3/26 Back to Asia

3/26/2013: I am back on the international road. My time at home in Colorado was unbelievably quick, followed by a great trip to North Carolina that was also too brief. During my week-and-a-half back in CO, I ran a 7k race with Dad and Kirk, worked a couple days, struggled to readjust to the new time zone, did some lumberjacking in preparation for Brady and Kara's wedding, then served as a groomsman in said wedding the following weekend. The wedding was a blast and I got to see Amy and a whole bunch of other great people I hadn't seen in a while. We celebrated Dad's birthday that Saturday and went cross-country skiing in Frisco. I got my car fixed during that time; a $1,538 expense I was not anticipating. Upon returning from the mountains, I buckled down to study for my GMAT so I might have a better chance at getting into Duke. I studied Monday and Tuesday for my Wednesday afternoon GMAT exam and spent the rest of my time working on my Duke application (due that Thursday) and trying to get a few hours in for work. On Thursday I flew to Durham and met up with Ariel, who I hadn't seen since Feb. 7, and I visited Duke on Friday. Ariel and I explored Durham, Chapel Hill, and Raleigh that weekend (mostly by looking for bars in which we could watch March Madness). It was a great time back in the US, but I am once again in the midst of a 27 hour journey to Asia. My route this time leaves Raleigh-Durham airport at 8pm March 25, flies to Washington-Dulles, then to London-Heathrow, then to Bangkok, finally arriving in Chiang Mai (Thailand) at 9:20am March 27. Someone will have to fill me on anything noteworthy that happens March 26, since I'll be missing it.

Unless this turns out to be the most elaborate break-up plan successfully executed by a girl who wants her boyfriend as far away from her as possible, Ariel will be joining me April 22. Until then, I will work a lot of hours to make up for all the work I didn't do while back in the US. I'm booked for a couple of nights at "Thapae Boutique House," and if it is nice, I'll stay longer. Terry Gage will be in Chiang Mai a few days after I arrive, so hopefully we can meet up and do some exploring, since he'll be with a friend who is familiar with the city. Once I'm caught up with work, I'll begin my search for a more permanent living situation, which should be interesting. And then I'll have to leave the country once again before April 27, since I think my tourist visa to Thailand is only good for 30 days. It is supposedly easy to get to Laos (or anywhere in SE Asia for that matter), so I'll have to do some research into good quick weekend trips over the border.


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3/10 Trip Recap

3/10/2013: I'm back in Denver and thinking about my big trip.

Recap:
Japan 2/15 - 2/25
Seoul 2/25 - 3/1
Hong Kong 3/1 - 3/5
Taiwan 3/5 - 3/9

Best Day: Had to be day 2 skiing at Rusutsu. Probably the least "cultural" day of the trip, but the powder was deep and the slopes were empty. It was one of the best skiing days of my life, and probably one of the best overall days of my life.

Runner-up Best Day: Biking and hiking in Taroko Gorge in Taiwan. The weather was beautiful, the scenery was incredible, and the hiking and biking were a lot of fun.

Best Meal: I had a lot of great meals - the Japanese pancake for my last dinner in Japan, the sushi train in Kyoto, the sushi at the fish market in Tokyo, my many ramen dishes in Japan, the Korean pancake in Seoul, and street food in Hong Kong and Taipei. The top meal, though, had to be the Korean dinner I had with the two women from the tourist info center. "Soon Du Bu" is a spicy tofu soup, and it was really tasty, especially when combined with steamed rice. Admittedly, that meal was also really memorable because it was a random meetup with the ladies from the tourist information center.

Forms of transportation: airplane, train, bullet train, taxi, ferry, cable car, skis, bicycle, foot,  travelator (in Hong Kong), van, bus, shuttle, subway, chairlift.

Favorite Country: Japan was really great, and I really enjoyed Taiwan too. Every place was a lot of fun, but Taiwan gets extra points because it was nice and warm.

Now I get to enjoy 2 weeks of being back home in CO, then off to Thailand with Ariel!

3/9 Bike Ride in Taipei and Return to CO

3/9/2013: My hotel offered free bicycle rental, which I hadn't taken advantage of, so I decided I'd get up early on Saturday and go for a bike ride before heading to airport for my return trip to Colorado. I got up at 7am, had breakfast, and then rented a bike. The bike was pretty small and extremely heavy, and I couldn't adjust the seat height without an allen wrench. My plan was to find my way over to the Tamsui River and bike north towards downtown. I had to leave for the airport a little before 10am, so I didn't have a lot of time.

I saw some cyclists at an intersection who were heading towards the river, but I lost track of them and ended up on a busy narrow road with lots of scooters whizzing past me. I came across some stairs that appeared to go up and over the wall that separated me from the river, so I carried my bike up and over and sprinted across another road to get to the bike path. The bike path was really nice, winding through some wetlands and parks. The air was noticeably smoggy, with my throat burning only after some light exercise. I crossed the river over a bridge, following some cyclists out for a Saturday ride. When I got to the other side of the river, I started heading back south, thinking I'd find another bridge to cross farther down to get back on to the other side of the river to get to my hotel. I passed through some more parks, seeing some Tai Chi, some birdwatchers with huge telescopes, other cyclists in lycra on roadbikes, and some frisbee players. There were also a number of baseball fields - Taiwan is another Asian country that has really embraced baseball. I found a bridge to cross that had a bike path along it, so I crossed over to the other side and kept heading south. I passed a bunch of basketball courts, more baseball fields, and even a track for RC car racing with a number of guys driving their remote controlled cars around the track.

I kept heading south and realized nothing looked familiar, so I pulled out my phone and found that I had crossed only half the river - I'd passed the point where it split into two branches and I'd only crossed the east branch. I had to backtrack to the bridge I'd crossed, head a little farther north, and then cross another bridge. I hurried back to the hotel, passing through some Saturday morning street markets and a neighborhood where I saw a number of elaborate floats for some parade.

I took a cab to the airport since I didn't have enough time to take a train, then a bullet train, then a bus... I had received an email while I was still at the hotel saying that my flight from Vancouver to Denver had been canceled (my original itinerary was to fly from Taipei to Seoul at 12:55pm March 9, Seoul to Vancouver, then Vancouver to Denver, arriving in Denver around 7pm March 9). When I checked in for my flight in Taipei, it was through Thai Air (a star alliance member with United), who said they couldn't do anything about my itinerary because they were just Thai Air. I then got an email saying I'd been rebooked on a flight out of Vancouver at 7:40am March 10, meaning I'd have to stay the night in Vancouver. I tried calling United but it was a 30 minute wait. The Thai Air lady wanted to know if I wanted to check my bag to Vancouver - I said I'd prefer Denver, but she said my plan at that point was to stay the night in Vancouver, so she said I'd need my bags and they can't be held responsible for my luggage if it is kept overnight. I was thinking that I could probably find a flight from Seoul to San Francisco - there was no need for me to go to Vancouver - but then my bags would be in Vancouver. I was running out of time, so I just had my luggage routed to Vancouver. As it turned out, there was a flight from Seoul to SFO leaving about 45 mins after my originally scheduled flight out of Korea (to Vancouver), and there was a convenient flight from SFO to DEN getting me home by 7:30pm. I was unable to change my flights though. Instead, I flew to Seoul, then to Vancouver, then got my flight changed so I could get home that night and not have to stay overnight in Vancouver, so I had a layover in San Francisco, finally arriving in Denver at 11pm after 29 hours of traveling and three layovers. It was rough.

3/8 Taipei

3/8/2013: My second day in Taipei involved a trip to the zoo and a visit to the National Palace Museum. I had originally planned on taking advantage of the free bike rental from my hotel to travel around the city, but it would have been a lot of biking on what turned out to be not a very nice bike. From the hotel to the zoo it is around 18km (11 miles) and then from zoo to NPM another 20km or so (12.4 miles), and then maybe 15km back to the hotel. I opted to take public transportation and reached the zoo by 11am or so. I was most interested in seeing the "Taiwanese" section, since I thought there might be some interesting animals that have evolved on the island. There was a Formosan Black Bear and some Formosan Macaques that were interesting, and then a few small cat-like animals, but nothing mind-blowing. I suppose Taiwan hasn't been separated from the mainland for long enough for any extreme divergence in evolution. There were also some animals that looked like mountain goats called Formosan Serows. I kept wandering and saw a croc, some pandas, some koalas, and some elephants. It was a good zoo, but not too different from any other zoo (except that it only cost around $2 to get in).

I took the train northwest to the National Palace Museum, stopping for some beef noodles near the Shilin Metro Stop. I hopped on a bus to get to the museum, and after a few stops an Asian girl asked me if the bus we were on was going to the NPM. I said I thought so, but her friend was looking at the route map (which was all in Chinese) and they concluded that the bus does go past the NPM but we were going the wrong direction. We got off at the next stop, crossed the street, and then learned that we had been on the right bus. Turns out they were Korean tourists - I thought the girl was reading the route map in Chinese, but apparently not. I gave them a hard time for misleading me but we found our way to the museum eventually. They were graduating early from college so their reward was a vacation in Taiwan. They were going to be elementary school teachers. I lost them after buying an admission ticket.

Rosy's description of the NPM was something like, "You know how when you toured the Forbidden City in Beijing it was kinda lame, just a bunch of empty buildings? Well all the stuff that used to be in those buildings is now in the National Palace Museum." I may not remember this correctly, but I think as the Communists were taking over China, Chiang-Kai Shek and his supporters cleared out all the artefacts from the Forbidden City and took them to Taiwan. So now Taiwan possesses 8,000 years' worth of Chinese history, and the artefacts are on display at the NPM. I heard that there are so many artefacts, at any time there is only around 15% on display. My first stop was in the "rare and historical documents" section, where there were a lot of old maps of China and Southeast Asia on display. I also saw paintings, religious artefacts, furniture, and ceramics. It was an overwhelming amount of material, but overall it was fascinating to see different items spanning 8,000 years for one civilization. I caught myself looking at a Buddhist statue from the 13th century and thinking "that's not that old" because I'd seen others from 3rd century BCE. Large Chinese tour groups flooded the building, so sometimes it was difficult to get to different displays, and other times I'd be quickly surrounded and pushed out of the way if I was at a display that the group wanted to see. A major section of the museum was Chinese calligraphy, which was lost on me because I can't read Chinese (and you can only appreciate different "fonts" for so long).

I left the museum around 5, caught the bus back to Shilin Station, and walked back over to the Shilin Night Market for some food and beer. One major drawback of the night market is the stinky tofu. It is supposedly considered a tasty treat that one can get at the Shilin Night Market, but it is a foul smell and I nearly lose my appetite whenever I smell it. I was eating something else while walking around and had to stop eating whenever I smelled stinky tofu because the smell was ruining the flavor of my meal.

I returned to my hotel around 9 and Skyped with Ariel and packed up my bags.

3/7 Yangmingshan National Park and Shilin Night Market

I slept in on Thursday morning and hit up the free breakfast buffet at the hotel just before the 10:00 close. I discovered there was free laundry, too, which I was badly in need of, so I stuck around the hotel and did some laundry. Not so exciting so far.
As I was at my computer, I felt like the building was swaying. I stood up and looked out the window and I could tell that we were definitely swaying. Some flags outside were flapping in the wind, so I wasn't sure if the building was swaying because of high winds or if we had experienced an earthquake. I knew that buildings are designed to sway some in earthquake-prone areas, so I also didn't know if I should be fleeing the building or just playing it cool. I just waited it out, and then later asked the front desk what had happened. They said it was an earthquake and that it had been a decent size - around 5.0 one girl guessed. They were amused that it was my first earthquake (I don't count the one on Christmas Day in Castle Rock). She said not to worry and that they happen all the time.

I decided I'd go to Yangmingshan National Park for the afternoon. I took the metro up to Jintiao Station and then waited for a bus. It was taking a while, and I knew it was a long bus ride, and it was already around 1:30, so I grabbed a cab who sped me up the winding roads out of the city and into some fresh air.
The driver dropped me off at an unknown location, so I wandered around and admired the cherry blossoms along with about 1,000 others. I started to just follow a random trail uphill, but that ended at a road, so I continued up the road until I found a visitor center. The ranger there spoke passable English so he gave me some tips on where to go. The layout of the park is basically centered around Datun Peak, with the main road circling around it. With limited time, I had to choose between the field of wildflowers and the smoldering volcanic crater. I chose the crater and walked to the nearest bus stop. The bus driver didn't speak any English and didn't seem pleased that I didn't speak Mandarin. I knew where I wanted to go, but he told me that I wanted the next stop after getting it across that I wanted to get off at Qixing Mt. I got off and quickly realized that it was the wrong stop, but the bus had already left. I waited about 20 minutes for the next one, and at this point it was around 4:30. The sun sets around 5:30, so I was running out of time. Finally we reached a clearing where I could see the steam coming from the crater, so I got off at the next stop. It was just a short hike and I was overlooking the crater, with big plumes of steam shooting out and neon yellow rocks (I assume sulphur). There was also a spot right next to the trail with a little boiling puddle. The whole place reeked of sulphur. There were some great views of the city and surrounding mountains. I wanted to climb up to the top of the peak but it was getting dark and I didn't know how much longer the buses ran. I caught the next bus, got off at the wrong stop again, got some help from some giggly girls, and rode a crowded bus through traffic for 45 minutes to the Shilin Night Market.
Rosy had recommended that I go to the Night Market, although she's never been to it, she's just heard good things. The market is many blocks, and apparently it started out just for street food vendors but has since expanded to clothing shops and arcade games. To me, though, it is the greatest concentration of Engrish t-shirts I've ever seen. There was not nearly enough time for me to go through every store and every shirt, which is a shame. Maybe I should buy as many as possible and read them later. I guess I'll just hope I find other treasure troves of tshirts with hilarious English on them. I spent most of my time scoping out funny shirts, but also got some street food (an odd pancake thing with veggies and tuna and pork on top and also a steamed pork bun), and also stopped at a tea shop to get some tea as a gift (yes, dad, the surprise is spoiled now, but you always get tea). When Amy and I were in Beijing shopping for tea, we got to try the tea beforehand and the tea girl would brew it in front of us. The girl offered to do it at this place, too, so we sat down in the back of the room and had some Alishan Mountain tea. The brewing process was really elaborate, including rinsing the tea and rinsing the teapot with the "dirty tea water." The tea itself was really tasty. The girl only spoke a few words of English, so she pulled out her laptop and fired up Google Translate. We typed back and forth, which felt very futuristic. Google Translate isn't perfect, though, so there was a lot of "interpreting time." I bought the tea, wandered around some more and had a few more laughs at some t-shirts (and maybe bought a few). Later I ran into the giggly girls from earlier and they giggled some more and told me they're nursing students.

I made the trek back to my hotel and got to bed around midnight.

3/6 Taroko Gorge

3/6/2013: I woke up at 7:30, Rihang made breakfast for me at 8am, and we were on the road by 9am. He loaded a mountain bike with front suspension onto the back of his van and we headed up Taroko Gorge.

Here is some info on Taroko Gorge:
map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Taroko-Naional-Park-Map-Taiwan.png
park map: http://www.taroko.gov.tw/English/?mm=2&sm=2&page=3
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taroko_Gorge

Taroko Lodge

The gorge is extremely deep and very narrow, and the road is carved into the mountainside with many rock overhangs and tunnels along the way. The river is a chalky grey; snowmelt coming from the high mountains. The road is certainly narrow, with a few spots where it becomes one lane and a traffic light controls which direction gets to go. The tunnels are dark and narrow, and dripping from above. Before reading about Rihang's operation, I read on the Lonely Planet site that the typical way to see Taroko is on a tour bus. That didn't sound interesting to me, so I kept reading. It said you can also hire a car or taxi, but that didn't sound interesting either. You can also rent a scooter, which sounds exciting, but I've never driven a scooter before and the guide said that's not a good place to learn with aggressive Taiwanese drivers and windy roads. Lastly, it said that the "truly adventurous" can bicycle the gorge, but it also mentioned that those people typically are also missing some brain cells. I was a bit torn, and then the blog I read said that his bike ride was perfectly fine and was a lot of fun. I opted to follow the blog and ignore Lonely Planet, which I was starting to regret as we drove up the gorge. Rihang wasn't helping, as he was passing tour buses on the wrong side of the road around blind curves. He just said "safe safe, slow slow." He told me to get out of the bottom section before 3pm, otherwise "too many cars. Not dangerous, just too much noise." I was thinking he was downplaying the risks since bike tourism is his livelihood, but I was also excited for an adventure and a break from being the leisurely tourist.

He dropped me off 25km into the gorge at the trailhead for Wenshan, which had hot springs. The gameplan was for me to hike to the hot springs, stay there for about an hour, then bike a little down the road to Baiyan Waterfall Trail and hike to that (each hike is only 1-3km), then keep biking, spend some time on Lyushui Trail, keep biking, and then get back to the 7-11 in Xincheng at 4pm. We tested the bike (especially the brakes since my trip would be all downhill), Rihang set me up with a helmet, and he took off. I left the bike at trailhead and started hiking. I followed some stairs down (about 400 vertical feet) and easily found the hot spring pools along the side of the river. The hot water was piped from somewhere else and dumped into the pools, which drained into the river. There were four other people.

Hot springs pools in the bottom right

There was a strong sulphur smell, so it must have been legit. I got into the hot pool, which was very hot (my watch read 103 deg F). The other guys were occasionally getting into a side pool that was just river water, so I tried it. The water was snowmelt, so it was extremely cold, and I dunked myself and didn't last much longer. It was so cold that my breathing got quicker and shorter, so I got out and hopped back into the hot pool, which was much more tolerable than before the cold dip. I stayed for about 45 minutes and climbed back up to the bike.

I tentatively got onto the road and started pedaling downhill. I found the Baiyan Waterfall trailhead after about 5 minutes of riding, so I parked my bike and started hiking again. This trail had lots of Chinese tourists, who are less shy about trying out their English when they're in large groups, but it's less friendly and more like when someone "moo's" at a cow as they drive past. The falls were really impressive, probably dropping a few hundred feet and then leading into another waterfall that was probably 100 feet. The main river also dropped through some falls that were not as big but more impressive because of the amount of water passing through. A bridge passed over the roaring falls, and another suspension bridge offered a nice view of the Baiyan Falls.

Baiyan Falls

 I continued on through a few more tunnels and got to the "water-curtain cave." Apparently when the trail was being built, they were drilling through the mountain and opened up a seam in the rock that had become an underground water channel, so water is continuously pouring out of the ceiling of the tunnel. The park provides big yellow ponchos and flip flops for walking through the wet tunnel. It was pretty impressive, although I didn't have a flashlight so I don't think I got the full effect. I turned around and went back to my bike and continued down the road.

Water Curtain

The Lyushui Trail just went through some forest and had some nice scenic views of the river and the surrounding mountains. It was about 2km and didn't take very long.

For the rest of the trip, I just kept biking and stopping along the way to take photos. Unfortunately, my camera couldn't really handle the dark cliffs in the foreground and the bright sky in the background, so most of my photos turned out sort of washed out which is disappointing. The scale of everything was hard to capture with my camera - the immediate cliffs at the river rose up over a thousand feet, and then the distant peaks dwarfed the cliffs in the foreground. The sky was really blue, the mountains really green, the river rocks really white, and the river a cool grey. Too bad my camera skills couldn't really capture that.

The bike ride was safe for the most part. There was one extended tunnel where it was really dark and a car came up from behind and I wasn't sure if they'd see me. It wasn't really a close call, and the back of the car said "Relax. I drive." so I felt much better after that. There was another tight turn where a huge tour bus was going the other way and I had to stop and hug the wall because the side-view mirror was sticking out. I think it would have hit me had I gone 10 feet further down the road. Most cars were pretty courteous though, and I got a number of "thumbs ups" which apparently is only a white person phenomenon. Chinese and Korean tourists considered me on my bike to be worthy of a picture, but they were taking pictures of everything so standards were pretty low.

I got back to 7-11 a little before 4pm and bought some ice cream while I waited for Rihang to pick me up. We stopped at the train station and bought a ticket back to Taipei for that night, we raced back to his lodge so I could shower and change, and then caught the train back to Taipei.

The train ride was a long one, with a lot of extended stops along the way. I transferred trains twice once I got back to Taipei, then got on the wrong line and had to backtrack. I finally reached my hotel on the outskirts of the city around 10:40pm. It's a really swanky hotel, though, and I was upgraded for some reason, so I'm enjoying a clean, spacious, non-smelly room for a change. 

I had a small breakfast, a small lunch, and no dinner, so I went looking for food once I was settled in my room. The restaurant in the hotel was serving $30-40 meals, so I headed outside and walked south. I wasn't finding much - every time I saw neon signs on the next block, I thought it might be restaurants, but they were appliance stores and pet stores. I walked past an alley that had some street food vendors, so I headed their way. The first stall had all the lids closed on their food so I couldn't tell what they were serving. The next stall had everything imaginable uncooked on a stick. You just load up your basket with skewers and the guy cooks them for you. I decided I'd see what else was available. The next stall had a "noodle wok buffet" (my own term), where you fill a bowl with noodles, veggies, and meat, and they add the sauces and cook it for you. Kind of like mongolian bbq I guess. I went with that stall and went through the usual pantomiming with the older Taiwanese ladies to order and pay. They coaxed a shy younger girl over to talk to me in English, but by that point I had paid and they were cooking my food. The meal cost me $3.71 USD. It was really tasty, with some green peppers, onions, noodles, mushrooms, and a few other green vegetables I didn't recognize. It really reminded me of some dishes we had on our China trip in 2010. 

Long day but lots of fun!

3/5 Hong Kong to Taiwan

3/5/2013: Not an exciting day. In the morning I made my way to the Hong Kong International Airport, and caught a 12:05pm flight to Taipei in Taiwan. The flight was a little less than 2 hours, so we arrived around 2pm. I caught a bus to a train station, a bullet train to another train station, and then another train for 2.5 hours to Xincheng Station on the east coast of Taiwan a little north of Hualian. Until a few days ago, I knew nothing about Taiwan, but now I know that it has some pretty big peaks. It also has Taroko Gorge, which is my destination for March 6. I had found a blog online by a guy who traveled to Taroko Gorge and stayed a lodge owned by a guy named Rihang and said it was a blast, so I emailed Rihang and he said he'd pick me up at the train station in Xincheng. On the train I talked to the guy next to me for most of the ride. He didn't know much English, but enough to get by. I learned that he works for the Taiwanese government and that means he can't travel to mainland China until he retires. He lives in Zhungwa (or something like that, I'm going off of memory) around the mid-point of the west coast of Taiwan. He was traveling to Hualian, which is around the mid-point of the east coast, and he had to take a train north along the perimeter of Taiwan because there's no easy way to go straight across the island. He said it was snowy and the roads are rough.

Rihang easily found me in the train station - I was the only white guy. We had a good laugh though because he was going off of my gmail picture, which is just a photo I found on "mugshots.com" of a black guy with half-fro and half-cornrows. I think he was relieved. We got to his lodge around 8:15pm and I just caught up on emails and did some work. It was nice to have some reliable internet.

3/4 Hong Kong Day3

3/4/2013: I got up at a reasonable time and once again failed to get my laundry done (the place was still closed). My plan for today was to go to Lantau Island, the biggest island in Hong Kong. I took the train from Causeway Bay to Tung Chung on Lantau Island and then stood in line for a while for the cable car. It was a total tourist trap, with photographers for each cable car rider and mascots at the top of the ride, but it was actually a really beautiful view from the cable car. The cable car covers about 3.5 miles, from Tung Chung on the coast, inland to Ngong Ping. Ngong Ping is an even bigger tourist trap, but it is also a spot where you can access the Lantau Trail, which runs a large distance across the island. I wandered through Ngong Ping briefly. It is the site of the largest outdoor bronze buddha , which is pretty impressive as you approach the area from the cable car. I talked to some elderly Aussies briefly so I could borrow their sunscreen (it was sunny and I sought out the whitest people I could find). I stopped in a souvenir shop to ask about finding the Lantau Trail, but the girl had never heard of it and said it sounded dangerous to walk all the way from Ngong Ping to Tai O, the fishing village on the southwest part of the island. A little discouraged,I walked about 50 feet from her shop and found a nice big informative sign showing all the details of the Lantau Trail and how to access it from Ngong Ping, so I was re-encouraged. The Lantau Trail followed the road for about a mile, then diverged and climbed up into the mountains. I had to climb up a few different little peaks but the views were excellent. To the south I could see ocean and other smaller islands, and to the north I could see the large mountains that made up the spine of the island. Up high, these mountains were just covered in short grass, so I had unobstructed panoramic views from the various little peaks I was hiking over. I eventually dropped down onto the other side of the mountains and met up with the Tai O Road and followed that all the way into the village. It was a total hike of around 6 miles.

 I sat at the pier for a while and snacked on an orange, since I hadn't eaten much that day and it was already 3:30pm or so (I'd already tightened my belt to the 4th notch, so I suppose I haven't been eating enough). I wandered through the market, where people were selling all sorts of sea creatures, some alive and some dried. There were also some stalls selling egg yolks, which apparently is a common local appetizer. I was stopped looking at some cats (sadly, yes that's what I was doing but I swear it was just to get a funny picture so I could make a cat joke), but a local guy came up to talk to me because I think he assumed I was looking at the shrine that was behind the cats.

He started telling me in very broken English that Tai O is a very religious town. They have different shrines throughout the town, each one with its own purpose - for prosperity, longevity, successful marriage, health, etc. He started walking with me and took me around through parts of the town that I wouldn't have otherwise explored. This town also has many houses on stilts, and it is referred to as the "Venice of Hong Kong" because there are a number of water ways and each house seems to have its own boat for getting around. The old man, "Ping Ki" (at least that's what it sounded like his name is…he said it means Miracle, so I'll call him Miracle from here on out because that's funny), said he's a translator because not many people know English in Tai O. I could barely understand him though, so I'm guessing there's not a lot of translation work. We walked past the old salt workers' quarters, and a few other shrines, and passed a number of dragon boats, which are about 50 feet long and are used in dragon boat races against other local towns as well as international teams (he said they raced against "my people").

Miracle said we should sit down for a while, so we sat at a park and I was wishing I could be on my way and catch the bus to Mui Wo so I could head back to the city. I'd been a little suspicious of him since the beginning, and at this point he started pulling out all these "charms" - just little cards with Taoist images on them for good luck in various categories. He also fed me some dried kumquats and a box of grape juice. He showed me all his charms, some bracelets, some flimsy fans, and I just nodded, not knowing if he was trying to sell me something or give me something as a gift. I reluctantly took some sea goddess charm and he stuffed about 4 other charms into the sea goddess' ziploc bag, then said usually he charges $80 HKD (around $9 USD) for all that. I should have said screw that I don't want your charms, but he had been nice and showed me around, told me about the history of his town, and gave me kumquats and grape juice (I realize how weird that sounds) so I just bitterly gave him some cash. I have perpetuated his belief that white people are easy prey. We left the park, passed some feral cows and feral dogs, and he waited at the bus station with me until my bus arrived. I took a 35 minute bus ride to Mui Wo, where I caught a 7:30ish ferry back to Central.

The guide book that Rosy gave me recommended a restaurant near the Central Piers (in the IFC mall, a very swanky mall), so I went to the Crystal Jade for dinner. I got some ma po tofu, one of my favorite dishes from our trip to China, and I also got their specialty - steamed pork buns. Both were phenomenal. Probably my best meal in HK. I talked to Korean girl at the restaurant for a little while, who was surprised when I said I thought Korean people were nice and that I'd wished I'd spent more time in Seoul. Apparently I liked the place and the people more than she. Then I returned to my hostel for my final night in Hong Kong.

3/3 Hong Kong Day2

3/3/2013: I had a couple of initial plans that fell through because I tried to book things too late. First, I saw that there were bike tours of the "New Territories" that sounded fun. (The New Territories are the section of Hong Kong that are on the China Mainland, across the bay from the main city). They only run those tours on Saturdays and Wednesdays (3/3 was Sunday), so that was out. Then I thought I'd go on a "pink dolphin" tour, where you go out on a boat and try to spot the endangered pink dolphins. Having stayed out so late, I slept in too late and missed that. I think a hangover on a boat is a bad idea anyway. So I was left to Plan C, which was to go on a hike on Lamma Island, a short ferry ride away from the Central Station. I first tried to go do some laundry because I had tried in Seoul but didn't know how to operate the washing machine because all the buttons were in Korean. So whatever setting I selected didn't seem to work because half the detergent was still in the little dispenser in the machine. Also, my room in Seoul smelled awful, and laying my wet, half-washed clothes out to dry in that room seemed to just result in my clothes absorbing that awful smell. I thought I could smell my clothes in my new room in Hong Kong, which I thought was a bad sign. I later concluded that my new room just smelled and my clothes weren't that bad. Anyway…the laundry place was closed. I was starving, so I went to find some food, but stupidly ordered a rice dish with prawns and corn and leeks and some odd translucent goo on top of all of it (I don't know why I thought that sounded good). I followed it up with some Froyo with brownie and graham cracker which was much better. I forget what else I did, but somehow I didn't get on a ferry to Lamma Island until 4pm. I arrived at the island at 4:30 and speed-walked out into the port town. Not much happening there, just small shops selling souvenirs and local food like dried fish and live fish. The main street was narrow, probably wide enough for one car. The shops along either side were small shacks connected to each other, and were open to the street. I had only a few hours before it got dark, and was trying to follow the trail across the island to the other ferry port that goes back to Central. I cruised out of the town and into the forest. It was pretty tropical - lots of green, with vines and big palms. I took a detour up to a lookout point that is also the site of a lone wind turbine. It's a popular site for tourists, where they can learn about the advantages of wind power and watch a real-time tally of energy produced and greenhouse gases avoided, but any optimism gleaned from this display is quickly crushed by the view of the massive power plant on the northeast side of the island that serves Hong Kong City.

Strangling tree - not sure if it is visible. Mostly just trying out the embedded photo feature

I rejoined the trail and continued heading east, passing a beach and then climbing up into some hills. The ocean was always in view as I was passing through the narrowest part of the island. Crossing down towards the town, I passed by a tree with a plaque that pointed out a "strangling" tree. I looked closer and saw that the "strangler" tree had enveloped another tree and was using it for support. It was pretty eerie to look at, like it was a disease slowly spreading. I passed through some wetlands, and then past some houses on stilts, and reached the ferry port in time to catch the 6:35 ferry back to Central.

I thought that Rosy had invited me for dinner that night, so I raced to her apartment only to find out that she had said Monday. I was embarrassed but she said I should come in anyway and that she was just going to serve the same thing Monday night so it didn't really matter. Because of dietary restrictions after Andy's surgery, they've pretty much been exclusively eating soup, so she warmed up some soup for me. Rosy, Andy, Jenny (Andy's mom) and I played "Settlers of Katan," which is the game that they had learned the day before when Andy's friends came over to visit. It was an interesting game, despite it sounding like a nerdy fantasy game like Dungeons and Dragons. Jenny won and Rosy and Andy accused me of helping her (which isn't true). Andy helped me do some planning for my Taiwan trip, and then I headed back to my hostel.

3/2 Hong Kong Day1

3/2/2013: I had only booked for one night, and was pretty convinced that I'd move to a nicer spot the next night - especially in the morning after smelling cigarette smoke coming into my room somehow and hearing a dog bark non-stop for a couple of hours. I looked for other hotels nearby online but didn't find much, so I went to the front desk to ask about other rooms. They had a nicer one on the 10th floor, and they said they'd give it to me for the same price as my worse room after what had happened the night before (whatever that was that had happened, I'm still not sure). I agreed and it worked out.

Rosy and I had made arrangements to meet for brunch at 11am. She gave me detailed directions to Posto Pubblico in the SoHo area, so I left with plenty of time to spare and navigated the subway, then the crowded street, and then the "travelator," which is apparently the longest outdoor escalator in the world. Hong Kong, as far as I can tell, is built into the side of a very large, steep hill. I'm guessing that as the city got bigger, people built higher up onto the hill, so now there are San Francisco-steep hills and streets narrow enough for just a car and a half. The travelator appears to be a solution to the crazy steep hills. I met Rosy as we were both walking up to the restaurant and we had a good brunch. She invited me to head over to her house to meet her boyfriend, Andy, who had recently had a bad injury and was recovering from surgery. I went back to their place (we ran into Andy's mom Jenny along the way, who is in HK from England to help take care of Andy), and we hung out for a bit and Andy gave me some tips on outdoorsy things to do in HK. A few of Andy's friends came over to play some board games and keep him company, so I headed out to go explore Hong Kong.

I returned to my hostel to study up on the recommendations Andy had given me, then I went back outside and just started wandering. I was half-heartedly looking for some sandals and t-shirts (since I'd packed mostly cold-weather clothes for the trip), but mostly just taking in the sights. Hong Kong is an intimidating city with ultra-modern skyscrapers looming in every direction. I headed back west from my hostel in the Causeway Bay area, towards Central Station. I didn't really have a plan, I just wanted to take in this new city. I found myself back at the travelator, so I rode up it and decided I'd have a beer. I found a bar that had some soccer on (previously recorded, not live, since it was 9am in England), so I sat and watched some soccer and drank a couple of beers. After a while I decided to go find a place to eat, but I got tied up talking to the bartender, who also turned out to be the owner. She gave me a free beer and I sat back down and talked to her for a while. She recommended a street that had some random outdoor food vendors, so I went searching for it after finishing my free beer.

The street food was a few escalator segments downhill and seemed really popular. There were no open tables. I went up to the lady that appeared to be in charge and she led me to a small plastic patio table that was already occupied by a guy and pointed at the empty chair directly across from him. I asked him if it was ok if I joined him and he said it was fine. He turned out to be a Hong Kong native named Louis Yip and was obsessed with everything "Western" (not cowboys and rodeos, just Western hemisphere). Now retired, he had spent 20+ years working for an export company back when manufacturing was big in HK. He had learned English for his job, as well as a little German. He ordered a few dishes for me, and a beer, and we spent the next two hours talking about the Amish, origins of Western names, the history of Hangul script, and the history of Scotland. He could list all 50 states, and could tell me the origin of common Irish and German last names. He loves American movies and refuses to watch anything local. I hung out with him for so long (around 2 hours) that I missed Anna and Hector (the couple I'd met on the plane), who had agreed to meet up with me back at the bar where I'd been before dinner. I said goodbye to Louis and raced back up the travelator to Twist (the bar). Aruuna, the bar owner, told me I'd just missed Anna and Hector. Neither of us had working cell phones, so I couldn't call them. I sat down and talked to Aruuna for a while, as the bar was pretty quiet and she was bored. She was from Nepal, and has an 8 year old daughter and 5-month old twins. She showed me lots of pictures. She was pretty bored, so she took me around to her other bars (she has 3 total, and her husband runs a restaurant nearby). The first bar we went to was an art gallery/bar, and she had the bartended prepare me a tequila shot that I didn't ask for. Then we went across the street to her 3rd bar and I had a beer there. Then she got a call that the police were at Twist, so we walked back there to see what was going on. Apparently the door to the bar had been propped open and the police were hassling her about it, but she told me it was just racist police finding an excuse to pester her. We hung out until after the trains stopped running, so I caught a cab back to Causeway Bay and didn't get to sleep until around 2am. It was a fun night though - I hung out in one of the "whitest" parts of Hong Kong but managed to befriend a Hong Kong native (albeit a wannabe Westerner) and a Nepalese lady that fed me free drinks.

3/1 Seoul to Hong Kong

3/1/2013: On Friday morning I packed up my bags and made my way to the airport for my flight to Hong Kong. On the way to the airport, a Korean guy around my age chatted me up for the whole trip. His name is Jiwon Chu and admitted that he always approaches white people so he can practice his English. He was a nice guy, but was definitely a close-talker (as his culture encourages) but I struggled to not let it bother me and rather thought about what I had eaten since brushing my teeth. He also wouldn't face me straight on, he would just talk to me super close from the side - I was later told that that is normal in Korea. I think we were just slowly spinning while talking to each other, though, as I kept trying to face him and he kept trying to stay to my side.

I had to race to catch my flight out of Seoul because I'd forgotten to print out my itinerary for my flight leaving Hong Kong and the Air China lady told me they might want to see documentation proving that I have plans to leave the region, so I had to go find a printer really quick. I got through the gate as they were closing, and then we sat on the runway for an hour and I missed my connecting flight in Beijing. I caught another flight to HK 2 hours later out of Beijing, and as usual everything took twice as long as initially planned and I arrived at my hostel around 11pm. I met a nice couple on the flight to HK - they were heading to HK for vacation, and had also flown from Seoul and missed the connecting flight in Beijing. Anna, a Canadian, is teaching English in Seoul, and Hector, her husband, a Mexican, is trying to teach Spanish but apparently Koreans want Spanish teachers from Spain - not Mexico - and he's having a harder time finding a teaching job. They were fun to talk to and they let me borrow their HK guide book so I could read up and have a general idea of what to do during my time in HK.

The hostel seems to be more of a loose grouping of apartments in an apartment building, with the front desk on the third floor and rooms throughout the building from the 2nd floor to the 10th floor. After the girl working at the hostel showed me to my room, I heard a knock at my door. When I answered it, it was an Asian lady who had been milling around at the front desk of the hostel. She said "you took my room! You took my room!" Before I had a chance to answer, the girl from the hostel came up from behind and slammed the door shut and dragged the other lady off. I had forgotten the passkey for the WiFi, so I went back upstairs to get it and was approached by the same Asian lady from before. Again, she said I'd taken her room. I said that it wasn't her room and that I'd already paid for it. During this conversation, there was a tall blonde guy hovering behind her obviously interested in the conversation. The lady continued, "We just decided to get a room, you took the last one. I'll buy it from you!" I was pretty sketched out at this point. The blonde guy laughed and said to the lady "ha nice try." I told her I wasn't going to sell it to her, and the blonde guy was like "aw that's too bad, guess you'll have to go home." That was weird. That guy was staying at the hostel (I saw him the next morning). So my guess was that he had picked her up (even though she looked 40 and he looked 25) and they were going to get a room together (and that he was staying in a dorm-style room with no privacy), or else my hostel was frequently used by hookers to pull tricks. I slept uncomfortably that night.

2/28 Seoul

2/28/2013: Feeling guilty about wasting a day in Seoul by just working in my hotel room, I decided I needed to go big the following day. I've been feeling a little burned out on the touristy stuff (palaces, temples, etc.) and I also felt like I needed a break from huge crowded cities. I had read earlier that there is a fortress wall that surrounds Seoul, and that all of it could be hiked, 18.2 km in total. Myung-Lan and Eun-Huye had recommended the northern section of the wall, where I think it is actually in a national park that borders the northern side of Seoul. I grabbed a bagel and coffee from one of the 800 coffee shops near my hotel and hopped on the subway back towards Anguk station, where I had spent the 26th at the palace. I was walking right past the tourist information center so I stopped in to say hi to my Korean lady friends but only Myung-Lan was there (the one with limited English) so I didn't stay for long. I showed Myung-Lan the route I was planning on doing and she estimated it would take 5 hours, but I thought that was pretty conservative (I think I ended up hiking along the wall for 3 hours).

The history of the wall goes back to the late 1300s, and it was improved throughout the years into the 1700s. The info pamphlet states, "The Seoul Fortress Wall was originally designed to protect the capital, but during the Imjin Waeran (Japanese Invasions), the wall didn't fulfill its rightful function." In reality, though, the Japanese didn't really destroy much of the wall - modernization just led to the removal of sections. Seoul is now in the process of rebuilding the various parts that were removed. The wall supposedly connects the four mountains that guard the city. My plan was start at the northernmost section, then follow it west and then south and back into Seoul.

I kept walking north to the park entrance and must have missed a turn because I ended up intersecting the wall farther east than I had intended. By the time I met up with the wall I had already climbed a decent amount out of the city. There were a number of little exercise "machines" along the way, just like the ones we saw all over China. And just like in China there were tons of elderly people getting after it. I hiked west alongside the fortress wall and eventually hit the entrance gate (Sukjeongmun) to the main section. I had to provide my passport and contact info, and they gave me a tag. This area is an active military zone, so it was strict about where I could and couldn't go, and I could only take photographs in designated areas. I embarked from the check-point and it quickly became apparent that it was definitely an active military area. I was never out of sight from someone. There were a lot of young men in all-black clothes with radios just manning their stations along the wall, and then there were also guys in fatigues with big assault rifles and helmets that were keeping watch from various points along the wall. It's hard to feel relaxed in nature when you know you are being watched by men with big guns. At every spot where there was a nice view, there was a sign that said "No Photo." I decided it wasn't worth taking the risk and sneaking in a photo of the   view of the Seoul skyline. This particular section of the wall goes up and over Mt. Bugaksan, so it was a significant climb up a lot of stairs. The forecast high for the day was around 55 deg F, and the sun was sort of shining through the haze/pollution, so I was sweating pretty hard by the time I reached the top. Finally at the top we were allowed to take some photos of the surrounding mountains and the Seoul skyline. After descending from the top to Changuimin Gate, I returned my badge and "checked out." The wall continues south to Inwangsan Mountain, which about the same height as Bugaksan Mountain. I climbed to the top of that mountain and had a nice view at the top where I was allowed to take pictures. I descended towards the south and ended up in the western part of the city. I meandered through some alleys and saw some interesting old houses before finding my way into the more modern section with skyscrapers and offices.

I grabbed some lunch in an underground shopping area where I had some Korean pizza (more like a pancake with veggies and squid and other seafood that I couldn't recognize). The owner was a nice guy who lived in NYC for a few years and spoke pretty good English.

I kept heading east back into the city and found the main street that runs north-south and leads straight into Gyeongbokgung Palace. I saw the "changing of the guard" at the palace entrance and then spent some time in the "palace museum" but most of it was in Korean so I couldn't make sense of most of the exhibits. I wandered back south and stopped in a bookstore in a subway station and found a Lonely Planet book about Seoul. It recommended "Craftworks" as one of the best places to get a beer in the city, so I decided I'd try to find it. I kept wandering south-eastish, was side-tracked for about 30 minutes by a display on one of the streets about the Korean war which was really touching, and continued through a big market where apparently Korean girls make their boyfriends go to carry their purses while they shop. At this point the sun was starting to go down and I didn't really know where I was in the city, and I didn't know where Craftworks was either really, so I figured I'd try to find some WiFi and regroup with some coffee. I picked one of the many coffee shops and went inside to order. The owner was a nice woman that had studied English literature in college and spoke really good English. She said that she was the first person in the neighborhood to open a coffee shop, which was around 2008, and since then she says 16 more have opened. She was excited because Hailey Loren was coming to town and doing a signing session at her coffee shop. Hailey Loren is supposedly a popular American singer/songwriter that has a large following in Japan and is becoming popular in Korea. "We love her because she has beautiful voice and is also very beautiful!" I hadn't heard of her, which was surprising. She told me to watch her on YouTube. She was excited to have met me and gave me some of her homemade soap as a gift, and I continued on with the new plan to just take the subway because I was tired and nowhere close to Craftworks.

I finally found Craftworks around 7:30 and discovered that it was extremely popular and that it was in the "foreigner" neighborhood, so everyone was white. There were no spots at the bar, so I went to another bar nearby where I was not warmly welcomed by the Korean couple running it  ("you know there's an American bar close to here…too many Americans!"), but they warmed up after I wowed them with my 2 Korean phrases. I had a beer and they gave me some edamame for snacking. I finished my beer and tried Craftworks again but it was even busier, so I went to another bar nearby called "Concorde." It, too, had only white people in it, but it was less busy. I sat at the bar and asked the Korean girl behind the bar if they did "bombs" (as described by Eun-Huye) but she said they don't do that there, so I had a Rogue Dead-Guy Ale. I talked to MJ pretty much the whole time (things were slow). She had been to America and loved it and is applying to school in Portland to get her MFA. She told me I had to go to some clubs while in Seoul, but I was carrying my backpack and was pretty tired from all the walking, so I hopped on the subway and found my way back to my hotel as it started to rain.

3/1 check in from hong kong

Just landed! More details and pictures in a little bit once I find my hostel