China... The Short Version

Me drinking Bubble tea on the busy Hong Kong streets

Ok so due to lack of access to our blog we have decided to post one long post with lots of pictures to catch you up on Hong Kong and China. It would take too long to do each place one post at a time.



Hong Kong from the Peak

Hong Kong

So our first stop after Thailand was Hong Kong. Laura and I fell in love with this city almost instantly. It is so dynamic and stylish and alive. There is a constant buzz of energy in the city that is absolutely intoxicating. We were there for about 13 days and stayed through Chinese New Year. We were lucky enough to find a couch surfer short notice. The rooms there were so expensive! We were paying $20 plus dollars a night each for a small room in the city. This may sound cheap but we had been paying on average $5 dollars a night before. So we stayed with a couch surfer on one of the islands off of Hong Kong. It was just a 25 minute ferry ride to the mainland and it was really laid back and relaxing so it was a nice combination to have the excitement of the city but be able to come home to a quiet cozy home.

Bruce Lee has some competition

Vegetable Market

The Butcher Shop

Lamma Island, our peaceful island home

As usual one of our main objectives in Hong Kong revolved around food. We were on a mission to find amazing Dim Sum. One of the ladies at our Hostel told us about a place nearby. We went there probably five times it was so good! The menu was completely in Chinese but we managed to find an English menu from another dim sum restaurant and could order some things by using that. When that failed Laura and I resorted to going from table to table asking people to check off dishes from there table that we liked on our order card. It was a bit embarrassing but everyone we asked thought it was really funny and were more than eager to help. I think we ate dim sum almost every day we were in Hong Kong and I am not ashamed!

Dim Sum!!!

We had a blast for Chinese New Year. The celebrations started the 3rd of February and would last for two weeks. The two main days were the 3rd and 4th though. The 3rd there was a big parade to kick off the celebrations. We were near the end of the parade route so by the time the performers got to us they were pretty tired and not very enthusiastic. Needless to say the parade was a bit of a letdown. We did meet some really cool people who were standing next to us during the parade. We all went out for dinner and drinks after and made plans to meet up for the fireworks show the next day.

Dragon's in the Parade

More Parade

Marching band... one of the few groups with energy

The fireworks more than made up for the parade! They were the most impressive fireworks I have ever seen and we all felt like little kids afterwards. We didn’t want our high to end so we went out to dinner then dancing after. It was such a fun night! I didn’t make it home till 9:30 the next morning. I don’t think I have ever partied so long, but none of us wanted the night to end. The next day… or I guess that same day, Laura and I left to head to Beijing.

Best Fireworks Ever!!

Massive crowd leaving the fireworks show

In Beijing we stayed with Stephanie and her family. She was a good high school friend, who unfortunately, I hadn’t seen since. So it was nice to finally meet again and catch up. Laura and I had so much fun playing with her adorable son, Quinn. They showed us around and took us to have amazing Peking duck! (Another food mission checked off our list!) We saw a lot of amazing historical sights, but it was hard to get motivated to get out of our comfy warm beds when it was freezing and snowing outside. When we went to see the Great Wall it had snowed all night and was still snowing when we got there. We almost didn’t make it there because the roads where so icy our driver couldn’t make it up the hills. We had to take an hour long detour trying to find a new route. We did make it and I am so glad we did. It was freezing and neither of us could feel our feet, but the wall was beautiful covered in a white fluffy layer of snow. We had a once in a lifetime experience seeing it like that and having it all to ourselves. Because of the cold we were two of only a handful of people on the wall that day. Most times we were absolutely alone. I don’t think many people get to see the wall like that.

Great Wall covered in snow

Laura inside one of the wall towers

Us trying to look warm

Another view of the wall

We also went to see the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square and the Temple of Heaven. All were amazing and overwhelmingly huge. They were all massive. We spent most of the day at the Forbidden City and maybe saw only a fourth of it. I will let the pictures explain the rest. Thanks to Stephanie and Adam we had a fabulous time and they went out of their way to make us more comfortable getting around the city.

Forbidden City

I love all the colors

Guard at the Forbidden City

Olympic "Bird's Nest" Stadium

Olympic Aquatic Center

Street food Beijing

After a week in Beijing we had to move on. We went to Xian to see the Terracotta Warriors and stayed for a few days before we moved on again. We crossed the country and went to Huangshan, the yellow mountains. We stayed in a little city about an hour away from the mountains. The city had a really beautiful old street that we stayed on. We went hiking one day and I don’t think I have ever seen mountains so spectacular and dramatic before. My pictures don’t do them justice. We were so enamored we took way too long admiring the views and taking pictures. By the time we made it to the cable car that would take us down the mountain it had closed. We had to hike down then and it was getting close to dark. About a million stairs and almost three hours later we were still hiking and it was completely dark. It is not easy going down stone stairs on the side of a mountain in the dark. It wasn’t much fun either. We had been hiking for 10 hours straight now and I was having horrible knee pain from all the stairs. Laura kept almost falling and scaring the crap out of me! We finally made it down only to find that there were no busses and no taxis and almost no people, accept one security guard that couldn’t speak English. After some time we were able to get him to understand that we needed a taxi to take us back to Tunxi. We ended up getting home at around 9pm and we hadn’t had anything but some oranges to eat all day. We devoured our dinner and went home and passed out. It was an amazing experience though and we have a good laugh about it now. It’s just another one of our crazy adventures.

One of the excavation pits for the Terracotta Warriors

Tourists crowded around a warrior

A warrior and his horse

One of three pits containing warriors

The biggest of the three pits

Us in front of the biggest pit

Adorable dog in old town Huangshan

Old town Huangshan

Old town Huangshan

Amazing Huangshan Mountains

Worker carrying goods up the mountain

Crazy Horizon line

Locks left at the top of the mountains as a symbol of a bond of love

Cool crevasse

Ice cover tunnel

Steepest stairs I have ever seen...and they were covered in snow

Cool rock formations everywhere you turn

Sunset on our way down

So beautiful...but it also meant that we would be walking in the dark soon!

After a few days we left again. This time Laura and I split ways because I needed to get to Guangzhou to apply for my Indian visa and she wanted to see the mountains and river of Yangshuan. So I boarded a train to Guangzhou and she to Guilin. I spent the rest of my time in Guangzhou waiting for my visa and Laura arrived after 5 days of being in the mountains. She said they were beautiful. I will have to take her word for it. Hopefully one day I can make it there. Guangzhou was so much fun though. I was staying with a couch surfer from Canada. She had been there teaching for 8 years. I spent my days being lazy and pretending to have a normal life and going out having amazing food at night. I was doing yoga everyday trying to get ready for India. I am going back to stay at an ashram and participate in an intensive month long yoga program. I am so excited and can’t wait. Laura is headed to Austria and then Ireland. So we are going to split up. After a year of living together in Miami and over eight months of traveling we are going our separate ways. It is time. Don’t worry we haven’t had a fight or fallen out with each other. We just have different plans from here on out so we have to split. We are going to keep the blog going but we are going to change the format a bit. I will fill you in on the next post.

Laura in Yangshuan

Laura's beautiful marks after getting hot cupping done

Christina