City street

I almost don’t even know where to start with Hong Kong! To say that the city is amazing doesn’t come close to doing it justice. It’s entirely overstimmulating, yet completely wonderful. You know the phrase “go big or go home”? Well, that’s Hong Kong. Everything here is big – not just size wise, but everything wise. Hong Kong is only the best of the best, there’s no room for second place here. You can’t have a measly sky-scraper here, you must have the biggest, best, and boldest skyscraper with decorative and colorful lights that flash in different patterns at night! The skyline is nothing short of spectacular. I think it really must be the most beautiful skyline on the entire planet, and that alone makes it worth coming here.

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In the Old City district of Shanghai.

Shanghai is a wonderful city, though for being the most populated city in the world, it doesn’t offer a lot in terms of tourist sites to see. Shanghai is where you go to shop!  And, if I had a whole lot of money and could shop it up Sex & The City style, this is where I would come! High end boutiques line the streets with endless amounts of cashmere, silk, and anything you want tailor-made. We stayed in a lovely area called the French Concession. Just steps outside our front door we found a food cart with the world’s best steamed buns.  They made for the perfect mid-afternoon snack and cost less than 20 cents, which was perfect for us since Shanghai is significantly more expensive than Beijing and Xi’an.

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Jane and I at the Terra Cotta Warriors.

It was nice getting out of the cold of Beijing by heading to Xi’an, home of the Terra cotta Soldiers.  We travelled by train in a sleeper car overnight that had 4 beds.  I can’t say I slept all that well, the thing shook and rattled all night and the china man in the lower bunk snored.  I contemplated whether it would be rude to poke an absolute stranger to get him to stop, but I didn’t.  We made it to Xi’an without really knowing anything about it.

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I figured I would get in a word or two about Beijing.  As Jane says, the subway system makes it so easy to get around.  The city has 6 ‘rings’ of highway around it, that go out from the center.  Our hostel was within ring 2, so we were pretty close to city center.  Super cheap, but it was pretty apparent we were going on the cheap side just looking at the room.  We were definately in a back packer’s hostel.

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