Some of the destinations (Insomnia induced...)

OK, so the bags are packed... one suitcase with all the clothing to be checked... one suitcase with all the camera gear (I figure it's cheaper to buy clothing than cameras if a bag gets lost) to be carried on along with a fully loaded laptop (and of course a tangle of charging cables).

Now I can't sleep.  That's not a problem, because I have a nice son willing to zip me to the airport tomorrow and with something like 24 hours of travel ahead of me (airport, security, short flight, long layover, really long flight, baggage delays, customs, bus trip, car trip, etc.) I figure I can nap a bit on the way.

So I decided to pay bills (minor detail) and then look up some of the destinations on the web...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangzhou

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chongqing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangtze_River

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_gorges_dam

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yichang

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangzhou

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_lake

(Then returning to Guangzhou and flying out from Hong Kong.)

The fact that I can remember all these places without looking them up, know how to spell them, and make a reasonable attempt at pronouncing them blows my mind.

To give you an idea of the area we're covering, it would be like landing in the Charleston, SC, Spending a few days in Columbia, SC, then popping up to Chicago for a cruise, then over to Boston and NYC for a few days each before returning to SC.  Yes, I pulled out my globe.

Conversations...

As news of my trip started making the rounds, I shared this blog with a few co-workers, several of whom are Chinese.

I was surprised at the number of conversations where Chinese women said that they love chicken feet! Everyone of them had a great complexion (not that I'd noticed... they are colleagues, after all).

Maybe Vicky is right and eating all that keratin is good for you...

Preparation - Learning Chinese and passports

My preparations for this trip were relatively simple. While Vicky, Brandon and Tiger all know a bit of both Chinese and English, and I could get along without knowing any Chinese, I wanted to try and learn a little bit about the language. I choose Rosetta Stone and so far have made it through 40 lessons (all of Level 1). I'm also armed with a list of phrases Vicky would like me to be able to speak to her family. (Here I'm really trusting her... a phrase that she says means "the food is delicious" could really mean "I like to eat frogs" and I'd have no way of knowing.)

Of course to go visit a different country you need a passport. In this case China requires a Visa (no, not the credit card) stating permission to enter China.

Given my photography hobby, I have two passports. The second one has a USB cable attached and it is storage for 1 Terabyte of photographs. I also upgraded my memory cards to 16 GB versions so I hopefully won't have to swap them so much.

Anticipation... (excited and nervous)

So what exactly am I heading into??

While I'm far from a seasoned traveler, I have been overseas a couple of times.  One week-long trip to the Netherlands for work a decade ago, a couple-month tour of the east Texas oil area back in the 90s (if you don't think Texas is another country, you've never lived there as a NJ expat), a few short business trips to different places (England, Canada), and I think I was in Mexico for a day when I was 2 years old.  My most extensive travel experience was a recent pilgrimage Northern England with a dozen teenagers a couple of years ago.

Around the USA, I love exploring new places, generally as part of a business trip, or maybe a family vacation years ago.  But recently most of my vacation time was spent in a more quiet reflection at a nearby monastery and I haven't really ventured out since the pilgrimage. 

So when Vicky extended the invitation to accompany her on her upcoming vacation, I decided to jump on it and accepted.  I quickly realized, however, that my concept of "China" needed some updating.  I had always pictured it as a quiet rural place something like this...

... for some reason China always seemed in my head to include a covered boat and some mountains.  I knew they had decent-sized cities, but I guess I always pictured them as more of a soviet-style place full of nondescript concrete boxes.

This past weekend I showed Vicky how to access Google Earth and together, we found her community.  I now realize I'm heading into...

... a development!

After landing in Hong Kong, we're heading into Guangzhou to a community where a lot of the professional class lives.  Looking at the satellite, I found this.

You can see multi lane highways, apartment towers, clubhouses, swimming pools, shopping districts.  So far everything seems normal, and since Panoramino lets you see some scenes on the ground, I found this.

These are a couple of residential towers in the neighborhood where we'll be staying.  The first thing I noticed was that they appear to be quite modern, seem to be well-landscaped and that landscape seems tropical.  So I looked up the latitude of Guangzhou and it is around 23 degrees north - about the same as that of Havana, Cuba.  In our travels we'll get as far north as 31 degrees or about that of the northern part of Florida.  So in August, I guess we'll be warm.

So Vicky assures me that we'll have modern conveniences with western style amenities - especially toilets (whew).  We'll save the tour of rural China for another trip. 

So that leaves the last thing I'm worried about - the food.  I've read somewhere that the people from southern China will literally eat anything.  Since meeting Vicky I've eaten some "worm grass" soup (made from mummified caterpillars who's bodies were invaded by fungus), and Chicken feet (not legs, FEET!) where I learned I have a bit of a gag reflex that I need to work on controlling.

To be fair, all the food has tasted good... it's the texture that sometimes gets to me.

So to sum it all up, I'm ready to have some misconceptions shattered.  Given the places we're visiting, I'm sure we'll get to see some traditional China scenery, but I'll also learn lots about what the country is like today.  For that, I'm excited.

But yes, the food makes me nervous...

Our Plan

Danielle:  He's not even gone and already I'm working....see below from George.

I'll get into the "why" of going to China later... here is our overall plan for the trip.

 

It starts with a quick trip to Chicago.  There I'm meeting up with Vicky and Brandon.  Vicky is my girlfriend and Brandon is her best friend's 12 year old son.  Yes, this trip is part vacation, part youth adventure & cultural exchange - for both the youth and the adults.  In addition to Vicky & Brandon, Tiger (age 14, Vicky's nephew) will be joining us once we reach China.  Together, we'll do a grand tour of the southeastern part of the country.

 

From Chicago, we fly into Hong Kong and then onto Guangzhou which is Vicky's home city.  We'll spend a short time there where we'll meet up with Tiger and get to meet Vicky's family.  Then we'll fly to Chongquing where we'll catch a cruise on the Yangtze river down through the gorges and tour the new Three Gorges Dam before finishing at Yichang.

 

After the cruise, we'll fly to Shanghai for a bit to see this impressive city.  Then I think we catch a train to Hangzhou where we'll spend a bit of time at lakeside resort.  A flight back to Guangzhou for a bit more family time and then we're off to Hong Kong (staying at  Disney hotel, of all places) so we're ready for our flight back from Hong Kong to Newark New Jersey. 

 

It should be an incredible experience!

 

PS - If successful, this will be posted by Danielle who has agreed to receive posts and update the blog in case I can't access Blogger while in China.

T-Minus 1 week!

So I'm heading to China in a week.  One week from right now (not accounting for the 12 hour time difference and the international date line thingy) I will be settling into Guangzhou, China for a two-week tour of the country - guided by my personal tour guide, Vicky (pictured above).