When we arrived at the station, we walked out into the middle of the city. This moment was the only time in our whole trip that we ever felt nervous walking around. We walked a few city blocks to our hostel and right away were handed a map. The guy checking us in proceeded to draw a big circle with the letters DNG on top of it. This, he explained, is the Do Not Go zone, and is the bad part of the city.

We were tired from the flight, so we went to bed right away. The next morning, we woke up at 6am from jetlag, and went to the kitchen of the hostel to make some free pancakes. We decided to explore the city this day. Walking through China town was not as impressive as it would have been if we had not been to China. Then, we wandered down rolling roads through the financial district, and onward to Fisherman’s Wharf. On the way, we stopped to walk up Telegraph Hill. On the top of this hill is a building resembling a lighthouse that was built by a rich woman who dedicated it as a memorial for the firemen of San Francisco. We then walked past Lombard Street and into the Fisherman’s Wharf area which was packed with buskers, eateries, and plenty of shopping. We stopped here and split a bowl of San Francisco’s famous clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl from one of the many food stalls just outside the seafood restaurants. The chowder was pretty tasty. While we ate, we listened to a busker who played synthesized music through a digital clarinet/wind instrument. It was really cool how he had to learn to play the drums with his mouth and fingers!

After lunch, we followed “The Embaradero”, a wide street that the cable cars run down the middle of, along all the piers. We stopped at pier 39 to watch the sea lions sprawled out on wooden planks. When the sea lions are there, no boat traffic is allowed. Therefore, these sea lions have basically taken over the pier for themselves. We walked all the way back along the piers to pier 1/2 where the ferry building is located. The ferry building is a huge building with a clock tower, and is filled with gourmet restaurants and specialty gourmet grocery stores. One store only sold mushrooms, and must have had at least 50 different types.

It was late afternoon by this time, so we walked back to our hostel through the financial district and through another plaza where a North American market was set up. People there were selling everything from souvenirs to photographs. We didn’t try bargaining for anything. We continued walking and ran into a square that had artwork on display and for sale. On the stage in the square were some live performances put on by a church group.

By the time we got back it was dinner time, and we found a neat retro 50’s/60’s diner complete with jukeboxes at each table. There was a small plane hanging from the ceiling, the waiters all wore aprons with silly looking hats, etc. We were both so tired that we just ate quickly and then collapsed at the hostel.

The next morning, we woke up early and had a huge breakfast at a small diner. Then we walked to the South Of Market Area (SOMA) and stopped at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). We figured that if we were going to experience San Francisco, we needed to try and appreciate some of the artistic culture that the city is known for. We spent most of the morning being amused by abstract art such as works by Salvidor Dali, a white paint painting, and a toilet that an artist picked from a hardware store and stated “it is art because I say it is art”. Some of the exhibits were crazy, and some were really good. Luckily, we were fortunate enough to visit the museum at the same time they were having an exhibit on Frida Kahlo, a talented Mexican painter, who was overshadowed by her more famous husband Diego Rivera, also a painter. We were both very impressed with her work.

After the museum, we dared to walk into the DNG zone in order to get a great picture of one of San Francisco’s infamous rolling roads. Although we were still on the outskirts of the area, we must have passed at least 10 to 20 crazy people having conversations with themselves. We couldn’t imagine what the heart of the DNZ zone would be like, but neither of us was willing to find out. We walked along the edge of the area very quickly, and walked onto Haight Street, which is located in an area lined with private/independent fashion stores, rehab clinics, smoke shops, etc. The Lonely Planet mentioned that a Gap store opened in this district, and the people living in the district weren’t happy about the commercialism moving into their area. The store had numerous windows broken, graffiti, etc. and was basically pushed out by the residents.

We stopped for lunch at a store that only sells homemade BBQ/grilled sausages. There were many types to choose from. Tara had a beer sausage, and Adam had an Italian sausage with a root beer from a local soda store. After lunch we walked to Alamo square, which is a small park the size of a city block, set in a neighbourhood of old Victorian houses, called the painted ladies. They’re called this because they’re all painted different pastel colours. These painted ladies are a famous San Francisco landmark, and can be seen in the opening credits of “Full House”. After walking around this area, we wound up at a trolley car stop, and took the “F” trolley to pier 33 for the Alcatraz night tour. Along the way, a woman entered the trolley with crutches and sat down next to a crazy woman. We eavesdropped on a conversation between the two. The woman with crutches explained that she had “a hip problem and that’s all they would tell her”. The other crazy woman kept telling her she had to fix it and to just “snap it back in there”, and then just kept repeating that phrase. The woman with the crutches said “I don’t know, just please stop it…” and put her hands on her ears. It turns out she was crazy too. Then a third guy started talking about how his femur and hip were replaced with titanium. All three of these people got off in the DNG zone. The woman with the crutches stood up and walked off without using them. This was quite a site to experience.

The F trolley curved along the piers and we got off at pier 33. There was a short wait until we were ferried over to Alcatraz island. After a short introduction with some anecdotes from a park officer, we were given headphones and an mp3 player for a self guided audio tour through the cell blocks. The audio guide was actually pretty good with excellent actors and sound effects. The stories were about life in prison, attempted breakouts, etc. One of the stories talked about one prisoner who spent his time in solitary confinement playing a game. He would pull a button off his shirt, and since the cells were pitch dark, he would flip the button and spend time finding it. It sounded very lonely. There was also a story about how a few of the prisoners managed to overtake the guards and hold them hostage for a few days while they attempted to get off the island. Eventually, there was a gunfight and most of those prisoners and a few guards were killed.

We wandered up and down the cell blocks and other parts of the buildings listening to all stories. This whole tour lasted about 2 hours. Some parts briefly took us outside where it was extremely cold and very windy. As it got darker, the island took on a whole new look, and started to become more and more creepy. We took the early ferry back to the mainland before the sun totally set because Tara was extremely cold. Then we took the cable car over the hills and back to the hostel.

Our last full day in San Francisco, we woke up and had another hearty breakfast at a diner. Then we walked along the cable car tracks until we reached the cable car museum. The cable car system in San Francisco now consists of four major lines. There is one loop of cable that runs the length of the track and ends at the museum where the tension on the lines can be adjusted if they stretch too much. These cables are in constant motion. To move the cable car, the driver has two levers: one lever clenches or loosens a clamp on the cable car to adjust traveling speed, and the other applies the breaks to slow the car down. The system is very similar to a ski lift. When the car travels around corners, the driver may decide to use the cable to drag it along, or they could decide to drift around the turn.

After the cable car museum, we continued walking over the hill and back to fisherman’s wharf. There, we rented bicycles for ridiculously more compared to anywhere in Asia. For the same price, we could have lived for 3 days in Thailand. We followed the path along the cost, up and over the Golden Gate Bridge. Luckily, we had great weather this day, and the views were fantastic. It was extremely windy on the bridge. After we crossed we zig-zagged down the hill into Sausalito, a small neighbourhood across the river from San Francisco. We stopped there to enjoy a late lunch of fish and chips, then caught the ferry back with almost 200 other tourists on bicycles. Unfortunately, we ran out of time, and wasn’t able to see the Golden Gate park, or the beach on the west side of the city. We were so tired from the exercise, that we went to bed early, and got up at 4am just in time to catch the first BART train to the airport. The rest of the day, we were in transit through Vancouver and then finally back in Ottawa.

It was a once in a lifetime trip that we won’t ever forget, and we both sincerely hope that everyone enjoyed the blog.

Hong Kong is a city composed of many islands, mainly Hong Kong Island, and Kowloon Island. It is a financial and architectural metropolis located just off the East cost of mainland China. We left Singapore early in the afternoon, and arrived in Hong Kong in the evening, just after dusk. As soon as we arrived at the airport, we picked up our bags, and purchased an airport express ticket and an “octopus” card. The octopus card is a multi-purpose card that can be used for almost all forms of public transport including the ultra modern MTR subway, buses, tram cars, as well as at stores such as 7-11 and KFC. It only cost 7HKD (1 USD) with a 50 HKD refundable deposit. If more money was put on the card and not used before returning the card, there is a full refund issued. The airport express ticket was good for a single trip into the city on a modern subway/train with few stops.

During our journey into the downtown area we were concerned about how far the stop was to our hostel, and began to make a plan to take other forms of public transportation. When we arrived at our destination, we exited the MTR and found that there is a free bus shuttle to the major hotels in the area, one of which was only a block away from ours. This was a pleasant surprise, as we were loaded down with baggage at this point, and it was also late at night. We walked to our hostel, located in a massive apartment building, past touts trying to sell us suits and fake goods (watches, purses, etc). Our building had a tiny mall on the first floor and the rest of the 16 floors had apartments. It was so busy in this building, that there were multiple elevators serving certain floors to make the ride to the top floors faster. When we were shown to our floor, we could see that the building was square and hollow in the middle overlooking a courtyard. As we opened the door to our room, we entered a tiny hallway much cleaner than the rest of the building. From this hallway, a second door led us to our room, which was actually quite nice.

The following day, we woke up early and decided to do a walking tour recommended in the guidebook through the old central part of Hong Kong Island. We took the subway there from our hostel on the Kowloon side, and jumped off into some small winding streets. The Hong Kong MTR system is an efficient way to move around the city. In addition to this useful traveling network, there is also an underground network of tunnels that have entrance and exits inside buildings, malls or any street intersection corners. These tunnels can be km’s long, and at one point link a subway station with a light rail station underground for at least a 15 minute walk. We never tried, but it might be possible to walk through central downtown without going outside. If not, it’s certainly possible to walk it with a roof overhead from the covered walkways.

We were still a walk away from the beginning of the tour, so we jumped on the tram. This old, slow and rickety double-decker tram was rammed full of riders, and was pretty fun to take. We finally jumped off, and began our walk through streets lined with Chinese herbal medicine stores, and small walking streets with cheap souvenirs. It was just about lunchtime and we were getting very hungry. Unfortunately we were in a very expensive area, so we started to walk to the SOHO district, known for its many bars and eateries. On the way there, we stopped by the Graham St. market, which is known for its fresh market filled with fruits and vegetables, and live fish. According to our Lonely Planet, this is one of the best markets in Hong Kong. However, compared to other markets we saw in rural China, this market was pretty tame (we didn’t see any fish get beaten over the head in the middle of the walkway).

After lunch in SOHO, we took a ride on the world’s largest travelator, a horizontal escalator. This travelator was really just a bunch of escalators up some hills (not all horizontal) lined up between streets. We then walked to the financial district to 2nd Finance Blvd. which had an exhibit on monetary, etc. which was set up on the 56th floor. We were only there to see the view. At first we were nervous walking in the building because we had to show our passports to have official visitor passes printed. But when we stepped into the elevator which had two floors to choose from: Ground or 56th, we figured that a lot of people probably did the same thing. This high up, the views of Kowloon bay and the harbour were excellent, as it was a clear and sunny day. Next, we walked to the Bank of China’s 46th floor for more views of the city. By this time, it was evening so we went near the water outside the EXPO centre for sunset. We wanted to enter the EXPO centre, but there was a jewelry conference, so we weren’t allowed to enter.

After a disappointing sunset, we took the MTR back under the harbour and north to the Mong Kok district. Here we walked through the Temple St. night market, full of fake designer goods, souvenirs, karaoke and fortune tellers (tarot/palm readers). Halfway through, we stopped at a corner for a cheap dinner of friend noodles with chicken. The second half of the market was similar to the first. All in all, it took at least an hour to walk through the whole street.

On our second day in Hong Kong, we woke up and took the STAR ferry across the harbour from Kowloon to Hong Kong. The ferry was so old, it might have been the original ferry, complete with wooden seats and interior. The views from the ferry were fabulous, but the ride was shorter than we expected. We were visiting Hong Kong this morning to go to an authentic Dim Sum teahouse in the old part of town. In a Dim Sum restaurant, the eater sits at a table with their plates and cutlery and wait for the food to be brought to the table on a small cart. In small bamboo baskets are steamed foods, such as dumplings, etc. that are selected. The cart lady then stamps the card of the eater to show what they had. At the end of the meal, the card is taken to the cashier to pay the bill.

We arrived at the teahouse just before lunch, and it was a full house. There was barely enough room to walk through, and we had to wait 20 minutes for an opening at a table before we could sit and eat. Every table sat 5-6 people, and as soon as there was an opening it was filled regardless if the eater knew anyone at the table. Fortunately, a nice man saw us standing, and told us to come and eat with him since there were openings at his table. He was waiting for some friends, but knew that he couldn’t hold the table long due to the number of people standing and waiting. After we took our seats, our new friend, Nikolas, flagged down the busboy and ordered us a pot of tea, and we received our utensils and our cards. Along with all this stuff, we also got a bowl of hot water. We were then instructed to wash our cups and utensils with the hot water to clean them. The tea that we got was a dark, strong tea. We assumed that it was one of the more expensive, fermented varieties.

As the food carts wheeled past, we had to ask to look at each item since everyone only spoke Cantonese or mandarin. One nice, elderly cart lady happily showed us everything as she passed by each time. We ended up eating steamed shrimp dumplings, flat gelatonous noodles stuffed with pork and drizzled in soy sauce, steamed meat filled buns, and some kind of light yellow cake. Nikolas helped us to pick the dishes, and was amazed that we could use chopsticks so well. He was also happy that we got to try the cake, because it’s such a popular dish, it’s usually gone by the time the cart person has traveled 2 feet.

We had no idea how much this meal would cost, and we couldn’t even read the card that was stamped. Everything was in Chinese characters. The food was great, and after we were finished, we took the card to the cash register at the front. The meal cost us less than 10 USD.

After our meal, we had time to kill, so we wandered downtown again, and decided to catch the MTR to see Sik Sik Temple. This modern Taoist temple always has a constant flow of visitors, although it’s nothing too extraordinary. It’s just a large temple in an urban setting with fortune tellers. After our visit, we went all the way back to the island to get to the Victoria Peak tram in time for sunset at the top. Unfortunately, many other people had the same idea and the line up was huge! The wait for the tram was approximately an hour, but we were surrounded by the history of the tram to occupy our time. At the top of the peak, we enjoyed the scenery and took photos of the city below. On a clear day, there are good views of the skyscrapers, and luckily we had a great day. We could also see very expensive mansions/condos dotting the hills surrounding Hong Kong island. When it was dark, we took some escalators up seven stories to the observation deck at the top of the peak tower. Like the rest of the peak, the observation deck was rammed full of people. We had to share or wait patiently for the best spot on the tower to take some photos.

Afterward, there was a massive line up for the tram to get down. The wait must have been at least two hours, so we decided to take a bus down through the winding road. The only cars going in the opposite direction (up the hill) were taxis, Porsches, BMWs, Mercedes, etc. We were dropped off at an MTR station, and we went back to Temple St. for another cheap dinner, and entertainment.

Our final day in Hong Kong we slept in because we were exhausted from the previous two long days. We spent the afternoon before our flight in the Hong Kong museum of history, a highlight in the LP. The museum was actually pretty good. It had everything from fossils to the British opium wars through the Japanese WWII occupation to the present day. We had just enough time for dinner before heading to the airport. We caught the airport bus back to the express train station. The really cool thing about this train service isn’t the almost direct 30 minute train to the airport, but the airline check-in booths located in the station. Before even stepping onto the train, we checked our baggage and got our boarding passes, saving us a lot of time. We were just hoping that the system worked well, as our bags had a fair distance to travel.

]]> http://blog.astjohn.ca/2008/09/15/hong-kong-china/feed 0 http://blog.astjohn.ca/2008/06/17/kanchanaburi-thailand-and-toward-hong-kong-china http://blog.astjohn.ca/2008/06/17/kanchanaburi-thailand-and-toward-hong-kong-china#comments Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:44:12 +0000 Adam http://blog.astjohn.ca/2008/06/17/kanchanaburi-thailand-and-toward-hong-kong-china We pictured Kanchanaburi to be a small village along a river in the middle of some jungle, but it was actually quite a large city since it is the capital of its province. Although it’s a big city, it does have close and convenient access to national parks and waterfalls, but we were here mostly to visit the bridge on the river kwai and a tiger temple.

The bridge on the river kwai, made famous by the movie, was basically the start of what became known as “The Death Railway.” The Japanese occupied Thailand and much of South East Asia during WWII, and decided that it was necessary to build a railway into Burma in order to occupy Burma, and cut off important supply routes to China. The railway was constructed by tens of thousands of POWs, many of which died from disease, malnutrition, fatigue, and the commanding Japanese themselves.

We stepped off the bus and were immediately greeted by the usual touts. This time we decided to listen to one of them; perhaps because we are at the end of our trip and don’t really care to hunt for a better bargain. The woman led us to a driver that was going to take us to the guest house for 80 baht each. When we started to walk away, he eventually lowered his price to 40 baht total. He took us to what turned out to be a really nice guest house called “Jolly Frog.” It looked like this place would be quite popular in the busy season since it had nice rooms, a nice courtyard with hammocks, and a massive restaurant with reasonable prices. After checking into our room, we decided to go for a walk towards the bridge.

Literally 15 minutes into the walk, we made a detour to an air conditioned internet cafe. The heat was unbearable. This was the first time in our trip that we had to stop walking, even in the shade, and get out of the heat. We stayed in the cafe surfing the web for at least two hours until it was around 3pm and the temperature had started to cool down. At this point, we were able to finish the walk, which turned out to only be a few minutes more to the bridge. Along the way, we noticed that a woman lost her hat as she drove by on her friend’s motorbike. An old man driving the opposite way slowed down and picked up the hat. Both of us were thinking that it was nice to see such generosity by the old man. However, instead of turning around and giving the hat back, he simply dove away slowly as if he would stop if someone complained. No one complained and he simply puttered down the road after stealing the hat. We still joke about the “nice old man.”

The bridge itself was surrounded by city, but spanned along a picturesque section of the river. People were free to walk across the bridge “at their own risk,” and there were some small safety platforms in the event that a train did need to pass over the bridge. Looking down the bridge, the tracks seemed to curve into the country side where some of the jungle still remained. After a few photos, it started to rain gently and we quickly walked back to our guest house.

The second day in Kanchanaburi, we decided to visit the Railway Museum in the morning. Of the several museums in the city, this one was recommended to be the best, and it did an excellent job of explaining the history behind both the war and the bridge. It would have been best to visit this exhibit first and then visit the bridge. We actually managed to spend at least 2 hours absorbing all the history and then caught a quick lunch. For the afternoon, we had booked a tour to the tiger temple.

The tiger temple is located just outside the city, but to visit the temple we had to book transport since no public buses reach the temple itself. The story is told that the temple was established when a monk took in a orphaned tiger cub and soon the temple was turned into a refugee camp for wild animals. Both of us imagined the temple to be a fairly exotic looking wat with wild animals scattered throughout the grounds. Unfortunately, we arrived with about a hundred other tourists, and the entire place was a circus. We were more or less herded into a fake quarry complete with a tacky waterfall where a line was formed to see the tigers. A handful of tigers where scattered throughout the area, some laying under planted trees, some on rocks, and all chained to the ground. In this area, there was only one monk supervising and about 30 employees helping the tourists to the tigers. We had to wait our turn and then proceed one at a time as one of the employees took our individual photos. We were not allowed to take the photo ourselves and instead had to give the camera to the employee. In addition to that, we couldn’t take a photo with the two of us “for our own safety.” Curiously enough, if we paid an extra 30 US dollars, we could take the “special” photo with the two of us together and a tiger in our lap. The tigers were either really sleepy or heavily sedated since they barely moved at all. After the photo, we were escorted back to the waiting area which was roped off. Adam was yelled at by a power hungry American teenager volunteer who told him to step behind the red roped off area. Since he was two steps to the right of the rope (to have a better angle for photos), Adam said he was in fact behind, but next to the designated area. The volunteer promptly explained to him that if the tiger was to escape from his chains, it would be a vicious and highly dangerous situation, and that he had better be behind the rope. Adam simply replied that if that situation did occur, he doubted that a red rope would save him from such a vicious tiger. The volunteer didn’t bother Adam anymore. There was one tiger who had some spunk in him, perhaps because the drugs were wearing off, but the volunteers kept squirting him in the face with water as one would do with a misbehaving house cat. The entire temple was an overpriced tourist trap that we wouldn’t recommend to anyone. After that, we headed back to our guest house, spent the evening reading our books, and took the bus the following morning back to Bangkok.

Our time in Bangkok was fairly nice since we had nothing to worry about. On one day, we ventured back to Chatchuchak market to buy a few more souvenirs. On the next, we went to see the latest Indiana Jones movie. We basically lounged around the city for three full days before catching a plane to Singapore.

Currently, we are in Singapore for the night, and will be catching a plane for Hong Kong tomorrow. We have three days each in Hong Kong and San Francisco before finally going back to Ottawa. We are going to try to make the most of each day in the upcoming cities and it is doubtful if we will have time to write again before we are home.

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