the flight and the first few days

The flight:
Ok, I knew it was going to be a long day. The 4 hour layover in San Fransisco didn't make the day go by any faster. I knew it was going to take a very long time to get from San Fransisco to Hong Kong. I really was expecting it to be worse than it was, which saved me in the end. I did get anxious on the plane, but to my amazement, it ended faster than I expected. Probably because I was exhausted and slept quite a bit on the flight. We lost a day.. landing at 6pm on Sunday. When we landed I was so very thirsty. As we flew in, the buildings in Hong Kong looked like lego stacks. And when they built one skyscraper, it appears they built 4 or 5 of the same one in the same spot. There was rarely one skyscraper that looked distinct from its neighbors. Most were about the same height also. This created a very stunning and beautiful image of the city from the air. I didn't take any photos of it though... my brain was still a bit fuddled from lack of sleep.

The Hong Kong Hotel:
Leaving the airport wasn't bad. Since we had nothing to declare, it was just a matter of dragging all of our luggage out to a taxi. It took some time, but Cullen was clever enough to hitch everything together. Such a clever man. So with the Luggage train in tow, we followed Cullen's supervising Instructor out to the Taxi pick-up area. From what I can tell, the city it's self hires cab drivers. There are red ones... for the inner city, and green ones for the "new territories" which is outside Hong Kong proper.

None of us remembered to print out the address for the Hotel, so we were leaning on the fact that a taxi driver should know all the hotels in the area... especially one that picked up people at the airport... we were wrong. This hotel was difficult to find, hidden deep in the bowels of a shopping mall. The funniest part was that when we asked people IN THE shopping mall, where the hotel was, they didn't even know.

On a funnier note... there was a shop called YATA in the mall. Hilarious.

When we finally checked in to the Hotel, it was 700 HK dollars a night... about 100 US and the room was nice. It was a bit small, but the bathroom had very nice fixtures, all from America and Europe... ahh the irony.

So there was only a smidge of drinking then we crashed hard. When we woke in the morning, it was off to Dongguan in a Bus at 7:15am. I woke up once at 3:37 thinking it was 5:37, but then we slept again until 6am. It was good sleep. Very restful.

The Bus and Customs:
We all boarded the bus to a roll call. I am not sure, but maybe they wanted to make sure everyone made it to the conference. This bus appeared to have been contracted by the Daya Bay project to pick up all the professors and project people at the hotel to bring us all into Dongguan. Since Hong Kong used to be occupied by Britain, I suppose they decided that it was a great idea to keep the Chinese border up and running. This meant that when we reached the Border, we had to get off the bus, and cross the border with all our luggage.

We got stamped twice going through the border, then had to get our luggage scanned. We had one back full of electronic things and tools, which interested the Chinese customs officers, and they asked to check our bags. No problem......

The WACOM tablet completely confused them. They kept asking what it was. Finally, they let us go, just talking about it for a while still as we rolled the luggage train away.

Back on the bus for the remainder of the trip to Dongguan. 2 more hours. This ended with another bout of being lost in China when we really shouldn't have been. We were going to the College first, so the bus stopped at the campus... but it was the wrong campus... we had to follow a cab to the right campus. After passing through the second toll booth, one of the passengers really had to go pee... he couldn't hold it any longer... so he dashed out of the bus into the bushes... we could still see him though.... watered the shrubbery.... and reentered the bus to much cheering.

After finally reaching out destination, the conference was started. Then we broke for lunch...

Lunch number 1:

This first real Chinese meal in China consisted many things:
*a broth probably chicken
*boiled chicken legs... including the feet
*fried chicken top half... including the head
*squid tentacles probably fried or sauteed
*fried eggplant in a sauce
*hollow vegetable leaves (I was told they don't have a name in english)
*something that resembled spinach
*Fruits in a sour/sweet cream (cantaloupe, watermelon, and tomatoes)
*steamed rolls with a sweet thick sauce
*boiled fish (whole, with the head still attached)
*many other dishes I can't remember at the moment.
These dishes were all served on a rotating saucer 3/4 the size of the table, so everyone could try everything. One of the conference attendees tried the chicken head. It was very interesting. I can say that eggplant is wonderful.

Checking in again:
So the second hotel is about 35 US dollars a night... 256rmb. This room is much more spacious and it appears to be a better room all around than the one in Hong Kong... but of course, it's not in Hong Kong, so it is much cheaper. I get the impression that this city doesn't get a whole lot of foreigners visiting. Some can speak English well, but they all appear to stare a lot. They are very very nice. I haven't had anyone be rude or mean in any way. It's quite refreshing. This room even comes with breakfast every morning for free... the one in Hong Kong didn't. it was about 168 HK dollars for breakfast in Hong Kong... about 25 USD.... and here it's free. Very nice.

So that's a summary of the first two days of China...