We stumbled into a sport center near the Temple Street market, where I was informed that the sport is not called pingpongcho – the word I have carefully practiced saying, rather…Table Tennis !
Originally uploaded by JoeDuck
Here on Victoria Peak the view is legendary….but we can’t see due to fog right now. The tram was a fun and cool short ride up extremely steep slope to the top where there is a nice “Pacific Coffee” shop from which I’m writing this off a free internet terminal. Ironically I’m carrying around my spiffy 2 pound eee PC but it would have cost to use the WIFI that way.
Dim Sum for Breakfast was tasty
Made it to Hong Kong after a 6 movie flight on United from SFO. Things are slower here than I expected but maybe downtown will be more hectic.
No pictures up yet, but soon
Great list from Tang Dynasty Travel:
http://www.tangdynastytravel.com/destination/shanghai-sights.html
Here’s a blog by a local from Shanghai, written for travelers to the city:
http://home.wangjianshuo.com/
Thanks to some advice from Matt at Cutler Investments I’ve started a great list of things to do in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing. I’m also reading guidebooks and surfing but it’s always best to talk to experience travelers (or better yet, locals) who can clue you in to the “must see” tourist spots as well as the hidden gems.
For this first trip to Hong Kong I just had him quickly list for me some of the “don’t miss” stuff and I’m fleshing this in as I go with details as I find more things to see – this is as much for my reference as anything else.
Stanley Market
Fishing Villages via Ferry, where they’ll fix the fish you choose at a local restaurant. Aberdeen has many places like this plus the monster brightly lit floating restaurant called ? The food there is not great but OK.
Star Ferry Hong Kong to Kowloon. This is the one often cited for great views of the Hong Kong skyline.
Nathan Street Night Market
Double Decker bus. Take it from Wau Chai sp? over the mountain. Get the upstairs front seat for the best dramatic views and experience as it whizzes through traffic and over steep cliffsides. I think we can get on this near our first hotel, the Island Pacific Hotel, right off the main road that forms a crescent around Victoria Harbor.
Trams: There is one to Victoria Peak and another I’m not yet clear about.
Lei Yu Mun
Temple Street Market
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Top 14 Must-See Sights from Oriental Travel: |
360 Ngong Ping Hong Kong Disneyland
Central District (then to Star Ferry)
Star Ferry Small green and white ferries link Central District on Hong Kong Island with Tsim Shs Tsui. 10 minutes.Aberdeen : Hong Kong Tsai – traditional fishing village. Boat-dwellers in the Aberdeen Bay, shuttling with sampan along the Bay. Jumbo Floating Restaurant and the Tai Bak (Tai Bei) Seafood Boat in Aberdeen Habour. Free travel by ferry boat to the restaurants, then to old Hong Kong Tsai Street and to the Hung Shing (God of the South Seas and weather prophet) Temple at the juncture of the sea lane and the land road, and the Tin Hau Temple
Victoria Peak “funicular” Tram.Double Decker Bus Ride
Ding ding rail tram across north side of Island – sit upstairs.Ngong Ping Cable Car: spectacular 5.7km bi-cable. From Tung Chung, cross Tung Chung Bay, angle station on Airport Island, turning in air towards North Lantau.
The Po Lin temple (Big Buddah! & Tai O fishing village:
On Lantau Island – take the Ngong Ping Cable car? Temple Street “men’s street bazaar”. Between Yau Ma Tei and Jordan. Men clothing, watches etc. Chinese opera at end of banyan trees. Bustling like a night club. The Tung Choi Street is also known as Ladies Street and has women’s clothing, handbags, etc for sale.
Update: I’m going to China in April but will miss SMX China. Xiamen was harder to get to than I’d originally thought given the rest of our schedule and China contacts are popping up in other places, so the new trip is Hong Kong April 1-4, Shanghai April 5-8, Beijing April 9-15, home to Oregon.
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Still planning the trip to China for SES SMX China 2008 in Xiamen, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. I am running into the internet challenge of really old information though. For example I’d heard about a really cool ocean ferry that goes from Hong Kong to Xiamen. It’s listed in my very new guidebook but some online sources say it’s not running anymore. I got hopeful with this online blurb:
Hong Kong – Xiamen 1400 0800 Weekday 7245 from China Hong Kong City Pier Xiamen – Hong Kong 1500 0900 EveryMon, Wed, Thu, Sat to China Hong Kong City Pier
Only to find the page was last updated…in 1997!
Google’s travel listings are pretty challenged in the USA so I should not be surprised that finding accurate China info could be trouble. I’m online most of the day but have to admit the best sources of general China travel information so far have probably been word of mouth and my guidebook rather than online, though I’ve been using all of them together for best results.
The plan as of now is to fly to Hong Kong and spend about 3 days, then Train to Shanghai (20 hours, sleeper) for about 2 days, then to Beijing (13 hours by train) for about 3 days, then to Xiamen for Conference (which I’m hoping will be at the Xianglu Grand Hotel because it looks simply awesome!) then back to Hong Kong for the flight home. But we are coordinating 3 schedules so we’ve still got some logistics to go.
China Visas appear to be a bit of a challenge as you can’t get them by mail. I think most travel agencies will do this for you, but we are not planning to use one so somebody may need to go to San Francisco Chinese consulate. Not a big deal as Charley lives down there and I’ll be near there later in January at the Web 2.0 Conference.
Click HERE for my Chinese Edition. Cool?
Actually, any web page can be auto-translated in this fashion by Google. It’s a really cool feature though I’m guessing the translations must leave something to be desired. My understanding is that you still need humans to pull quality meaning from one language to another. Still, this is a huge step forward and the advent of hand held translation units, online translation, and a lot more global travel is breaking down one of the barriers to international understanding – language.
China is expected to be the world’s top travel destination by 2020 and I don’t doubt that estimate. It is one of the reasons I’m anxious to get over there to SES China in Xiamen, the Xianglu Grand Hotel (though I’m not clear if this is the SES China venue or not), The Great Wall of China, Beijing and the Forbidden City, Hong Kong Harbor, Hong Kong, Kowloon, and much more of the amazing China Travel landscape. I want to start exploring and understanding the nation and culture that may eventually eclipse the USA in terms of global influence (I’m not predicting that – just noting it is a possibility. What is a certainty is that China will continue to be one of the most influential nations for some time to come). One of the most interesting graphs I have ever seen showed the global GDP of about 1850, noting that India+China were over half the global totals, and the USA was not even in the same league. The USA’s remarkable industrial rise since that time led us to the global economic dominance we now enjoy, but things could change … again. I don’t see this shift in Economic dominance as a negative, rather more an inevitable balancing and levelling of an increasingly globalized playing field – the world Tom Friedman has described so well in his book “The World is Flat”.
I’m hoping that SES China in Xiamen is going to be at the same venue as last year, the Xianglu Grand Hotel. This hotel looks fantastic and elegant with beautiful rooms and several restaurants. Food is one of the things I’m really looking forward to in China and I’m sure the Xianglu Grand Hotel won’t disappoint in this area. I am a little concerned that it’s bad form not to try everything offered by a guest, so if I’m eating with folks who offer me fried canaries or something like that I better be sure to have the pepto bismol tablets handy. The Xianglu Grand website still suffers from almost bizarre optimizing problems, but the hotel is splendid and I’m really looking forward to the stay. Current special rates appear to be very low so I’m tempted to book very soon because the rack rates are more than double. About $80 vs $200 per night with the nice garden suites at an especially large discount.
I missed that conference but this year I will be in Xiamen for SES China April 18-19. The current plan is to fly in and out of Hong Kong, which is somewhat south of Xiamen, and then make our way up from Hong Kong to Xiamen to Beijing and possibly also Shanghai.
Hong Kong is on the sea in the South, Shanghai on the sea hundreds of miles north, and Beijing inland and somewhat north of Shanghai. Another very popular destination we’ll probably miss this trip is X’ian, home to the amazing ancient Terra Cotta army – hundreds of life sized clay soldier statues.
Click HERE for the latest on my CES Experience
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas I’ll be blogging as much as possible, liveblogging the Bill Gates keynote on Sunday and trying to get a grasp on the big picture at this huge conference. I’m really looking forward to seeing the latest gadgets and trends in technology. One of the gadget themes I’ll explore are language translators. These are important in travel and I’ll hope to test a few during the China trip this April.
Franklin has a translator device that looks like one of the best offerings out there – a twelve language translator where you type in the word and it speaks it back to you.
Google’s got an interesting new language translation “bot” for the Blackberry that Google is blogging about here. Maybe they’ll have a Treo version later?
Wow. Planning the China Trip is really getting exciting for me. I’m going to get to see some of the things I’ve heard about for most of my life – things that are on “The List” of stuff I just had to do like Hong Kong Harbor, Beijing, and more. China’s Yellow Mountains are on my list as are is the Terra Cotta army in X’ian, but those will probably have to wait for the next trip because this one is filling up fast and, frankly, I’d rather relax and enjoy things than try to see too much stuff on my first trip over.
It now appears that the best approach may be to fly to Hong Kong. I’m finding the Hong Kong flights are in the $700 range rather than the $1000+ to Beijing, and Hong Kong is somewhat closer to Xiamen where I’ll be at the SES China conference. Also, I’ve learned that the train system in China is modern, comfortable, cheap, and extensive. I like the idea of rolling along between cities rather than just plane hopping, and since I have the time I’m thinking a good route might be this:
Fly SFO to Hong Kong and spend a few days seeing Hong Kong Harbor and the city.
Get a deluxe sleeper car for the trip to Xiamen.
Continue on the train to Beijing where I’m meeting up with friends.
Train Beijing to Shanghai if we decide to go there.
Train from Shanghai to Hong Kong, perhaps stopping in any neat places I scoped out during the earlier trip in opposite direction.
Joe Duck 