wushuzilla

Posts Tagged ‘shenzhen’

I am currently sitting in my train just having passed through Zhengzhou station in Henan Province.  Come to think of it, this is the sixth time I’ve gone through this station in the past year.  I wonder if Liu Hai Bo is near here …

The shanty town I just passed reminds me of Haiti.  Although unlike Haiti there are high rise apartment buildings just beyond them. Lots of construction in Zhengzhou.  More than most cities I’ve visited in China.  I guess that Shaolin money is doing its job.

Anyway, after a week in Hong Kong filled with meetings, meetings, work and some stress, I’m finally on my way home.  And boy do I need a trip home.  I will have to soak it all up though because I’m coming back to Hong Kong on the 26th for 3 more days.  What happened to my wushu training?  I haven’t been to wushu in a month or so if seems.  “Out of shape” does not even begin to describe things.

Some highlights …

Where i bought my new cell phone: HTC Touch Pro 2

On the bus

 

MBDF

 

Hold on!

 

 

 

Jack

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All photos courtesy of my new cell phone!

After a very quick trip (around 48 hours) to the south of China I am back in Xi’an. Nothing major to post up, but just wanted to let everyone know that I am back and should be blogging regularly again soon.

I went down south to renew my visa. I flew down on Thursday afternoon to Guangzhou, took a bus to the Futian border crossing in Shenzhen, and then took another bus from Lok Ma Chau to Tin Shui Wai in Hong Kong where I stayed with Jack, actually not sleeping at all the whole night.

I left off at 9:30 AM and took a bus to Sheng Shui, the MTR train to Lo Wu (Luo Hu) and then the express train up to Guangzhou where I met up with Ruhi and caught an overnight train to Xi’an. I slept a solid 12 – 14 hours during the trip and we just arrived this afternoon.

Since spouting out names of locations don’t mean much if you aren’t familiar with them, I made a few maps to demonstrate the route …

All in all it was a pretty good trip.  Mainly because I didn’t get any illnesses or get snowed in anywhere.  But also because it all went according to plan.  Yay for plans! (Mark likes plans)

Tomorrow morning Ruhi and I are meeting Yue Xiao Yu to go shopping for a bicycle.  I am going to see about doing some video-ing of our excursion too so you can enjoy that. After that I am meeting my tutor, Ada, for an hour of Chinese learnin’ and then I believe Ruhi and I are meeting some new friends in the evening.  A jam-packed day to be sure.  Yay for Sundays!  (Mark likes Sundays)

NOTE: I got a few photos off my film camera so I’m posting them up with this entry, even though they are from the entire 10 day trip.

I had jokingly said to Ruhi that with my luck I would probably get to Hefei (合肥) just to find myself delayed overnight by the weather again.  Ironically it almost came true.

My plan was to take a morning train from Fuyang to Hefei (3 hours), get my plane ticket at the e-Long office, and then catch my 5:20 flight at the airport, arriving in Xi’an around 7:00, and hopefully home in time to get some dinner and enjoy a bit of rest at home.

And it started out okay too.  I woke up around 7:00, cleaned up, packed my things (yay for being a light packer!), and then got a quick bite at the hotel’s free breakfast buffet (nothing to write home about) before checking out and catching a cab to the train station.

It looked like there had been a fresh coat of snow on the ground from the night before.  But the snow wasn’t falling very heavy, even though it was overcast.  And the snow was pretty minimal so I didn’t think too much of it.

At the train station I waited a few minutes before they let us on.  (I don’t really understand the huge rushing of people to get on the train, considering that all the seats are pre-assigned.  It isn’t like someone will swipe your seat, right?  Maybe it is for the overhead packing space …)

I know why they call them hard seats (硬座) now.  They are no gift to the lower back, that is for sure.  I spent a fair amount of time playing my Nintendo DS and thanked my lucky stars that I brought it along with me for some entertainment.  Thank you Mario Brothers!

I noticed as we were traveling that the snow level outside was getting  a bit deeper.  ”How come the farther south we travel, the thicker the snow?” I asked Ruhi rhetorically through SMS.  By the time we arrived in Hefei around 1:00 PM it was snowing pretty steadily.

I grabbed a taxi and gave them the address (intersection) of the ticket office where e-Long has their pick-ups.  It actually took me a lot of walking around to find the place.  If you didn’t know where it was, you wouldn’t know where it was.  And that was the case for me.  It was purely by accident when I got there and they handed me my ticket.  I had actually asked the person at the counter what their address was (bad labeling on the buildings) and the lady next to her handed me my ticket.

Getting a taxi from there to the airport took another 30 minutes, but I still managed to arrived about an hour before the scheduled check-in time for my flight.  The guy told me to come back at 3:50.  So I had a sandwich and drink at the airport restaurant.

3:50 rolls around and the ticket counter has plenty of customers but nothing is happening.  4:00 .. 4:20 … By 4:30 we’ve been told that the flight hasn’t left the city of origin on its way to Hefei due to weather conditions.  Once they know if there is going to be a plane or not, we will know if we are flying out or not.

I got on the phone and ASKED Ruhi to  help me book a hotel in Hefei for the night. Just in case.

But as soon as I hung up the phone with her there was a flurry of activity and it turned out the plane was cleared to come to Hefei.  I stood in line and got my boarding pass.  Seat 20A on Tianjin Airlines.  My first time to fly with them.

Now, getting your boarding pass just means you have a seat assignment.  But until the plane actually shows up, who knows if you will actually get to where you are going.  We sat in the gate area for a long time waiting.

5:30 … 6:00 … 7:00 … 8:00 … 9:00 … And the same announcement over the intercom.  ”Your flight has been delayed due to weather conditions.  Thank you for your patience”.

And all the while other flights were dropping like flies.  ”Flight MU3948 to Beijing has been cancelled .. Flight CZ2349 to Tianjin has been cancelled … ” It was like waiting for the worst lottery ever …

At 9:45 we were suddenly told that we could board the plane.  We could board?  I didn’t even know it had arrived!

We scrambled to the bus which took us out to the tarmac and on to the plane.  It turned out there were only about 30 passengers on the flight, which means everyone had some nice room to relax.  I spent the time studying my Chinese flash cards and playing my Nintendo DS.  Oh .. and a bit of sudoku during take-off and landing …

Now, this whole time I hadn’t told Ruhi that I had gotten on the plane.  Part of me, I admit, was scared that as soon as I said “I”m coming!” they would announce that the plane had a case of the measels, or it had colided with Santa Claus, or that gnomes had hijacked the airport and we were all going to be auctioned off as slaves in an underworld blackmarket operation.

The other part of me wanted to surprise her.  She was expecting me to possibly not be showing up at all that night. Especially considering how late it was.  Before we got on the plane I said that I was turning my phone off to conserve battery and that I would call her back when I got more information.

Then, after we landed in Xi’an, I called her again and told her that the airline was going to put us up in a hotel for the night and asked her to cancel the other reservation she had made for me.  (That could have been a signal right there, since airlines in China don’t really do that unless you are flying international and missing a conneciton, especially not Tianjin Airline on a 2 hour domestic route.)

I walked pretty much straight from the airplane, through the airport, and in to a taxi which drove me the 150 RMB (about $22) trip home (!!!!).  That might be cheap in the U.S. for 45 minutes in a cab, but here it feels pretty pricey.  As I was entering our building and going up the elevator I tried to call her but didn’t get through.  But she called me back and as I got off the elevator I said “Oh, hold on … I need to use the restroom.  I’ll call you back.”

Then I came in the front door and said “Excuse me.  I’m looking for a restroom?”

She was pretty surprised. ;-P

And I was pretty tired.  Still a tickle in my throat, but for the most part none too worse for wear.  What was originally supposed to be a 2 day trip to Hong Kong ended up including a week in Anhui, a brush with the swine flu and the storm of the century.

The best part of the trip was that I pack well so I was prepared for what happened.  I had warm enough clothes, I had the ability to get food and lodging, and I even had flu medicine in my emergency travel kit (never leave home without it!).

Of course, the worst part of the trip was missing a week of wushu, being stuck in the middle of no-where (no offense Fuyang fans), and being the sickest I’ve been in a few years.  But these things happen and it isn’t anything that you can control.  Sometimes you just have to take things as they come and make the best of the situation.

Especially living in China.  Where you never know what is going to happen.

We spent a week in Macau with Gordon and Maureen Kerr.  Super nice folks who were kind enough to open up their home to us.  Ruhi spent most of the week working with Gordon on a film project and I spent a lot of time in cafe’s and restaurants using free wi-fi to get some work done.  They actually have wi-fi at the Kerr home, but I like exploring too.

After dinner we headed out to Tin Sui Wai to stay with Jack.  Once again they were most hospitable as we re-packed all of our things before our 3:30 ferry to Shekou.  In fact, we were taking the ferry from Tuen Mun to Shekou, a route I had always wanted to take.  It is a better route to Shekou than the one from Hong Kong mainly due to it only taking 30 minutes, the ferry being practically empty on every route and the price being only $45 HKD.  If I had lived in Tuen Mun or Yuen Long instead of Tung Chung I would have probably gone to Shenzhen more often.

We arrived in Shekou and waited at the ferry terminal’s cafe for Ruhi’s friend, Bill.

Bill and his fiance Ting Ting helped us check in to a cheap hotel near the Shenzhen West train station followed by a meal at a local Dong Bei style restaurant.  Man it was nice to eat some Chinese food in China again.  Case in point:

After that it was time to crash for the night.  With not too much sleep the night before it was well deserved and much needed.  Here is a view from the hotel room:

On the 9th (our wedding lunaversary, btw) we had breakfast at the hotel after sleeping in and then made our way to the train station with Dan and Ting Ting.  They helped us find the luggage shipping desk where we checked our 3 large suitcases all the way to Xi’an.  Since we were going to Shandong for a week first it would make sense to have the bags waiting for us in Xi’an instead of lugging them all over the place.  Just 500RMB ($73 USD)  to ship 90KG (198 pounds) half-way across China.  Not too bad.

The Shenzhen West train station was nice and small with not much traffic.  Also, since it was the first stop on this route and right after the October holidays it was pretty empty.

In fact, for almost the entire trip we were the only two people in the soft sleeper car.  We had our whole compartment to ourselves.   The dining car was right next to ours so we would go there to eat our meals or do some work in a more comfortable environment.  It also gave us the opportunity to chat with some of the staff and learn a bit more about how Chinese trains operate.  Since this particular route wasn’t one that foreigners usually went on (slower than the other Shenzhen-Jinan route and it isn’t a popular tourist train route) we were interesting to them as well.

27 hours after learing Shenzhen on the 9th we arrived in Jinan on the 10th.  Unfortunately we JUST missed the last bus to Binzhou, but it ended up working out in our favor.  We got a bite at KFC while I called Jenn and asked her to book us a cheap Jinan hotel through ctrip.  5 minutes later we had our confirmation number SMS’ed to us and we were on our way to a 150 RMB / night business hotel with free internet.

It turns out that KFC coffee drinks are a bit on the strong side because I had a hard time getting to sleep.  It was tricky dragging myself out of bed at 7:30 AM so that we could catch our 9:30 AM bus to Binzhou.  The bus was 2.5 hours long and they were playing the LOUDEST videos in the universe.  I used my ear plugs and it was still too loud for me.  It was vibrating directly through my skull.  After some fitful sleeping we made it to Binzhou around noon and my time to check out the 11th All China Games was about to begin!