First part of the Journey

Well for starters the very first part of the travels was a one-night trip to Illinois.  Nothing to remarkable to share there.

Thursday morning I left for Asia.  I did get my Visa and passport back which was awesome.  Everything went smoothly at the airports and for the flights.  The excessively long 15 hour flight was a drag.  It wasn’t so bad to start with, I started chugging away on the baby blanket and watching the in flight movies.  Jeff and I were the only two in a row of 3 exit by the bathroom where there was 5 feet of empty space in front of us.  We watched the Discovery channel with some programs about dinosaur fossils and such, then there was a Rugby movie, Marley and Me (I balled like a baby), I half watched Yes Man, and then there were more Discovery channel programs about tornado chasers and Man vs Wild.  The food was ok.  We got one meal very shortly after we took off, a cup o’ noodles in the middle and another dinner shortly before landing.  I napped twice, but probably only an hour or two total.  It got long, I got sick of sitting and it kind of sucked by the end.  BUT, there was some very great entertainment.  There was this lady who was I would say 40-50 ish, and she spent almost half the flight standing in the open area in front of us, but facing away from us, listening to her ipod and dancing.  It started off at first that she was just slightly bobbing to the music, doing a bit with her body, but as time went on she was really getting into it.  The only thing is we could not figure out what she was listening too!  From time to time she would stop someone and make them listen to the music with her and try to get them to dance with her.  Very odd.

So we landed in Hong Kong and because we were headed for Mainland China right away we did not have to go through immigration.  We bought tickets for a ferrry boat and they arranged to have our luggage picked up from the plane and transfered to the Ferry.  We had to board a bus for the Ferry and driving from the airport to the Ferry was a little eary because we were driving on very narrow roads between lots of big barbed wire fences.  The Ferry Boat ride was pretty quick, only about 30 minutes.  Luckily our luggage was waiting for us as was our ride, our sales person from the company we were visiting there in Shenzhen.

She brought us to our hotel which was great!  Here are some photos:

Unfortunately we were checking in at the same time as about 3 buses full of old Chinese people.  Boy, they can be pushy!  It took a long time to get into an elevator, but I finally made it to my room.  After that looong day I decided to have that bath a try and it was wonderful.  I think I started to fall asleep and realized it was time to go to bed.  The mattress was very firm which I love.  I slept like a baby, it was wonderful.

The next morning (Saturday) we had breakfast which reminded me a lot of breakfasts elsewhere, especially those from when I was in Italy, but they included asian noodle dishes.  So you can have your eggs and fruit and noodles.  It was interesting.  We then headed off to do the work we came to do which went really well.  They took us for Hot Pot for lunch which I sadly did not get photos of because they did not allow photography (lame).  But it was really good, and they were so worried about us not having enough to eat that we had excessive food.  We had a bone soup hot pot with noodles and then we added to it more noodles, beef, cilantro, bean curd?, potatoes, a turnip of some sort?, and cabbage.  Yummy!  We were then brought back to the ferry station to head back to Hong Kong.  Along the way there were great sights of people driving in China (crazy), all the shops and even a Walmart!  I noticed a lot of non-asian cars, especially Volkswagens!  Most of the taxis were VWs, and yes Kyle I even saw a Chevy car!

At the ferry station I got my first (and not last) experience with the chinese toilet.  It is basically a toilet in the floor.  Here are some photos that I felt really weird taking.  Enjoy!

We arrived in Hong Kong at the ferry station and caught a (very cheap) taxi to our Hotel.  It was also very nice and had a neat view of Hong Kong island.

We only had about an hour and then we met with a business associate I have been working with for dinner.  He brought along his son who is doing some work with him, and Jeff joined us as well.  We took a taxi ride up a steep hill and it began raining.  We were not able to take the taxi all the way to the restaurant because of the narrow road, so we all had to run through the downpoar to the restaurant.  We were a little soaked, but maybe that just helped the wine soak into us a little better   We talked some business, talked some life and ate some great food.  Here are some new things I got to try!

It was great because our host ordered a whole bunch of different stuff for us to try.  The Jellyfish was good, but the best thing I can describe it as is chewing a rubber band.  The pigeon was interesting.  It was served in a wine sauce with preserved prunes on the side.  The pigeon itself was fine, it tasted like phesant.  The wine sauce made it a lot better.  The perserved prunes were like a punch in the mouth.  They were so strong and very briney?  We the also got two kinds of dumplings, some teriyaki chicken, soup and then the  only really bad thing of the night.  I tried the fermented tofu.  I still can remember the feeling of taking a bite, eck!  It is the epitomy of rotten, it turns your mouth upside down because it is so mad you put something so nasty in your mouth.  The taste went away luckily, and we ended with desert which was interesting but delicious.

During dinner the rain stopped so we walked back, said good bye to our hosts at their subway stop and then Jeff and I headed to the water front for a night time view.

Each of the glowing rectangle is a company name in lights.  Jeff said that they are billboards and not indicitive of the ownership of the building.  It was sure a sight to see.  We walked along the Walk of Fame and saw an old clock tower before heading back to the hotel.

All in all the trip is going very well so far!  Sunday is the day for adventuring, so more on that soon!  For more photos visit my flickr set here.