By the numbers...

I'm back home. Here are the statistics:

Days: 16
Countries: 1, China
Administrative Areas: 2, Hong Kong, Macau
Airports: 7, JFK, LAX, Shanghai, Beijing, Xi'an, Guilin, Hong Kong
Modes of transportation: 4, Foot, Car, Train, Boat (sadly, no bike)
Hotels: 6
World Heritage Sites: 6, Great Wall, Forbidden City, Summer Palace,
Temple of Heaven, Terracotta Warriors, Macau Old City
New Foods: 3, Sea Cucumber, Peking Duck, Hotpot
New Foods That I'd Eat Again: Peking Duck, Hotpot
Subway Systems: 2, Shanghai, Hong Kong
Subway Systems Less Confusing and Cleaner than NYC: 2, Shanghai, Hong Kong
FitBit Statistics: 217813 steps, 91 miles
Bars with a good martini: 0 (from my limited study, it is possible
that the Chinese do not understand vodka)
Foursquare Check-ins: 18
Casualties: Luggage (handle broken, replaced in Beijing), iPad
(headphone jack, replaced in Hong Kong)
Bucket List Items Crossed-off: Great wall, terracotta warriors, Hong Kong
Pages Left In My Passport Before It Expires: 10

Macau

We took the ferry to Macau on Saturday. Macau has a nice old section
of town with twisty streets but the food and shops are of very low
quality. We had one of our worst meals here. Macau is mostly a series
of huge casinos. Think Las Vegas or Atlantic City. Similar to Hong
Kong, we needed to go through immigration to enter Macau.

FitBit stats: 19103 steps and 8.03 miles

Amber

Friday night we had dinner at Amber. This has recently been named one
of the top 50 restaurants in the world.

http://www.amberhongkong.com/

We each had the tasting menu of the signature dishes.

Dinner was over 3 hours and I lost track of the number of courses. My
favorites were the asparagus dishes and my least favorite was the one
with sea cucumber.

Exploring Hong Kong

It's official... I love Hong Kong.  Great food, great shopping, great sights and really easy to navigate.

Love the late night bar scene in the Lon Kwai Fong area.

We took the tram to the top of Victoria Peak. As expected, great views of the city.

We spent the rest of the day just wandering around shopping and eating.

Hong Kong egg tarts for breakfast

Hong Kong has a series of tunnels and overpasses so a person can walk around the city but not have to walk along the streets or navigate traffic.  I walked from the ferry terminal to the IFC mall to the restaurant for dinner without ever walking at street level.  I used the overpasses that take you from building to building.

FitBit stats: 20306 steps and 8.4 miles traveled

Hong Kong

I've only been here for a night but add Hong Kong to the short list of
places that I'd consider living. It is truly where the East meets the
West and has the best of both worlds.

The airport bathrooms were a 2 on the scariness scale. That is saying
a lot since JFK is a 3 at best. Airport experience was the best that
I've ever had - breezed through immigration and took the express train
into the city.

I'm staying at the Intercontinental Hotel. It's a place I've always
wanted to stay and the view from my room does not disappoint. The
pictures are the view of Victoria Harbour from my room.

Guilin

A quiet day today. Took advantage of the hotel spa and did some
shopping in town. Guilin is a small and much more relaxed place than
the others we have visited.

I have to admit that I'm getting sick of eating with chopsticks. No
wonder the Chinese are so small. It is so tiring to eat with
chopsticks.

My hip is holding up as well as expected given that I had surgery just
5 months ago. All of these hotels have had pools and gyms so I've
been able to keep up with my exercises.

I'll close with a note on the horrible jobs we've witnessed:

window cleaner 102-stories above Shanghai, tending to the flowers on
the median of the highway with nothing but a prayer and an orange cone
to protect you, sweeping the middle of the highway in Guilin with a
broom and not even a cone to protect you and carrying people up and
down to view the rice terraces.

We leave for Hong Kong tomorrow. Last city before we return home.

More Li River and Dragon River

Li River

Our first bad weather day. We got caught in a few downpours but it
did not ruin the day.

Started off with a cruise down the Li River. This is one of the most
picturesque rivers in all of China.

The cruise was great and the only problem occurred when this nasty
German woman would not let me back into the buffet line after I
stepped out to take a picture of the snake in the bottle of alcohol.
When will I learn not to eat on a boat in China?

After the cruise, we did some shopping and then took a bamboo boat
ride on the Dragon River. We also stopped for pictures on the famous
Dragon Bridge.

Rice terraces

Another day of climbing but the rice terraces are an impressive sight.

Other things to note, we had our first encounter with a scariness
rated 9 bathroom, had our 3rd best meal of the trip and our best tour
guide, Happy David.

I won't give you details on the bathroom but the meal consisted of
local food including rice cooked inside a bamboo tube and a sizzling
spicy hot beef and pepper dish.

Best meals so far in order of best... peking duck, hotpot, rice terrace lunch.

The worst meals in order of worst... shanghai dinner cruise, Xi'an dumplings.

Guilin

We arrived in Guilin last night. The word I'd use to describe the
landscape here is "Seussical." Crazy mountains, strange trees, exotic
flowers. Our taxi driver was wearing a lace dress, a silk hat with a
large bow and white silk gloves.

Today we are hiking in the rice terraces and tomorrow we are taking a
cruise down the Li River.

Here are some pictures from my hotel window.

Stuff you don't see in the US

I haven't been surprised by anything yet.

The food can get crazy (fried squid neck anyone?) but that is not surprising.

They smoke everywhere. Our cab driver was smoking. When is the last
time you saw that in the US?

Holes in the ground instead of toilets. Is not surprising but does
get old. We have a bathroom scariness scale. 1 is the bathroom at
your home and 10 is that absolutely disgusting bathroom that the
militant muslim woman trapped us in in the market in Egypt. Most of
the bathrooms have been in the 3-6 range here.

They will also carry anything on a bike, scooter or motorcycle.

Labor is so cheap here that the medians and sides of the highways are
covered in beautiful flower gardens.

Wild Goose Pagoda

Also in Xi'an, we visited the Wild Goose Pagoda.

Jenny made us climb to the top since she felt we did not do enough
climbing on the Great Wall yesterday.

More pictures of the warriors

Xi'an - Terracotta Warriors

The Terracotta warriors is the thing that I most wanted to see in
China and they did not disappoint.

These underground pits hold over 6000 life size warriors and horses.
Each warrior is different and are arranged in battle formation to
protect the emperor's tomb. The site is actively being excavated as
they piece together the warriors from the bits of pottery found in the
dirt.

More great wall

Yesterday, we scrambled over an unrestored section. Today, we climbed
on a restored section. Climbed is an accurate description because it
is more like a steep ladder than stairs. According to FitBit, it was
30 flights to the top.

Beijing Pictures

Forbidden City
Summer Palace
Temple of Heaven

Great Wall

Pick your favorite descriptive term...

Awe-inspiring, long, breath-taking, huge, beautiful... the list goes on and on.

The Great Wall is one of the most incredible things that I've ever seen.

I'm attaching some pictures to this email. I hope they get uploaded
to the blog.

According to Fitbit, 17664 steps and 7.58 miles. Most of those were
on the Great Wall.

Technology

As a power Google user, China is a frustrating place to be. Blogger,
Youtube, G+ are all blocked. Fortunately, Gmail is working.

What gadgets do I recommend for a long trip?

1. Laptop. I've been using it for gmail, to upload my photos and to
call home via Google Voice.
2. Tablet. These are great for downloading movies for the long
flights. I have an iPad but wished that I had bought an Android
tablet. For a power Google user, Android is so far superior to iOS.
Tablet batteries last much longer than laptops so I prefer these for
movie viewing.
3. eReader. I love to turn pages but lugging a bunch of books around
the world gets old. I could read the books on my tablet but these
eReaders are optimized for the reading experience and are light enough
that a tablet and an eReader is not a burden.
4. Good headphones.

Beijing in a Day

Who said you couldn't see Beijing in a day?

We visited Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and
the Temple of Heaven.

According to Fitbit, that's 18538 steps and 7.6 miles.

Tiananmen Square was exactly as expected. Dripping in Communist
propaganda and containing a huge portrait of Chairman Mao.

After the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven is probably one of the most
recognizable structures in all of China.

The craziest thing about visiting these sites is that the Chinese
people are fascinated by foreigners. I had my picture taken with some
Chinese tourists and had a group of Chinese tourists follow me
through the Forbidden City.

Food

I ate at KFC yesterday.
I went to Starbucks today.
I'm always amazed at how I never eat at these places in the US but
find them comforting when traveling abroad.
The Starbucks was empty. I found that surprising until I paid the
bill. $7 for an egg sandwich and a tea. Even in the US those prices
are astronomical. In China, it is unheard of. The HotPot lunch was
only $10 per person.
I had Peking duck for the first time today. Now I know what people go
crazy about.

In Beijing

Arrived in Beijing on the highspeed train from Shanghai. A very
pleasant 5 hrs.

My access to blogger is now blocked so I'll be emailing my updates from now on.

Shanghai

Busy day today.

Couldn't sleep so started off with a swim at 6:00 AM.  To those thinking of traveling to Shanghai, I recommend the Pudong Shangri-La for the pool and the buffet breakfast.  The buffet consists of at least 15 stations of food ranging from typical chinese fare to the all-american omelette bar.

After breakfast, Jenny and Rob arrived with our tour guides for the day, Jenny's Aunt and Uncle.  They don't speak a word of English so Jenny had to translate everything for us.

We started off going to the observation deck of the World Financial Center.  It's the building with the hole in the top:

This is not only the tallest building in China but is the highest observatory in the world.  The observatory is slanted and has holes in the floor so that you can see down to the ground.  

This building is also home to the Google Shanghai office so we stopped by for a visit and to raid the microkitchen. 

The famous hotpot for lunch:

The hotpot was great which is more than I can say for the inedible dinner. 

The rest of the day was spent walking through the Yu Gardens and shopping.   

Dinner was on a boat. Do I need to say more than that?  The cruise up and down the river was nice but has anyone ever had a good meal on a cruise ship not named the Queen Mary.  Here's a picture:

That's some horrible beans, lotus root and some fruit that has seen better days. This was the good course.  

According to FitBit, 22248 steps and 9.2 miles walked today.

Tomorrow, we are off to Beijing on the high-speed train.  

Arrived in Shanghai

28 hrs later I am in Shanghai.  

American Airlines should really change their slogan to be "What are you complaining about? We got you there, didn't we?"  I could have done without flying through LAX.

I'm staying on the Pudong side of the city so my first impression is that everything is big and new. 

Here's a picture from my hotel room:

The guy sitting next to me on the plane told me not to leave Shanghai without eating a HotPot... whatever that is.  

Going to bed now.  More later.  

Testing from LAX

Taking advantage of my layover in LAX to see if I can email posts to
my blog. Hoping this will get me around the Great China Firewall.

Bags are packed...
Movies and books are downloaded...
Next post from Shanghai