tomorrow I am going to Chinese church and the zoological and botanical gardens then I am off to a cottage at Discovery Bay (other side of HK). I leave for Mainland China on Monday morning by myself. I’ll be staying in Beijing and seing the surround areas as well as Northern China and Inner Mongolia. The CDN $400 that I spent on the trip got me the flight there and back, a 5 star hotel, all food and all tours included. What sucks is that the tour is in Cantonese, but its unsafe for me to go on my own and way cheaper this way. I’ve been hearing conflicting things about Mainland China. Some say that they don’t know how I am going to survive China on my own and tell me that I am going to get sold on the black market by the Chinese, others tell me that mainlanders are nice to foreigners as long as you mind your own. Meh, I guess I’ll find out on Monday. I’m there til Friday evening and Saturday morning I leave for Macau (Portuguese-Chinese Country) with Angela and 12 of her friends. Anyways, I’ll be sending this weeks photos along in a bit. Mainland China has heavy government regulations on internet use so you won’t be hearing from me for a while.
Peace out for now,
N.

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Hong Kong is crazy!

Hong Kong is crazy , i love it! the flight was all good, went by pretty fast. the plane was filled at like half its capacity so i had room to stretch out. we all had individual tv's and a choice of 10 movie channels, like 20 radio stations (they had an urban and latin station so i was set) and 15 video games. good thing the kid beside me didn't speak english cause and couldn't complain about me cause i was cussin at the the dang thing every time i lost a game and singing along to the tunes. only slept 4 hrs on the flight but it was all good.
lucys's house is half way up this mountain on hong kong island. below her are all poshy condos which are more like all inclusive hotels, above her house is the famed Victoria Peak. downtown is a 5 minute walk away. its mad busy here but i like the energy of it. i feel like andre the giant here, i get funky looks here and there but nuffin crazy. fanny's boyfriend is chinese-colombian so when we exchanged a few words in spanish people were kind of shocked, lol a chinese guy and a polish girl speaking spanish in hong kong lol. anyways, i woke up this morning and left my room, when i came back a strange woman was making my bed. little did i know that lucy has a live in maid here. anyways, she cooks and cleans and i gotta do nothing all day. tomorrow lucy's sister's maids are coming over to cook me curry chicken, dang right, i got it made, soooooo good to be nat =)
today i had lunch at a traditional chinese restaurant, we were sititng in these crazy long benches chuck e. cheese style. my chopstick skills earned me soup stains all over my jacket. the central district, which is a 5 minute walk from lucy's crib, is packed with a ton of things, a complete shock to the senses. they got international cuisine from all over the place in case i decide to give up the dang chopsticks. the central district has these crazy escalators out in the open. they carry the commuters up and down the moutain through the district. they run down until 10 am and then up for the rest of the day. they stop every here and there so you can access different levels and streets of the district. people don't drive a lot here but when they do its noice cars. all i have seen in polished up black and red bmws and mercedes. they drive on the left side of the road, i keep thinking we're driving into oncoming traffic and i forget that i have to look right not left when crossing the street. checked out some markets today too, had to buy grub for din din and went to check out some chinese silks and tings. went to a couple of buddhist temples, they burn incense there like its going out of style and you can buy origami like offerings to burn for the buddha. public transport system here is mad fast. you buy this octapus card thats accepted on subways, busses, ferries and trams and just swipe as you go in and out of stations. toronto subways are crawling compared to the ones here and you can't get lost cause everything is digitized and tells you where you are at all times and how to get where you are going. we took the ferry across the harbour to the kowloon hood and checked out the avenue of stars (its like the hollywood walk of fame gone chinese). the downtown kowlooon area is so freakin lit up my eyeballs were hurting. it was night time but you couldn't even tell cause it was so damn lit up and bright, the lights and advertisments are nuts and the buildings are like nothing i;ve seen before. they're all massive and high tech and lit up like a christmas tree. the city is disgustingly clean, everything is polished and i have not seen a single piece of garbage on the floor. most people here speak some form of english so language barries are virtually non existent, all signs are posted in cantonese as well as english. there's actually a considerable amount of westerners here, i thought i was gonna be the only white kid on the block. all in all its all good here. its very safe and i can wonder all i want. i think i am off to beijing on saturday for 5 days, went to the travel agency today but like the amensiad dumb ass i am i left my credit card here so i gotta go back tomorrow to book everything.
oh yeah, for all you hectors freezing your asses off right now, its 20 C here =)
aight, imma eat dim sum til i get the itis and pass out.

Saturday, January 15, 2005

Dream it

"If you can dream it, you can do it. Your limits are all within yourself."
Brian Tracy




Friday, January 14, 2005

Potential

"The only honest measure of your success is what you are doing compared to your true potential."

Paul J. Meyer


Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Seven Wonders

A group of students were asked to list what they thought were the present "Seven Wonders of the World." Though there were some disagreements, the following received the most votes:
1. Egypt's Great Pyramids
2. Taj Mahal
3. Grand Canyon
4. Panama Canal
5. Empire State Building
6. St. Peter's Basilica
7. China's Great Wall

While gathering the votes, the teacher noted that one student had not finished her paper yet. So she asked the girl she was having trouble with her list. The girl replied, "Yes, a little. I couldn't quite make up my mind because there were so many." The teacher said, "Well, tell us what you have, and maybe we can help. "The girl hesitated, then read, "I think the 'Seven Wonders of the World' are:

1. To See
2. To Hear
3. To Touch
4. To Taste
5. To Feel
6. To Laugh
7. And to Love."


The room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. The things we overlook as simple and ordinary and that we take for granted are truly wondrous!

A gentle reminder --
that the most precious things in life
cannot be built by hand or bought by man.



Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Losers and Winners

'Losers live in the past. Winners learn from the past and enjoy working in the present toward the future.'
- Denis Waitley

Sunday, January 09, 2005

New Years 2004/2005


Borrachito (aka Andres), ET (aka Denise) and Hector (aka Natalia) gettin' their party on at the Fiesta Colombiana at the Silva house. Check the rest of the New Years pics below:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/natalllya/album?.dir
=/mail&.src=ph&.tok=phmeWUCBP7Ax.30F

posted by n@