Hangzhou with a local

And not just any local! The lovely Qing, my classmate at Pitt. Hangzhou is her hometown, and it used to be part of her job to show people her city. So I knew I was in good hands. I had visited Hangzhou for a couple days in March 2009, but it was rainy and difficult to get around. Hangzhou is a big city, but it’s not as tourist-friendly with public transportation or pedestrian options as other Chinese cities. This time, with Qing as my guide, I had an air-conditioned car to protect me from the 95 degree heat and blazing sun. For me, the second time in Hangzhou was a charm.

classmates at the Hangzhou Wetlands Park

I felt welcome as soon as I got to Hangzhou. When I got to the baggage claim area, I noticed a lot of people pointing and whispering. But this time, they weren’t pointing at me! I weren’t sure who they were looking at, so I just forgot about it. But as we approached the public area of the airport, I saw even more commotion. Hundreds of people with posters, flowers and flashing cameras were chanting something. The closer I got to the door, the louder they got. Eventually I noticed that the girl walking directly next to me was wearing huge sunglasses and surrounded by body guards (body guards in China are not the same size as body guards in America). I was standing next to one of the most famous female singers in the country. The cameras flashed and the crowd moved in as we walked through the door, so I’m hoping I am on some Chinese gossip blogs as the sleepy, sloppy looking American walking next to their pop princess.

the escalator: a modern twist on a Chinese temple

From the airport we went straight to the main attraction of the city. Hangzhou is famous for its West Lake (Xi Hu) which has been the setting of many paintings, poems, stories and songs. Qing first took me to the huge pagoda at the lake, site of a famous love story featuring a snake, her man husband, and a battle of sea creatures. Chinese literature never lets me down! Neither does the level of familiarity the average Chinese has with these stories. They heard them as children, read about them in school, and now they see them depicted on television. The amount of poems and stories Chinese kids have to memorize is mind-blowing, and it may explain why the Chinese have so much love and pride for their history.

green, green Hangzhou

happy buddha in a magical rock

Another perk of having a Hangzhou native as my guide was learning about local cuisine. Chinese food is extremely diverse from province to province, city to city, so Qing made sure to give me a taste of Hangzhou seafood, dumplings, and dessert. Without Qing, I would have never known that Hangzhou cuisine is much sweeter and less spicy than the rest of China. I ate shrimp dumplings that felt like silk, homemade breakfast at her grandmother’s home, and eel, jellyfish and frog eggs with her extended family. If you ever find yourself in Hangzhou, order the steamed papaya with frog eggs and honey. Trust me.

lotus growing in West Lake

My second day in Hangzhou was spent at the Wetlands Park, an area where non-Chinese rarely visit. All of the tours are in Chinese, and the main attraction of the place is that it was the site of a well-known romantic comedy. I’ll try to get the comedy with English subtitles; Qing promises me that it really is a good flick. Anyway, the wetlands were really cool because it’s basically a group of islands where people lived as fishermen and silk producers. As the area modernized, most of the people left their island homes for the urban space. But some people still live there, completely isolated from the rest of Hangzhou. The only way to get around the wetlands is by boat. Tourists go there to take a boat ride and learn about what life was like 200 years ago in the wetlands. I was particularly impressed with the boats turned into dining room tables and the pygmy ducks, which I unfortunately did not get a proper photo of.

view of the wetlands from the temple

old, almost-forgotten Mao painting in a photo gallery in the wetlands

With my limited Chinese and the challenge of the Hangzhou dialect, I didn’t get to really converse with all of Qing’s family that I met. But nonetheless, they made me feel extremely welcome and encouraged me to return as soon as I can. Even though my visit to Hangzhou was so short, it reminded me how valuable it is to spend time with people in their homes, with their families, seeing what it is that keeps them coming back.

at the train station. next stop: Shanghai!

Hello Singapore. Have we met before?

The first time I went to Asia, landing in Korea in January of last year, I felt culture shock immediately. I was strongly aware that I was on the other side of the world and that I stuck out significantly in the crowd of black hair and brown eyes. I remember my heart racing from the moment I stepped onto the streets of Seoul, not out of fear, but out of thrill. But this time something was different. It was more like “Hey Singapore, what’s up?” It felt comfortable and familiar. Of course the prominence of English and the friendliness of the taxi driver helped out with that.

me in front of the spitting lion in downtown Singapore

I arrived at my hostel at 2am, and I guess I kind of slept for a few hours. By 9am, I was out and about exploring Singapore with the short amount of time I had. The best way to do that was by walking from my neighborhood, Little India, to the downtown marina area. On the way I passed by many churches, mosques, and temples, showing how truly diverse Singapore is. The city-state is a mix of Chinese, Malay, Tamil, and more. Most everything is written in English, but the second most popular language is Chinese. At times I felt like I was in London or Hong Kong.

Hindu temple in Little India

Walking around Singapore was a great way for me to get reacquainted with Southeast Asia. It is truly a shock to the system to go from 60 degree Pittsburgh to 100 degree Singapore. I had to relearn very quickly how to survive in such heat, which is pretty easy to pick up from the locals. The first and most crucial rule is: do not stand in the sun unless you have to. When waiting to cross a street, do not stand on the corner if it is sunny. Stand back as far as you need to in order to be in the shade. I also fell into the Asian umbrella trick, which is really pretty great. It’s amazing how much money I can save on sunblock if I just whip out the umbrella more often.

Lunch in Singapore meant one thing to me: find Anthony Bourdain’s favorite chicken rice. Chicken rice is exactly what it sounds like. There are some sauces to it, and I guess the chicken is boiled or something to make it really juicy. But it’s a very straightforward dish. I went to the food stall area that Tony loves, but I wasn’t sure which chicken rice vendor was his. They all looked the same! So I picked one randomly and it turned out pretty good! Thanks Tony.

Singapore Parliament

boat on the Singapore River going past all the restaurants

I guess the coolest things I saw in Singapore were the Merlion and the riverwalk. The Merlion is like a mermaid lion, tail and all. It spits out water. It’s really big and you can get sprayed with the water if the wind is blowing, which is a great relief in the heat. He’s facing the other side of the bay, where the giant ferris wheel and the new double helix bridge stand. There is also a huge building that I think is a casino. It looks like three buildings with a boat on top connecting them all. The riverwalk is all around the Singapore River, and it’s covered in restaurants and bars that look like they would be quite fun with friends or at nighttime. There are boats going down the river and under the pretty white bridges that apparently were made in Scotland.

I took the wonderful subway system to the airport that afternoon. I went through some seriously wealthy neighborhoods with luxury high-rises. The airport is very impressive as well. It feels more like a hotel than an airport! I highly recommend it. From Singapore, I boarded my final flight on this crazy-long journey: to Surabaya, Indonesia.

Danish reunion and a Swedish adventure

My arrival in Copenhagen was how I imagined it; I pointed out things to Jon as we landed, I held back tears as we touched down, and I spent the next few hours saying “I remember this! I remember that!” But what happened to me over the 8 days that we were there, I did not expect. I completely and honestly forgot that I was on a trip around the world, and instead I thought I was back in Copenhagen for good. Four years ago, I spent a semester studying in Copenhagen and living north of the city in the village of Humlebæk. I haven’t been back since now.

four years later, Copenhagen has made huge anti-smoking efforts, like this giant cig that tells you facts about smoking when you push a button

My love for Denmark is clearly a result of my living there; I can’t imagine how a tourist could get to know the country the way I did. So a lot of my feelings for the place are about the way of life, like the quiet commute on the train, the dinging of the bicycle bells, the candlelit dinners, and the billboards reminding people to pay their taxes. Because of this, it was a bit challenging for me to bring Jon and my friend Stephen to Copenhagen, since they wouldn’t be able to match my feelings in just a week’s visit. But I did my best, and we saw the city’s attractions by bike, visited my host family in Humlebæk, and took a bike trip in southern Sweden.

me and my Danish family: Helene, Peter, Cecelie, and the doggies Frida and Emma

But first, we needed to figure out what was wrong with Jon. After a week of a fever, we had to get him to a doctor to make sure he didn’t have a new crazy disease from Asia. And what better place to do that than Denmark, where emergency room visits are free! My incredibly generous Danish friend Jonatan (who housed us for a week) brought us to a hospital and stuck around there for 7 hours with us until Jon was released. Our experience with “socialized medicine” was totally awesome. Jon saw about 5 very attentive doctors, had a million different blood tests done, plus got free X-rays. Everyone at the hospital was so nice, and in the end we still didn’t believe that we didn’t have to pay. Anyway, they decided that his fever was not anything serious, and low and behold it went away a couple days later. But they did perform a minor surgery. Jon is now one of the cool people I know who can say they have gone under the knife in another country! When we first started the trip, he developed a cyst on his left shoulder. It didn’t bother him until just recently, when it got red and sore. The Danish doctors said it was infected, so they sliced him open and pushed out the cyst. I could go into more detail if you like gory descriptions, but oh man, it was nasty.

Jon at the hospital, thinking it was very strange that I took photo documentation

One of the highlights of my time abroad four years ago, and the main selling point for Stephen to meet us in Copenhagen, was my bike trip in southern Sweden and the discovery of Nimis. Copenhagen sits on the east coast of the island of Zealand, and the northern point of that island is very close to Sweden. We took a ferry to Sweden and then found a bus that took us a little further north, to the town of Hoganas. We ended up staying at the exact same hostel that I stayed at four years ago with my study abroad kids. I guess I planned it, but it still shocked me when I got there.

windmill outside Hoganas, Sweden, with the yellow fields we saw everywhere

We rented bikes and followed a bike trail along the coast to Molle, another cute old fishing town. From there, we biked into the woods to find Nimis. What is Nimis? It’s a collection of giant sculptures made of drift wood that people can climb on. It was created decades ago by an artist, then partially burned down, and then the subject of many legal disputes since it was built on state land without permission. But eventually a rich American bought the land and now Nimis can stand without trouble. When I was there four years ago it was raining, so my friends and I were the only people there. This time it was a beautiful Friday, so there were families and school groups making the trek. There are no real directions to Nimis, so you have to follow yellow N’s painted on tree trunks. It’s a fantastic place, and it’s now part of it’s own “nation” that you should really check out (and perhaps become a citizen.)

Jonatan at Nimis, our biking destination

Returning to Denmark taught me one thing for sure: that I have to return more often. I have been to many great cities of the world by now, and I can still say that little Copenhagen deserves a spot on that list. There are some things that can charm you immediately, like the walking streets, the canals, and the gobs of bikes. But the really special things take a bit longer, and I feel so grateful that I was given the chance to get to know them. Denmark makes me happier than any other place on earth, and I think that’s mostly due to the concept of hygge. It’s a Danish word that means something like coziness, but it really means the feeling of warmth when you are surrounded by good friends, good food, good wine, and bright candles. It’s a feeling of contentment that I wish everyone had the chance to feel, and a feeling that I try my best to recreate wherever I go. Jeg elsker og savner Danmark.

Jon, Jonatan and Stephen sitting on a fence pointing to Nimis

Meet me in Regensburg

One of my favorite things about this trip is that we didn’t have it planned out.  So when we met two German dudes in Halong Bay, Vietnam, and they invited us to visit them in Regensburg in April, we said sure.  We hopped a train from Munich to Regensburg and spent two great days exploring the beautiful city with our new friends, Murray and Franziskus.  It’s as picturesque as it can get, with narrow cobblestone streets and colorful towers spread over the city.  But it also has a lively student population, and they claim they have the most bars per capita in Germany.  (Or was it Europe?)  Whatever the statistic, it’s a really fun town and I absolutely recommend it to people who are interested in Germany.

Danube River and Regensburg

We arrived on Franziskus’s father’s birthday, so we got to attend his birthday dinner with the whole family.  His parents live outside the city in a village in a cute house with a brand new swimming pool.  Being the random Americans thrown into a situation like this is one of my favorite experiences in the world.  Everyone had such good humor about the attempts to speak each others language, the constant translating, and the comprehension of things that don’t need words.  Franziskus’s mother is learning English right now, and I was so excited to help her practice.  At one point I told her that her English was wonderful, and she turned to her son and said in German, “Americans are great liars.”

Franziskus, Murray and I after a mean game of foosball

Murray and Franziskus were awesome hosts, showing us all the oldest things in Regensburg and rattling off dates and names from its history.  The city was extremely important for trade and business centuries ago and was wealthy for that, so many buildings are the result of competition among rich residents for who could build the highest tower.  We went on a boat ride to the world’s oldest brewery in a monastery, where I’m sure you can guess what we had (beer and sausage.)  We went on a tour of the city hall, where the highlight was seeing all the instruments in the torture chamber (I’ve always been a fan of the stretching machine…I used to believe it would make me taller.)  We spent a long time in an old Protestant church listening to a German version of John Cleese tell us all about the differences between that church and a Catholic one.  He even let us ring the old bell in the tower, but only very quietly.  By the end of our time in Regensburg I was really sad that we’d only spent two days there…and I wasn’t going to hear German anymore!

Back to big city life in Hong Kong

I wish we had more time to spend in Hong Kong.  We are staying in Kowloon, an area on the peninsula north of Hong Kong island.  We are staying in a huge highrise which is filled with guesthouses, even multiple on the same floor.  We are on the 13th floor, in a room just big enough to fit a small bed.  Our backpacks slide under the bed, a TV is stuck on the wall, and the bathroom is right next to the bed.  There is no room to walk, so we have to discuss it if either of us want to move around the room.  To get to our guesthouse, we have to take an elevator from the main floor.  We take an elevator that goes to odd numbers on the C tower, and you can only fit seven people on the elevator or else it beeps at you and doesn’t go up.  The ground floor of the building is full of South Asian vendors selling $1 watches and curries.

Old trams (skinny buses on wires) run through Hong Kong Island

What I really enjoy about Hong Kong is how international it is.  After being in places where everyone was either Southeast Asian or a Western tourist, it’s exciting to be surrounded by Africans, Middle Easterners, South Asians, etc.  You hear many languages spoken here, and you can find food from all around the world.  We haven’t been able to afford much of that food, however.  Meals in Southeast Asia cost me about $1-$2, but here it’s just like the US, $6-$10.  The cheapest food is actually McDonald’s and KFC, so I admit it, we ate there.  It was so much more hip and cleaner than back home!  The Pizza Hut in China seems really gourmet, as well: they have caviar pizza!!!!

Jon and Jackie Chan, outside the wax museum that we didn't go to

It’s been pretty gloomy and rainy here, and we’re starting to worry that we aren’t going to see the sun until we get to the Middle East.  By coming to China in a low-tourist season, we’re also coming at a rainy, foggy time of the year.  But the amount of sun we had last month and will have next month can make up for it! Luckily Hong Kong has great indoor activities, like a fantastic history museum we spent most of yesterday in, and the endless shopping malls.  Seriously, you can get around most of Hong Kong Island by walking from mall to mall, through bridges and tunnels so you never really need to go outside!  We get lost a lot here, because there are so many walkways and connections that we get turned around.  But everything is labeled in English since the Brits used to run this place.  We will not have such as easy time starting tomorrow in Xiamen, China…

mountains, water, huge buildings; what more could you want?