Picture of the Day: Racing at the Hong Kong Airport

Location: Hong Kong, China
 
During our trip J and I became huge fans of a strategy card game called Race for the Galaxy. (Credit to Will and Irene for the introduction.) The game has lots of replay ability and comes in a small package - just slightly bigger than a deck of poker cards. Strange as it may sound, the game provided a sense of normality to our life on the road. Nerdy, right?
 
The picture above was taken at the Hong Kong International Airport. On our way to Beijing our connecting flight in Hong Kong was delayed for 2 hours - a perfect senario where Racing saved the day! If you look closely you may even see the sillouette of a game card just dealt out by J sitting on the table.
 

Picture of the Day: What's the baby trying to tell us?

Location: Beijing, China (798 District) 
 
I didn't really like the art in the 798 District. There were lots of pictures and sculptures of contorted and grotesque-looking humans. I found the overall feel to the be pretty depressing.
 
We came across the sculpture of the baby and the tank on our way out. I was pretty amused by it, but I didn't quite understand the message it was trying to convey. Feel free to leave your own interpretations here.

Day 192: J&M 翻臉了(turns hostile)....

We arrived in Beijing 5 weeks ago as trusting, polite and honest people. Tomorrow, we leave this city guarded, suspicious and with a little less self-respect for practicing bad manners on purpose. We are so sick and tired of the dishonest and sly way of doing business here in China. Everyone and anyone who is not a friend tries to take advantage of you for even the littlest gain. 

Tonight our goal was to get back our 400 USD security deposit from our apartment manager, Mr. Huang. In the 7 months we've been traveling to countries across the world we've never had any problem getting back our security deposit, but throughout our stay in Beijing our friends have been warning us about how it's a definite possibility our apartment manager will try to swindle us out of our deposit. We are leaving early tomorrow morning and suspected that if we agreed to do the walk-through tomorrow Mr. Huang may not show up at the agreed meeting time for whatever reason hoping that we'll abandon the deposit in favor of catching our flight to London. As predicted, our meeting tonight was an epic showdown that required a lot of shouting, a bit of psychology, emergency re-enforcements on speed dial and a good cop, bad cop routine (J was the good cop; I was the bad cop.). 

The story is very interesting, but too complicated to write about here. However, I am happy to report that in the end we were victorious and got our security deposit back! As a precaution we decided not to stay in the apartment tonight in case Mr. Huang decided to hire some thugs to break into the apartment and beat us up as revenge.

If we come home with lingering ill manners picked up from Beijing, slap us straight. You'll be doing us a favor.

Current Location: Beijing, China.

Day 184: The end is set

 

After much discussion J and I solidified the end date of our RTW trip by purchasing our tickets home. Originally, we were planning to take a real week-long vacation at the end of our trip, perhaps an all-inclusive deal by the water. Instead, we decided to save J's vacation days for right before I start my job (if and when I get one). Destination front-runners had included Santorini (Greece), Maldives and Lake Como (Italy). You might be thinking how spoiled we are for not considering any of these places tempting enough when we would already be so close geographically and will probably have no better opportunity in the future. To be honest, our decision was more based on the growing feeling of homesickness and tiredness from 7 months of travel, including the past month spent in Beijing which completely broke us. In the end we decided there's no where else we'd rather be than home!

To our surprise a one-way ticket from Rome to Seattle is twice as expensive as a round-trip fare! So, we bought the round-trip fare with the intentions of ditching the return trip to Rome. However, since the return ticket to Rome connects through Atlanta, I may just hop onto that leg to visit my good friend Jadda and then come back to Seattle on a separate one-way fare! This way I'll be able to use 75% of the ticket. =) I guess I'll have to see how my job hunting effort goes before decided on whether or not I will make this trip.

Current Location: Beijing, China

Jackie Chan - singer, philanthropist and patriot

Most of the world know Jackie Chan as the Chinese actor who does all his own stunts in the Rush Hour movies. In Chinese circles he's equally known for his singing ability as much as his acting ability. I recently found out that he is also an active philanthropist and fervent Chinese patriot. 

About a week ago James and I attend his charity concert at the Bird Nest. Apparently, it was the first commercial concert to be held at the Bird Nest in celebration of China's May 1st Labor Day. It was definitely a worthwhile experience and absolutely nothing like we imagined it would be!

The event as a whole
  • Though it was advertised as a Jackie Chan concert, he mostly served as the MC of honor (if there was such an equivalent position). Amongst his duties included a 5-minute bit in the beginning where he pleaded with the audience to recycle their water bottles and another impromptu 5-minute appearance where he had to jump on stage and stall because they were having some technical difficulties with the sound equipment.
  • There is a lot of bantering between the MCs.
  • It was amusing to see clips from Harvard's Cultural Rhythms from the time Jackie Chan was the honoree. We did not see J in the clip.
The music
  • 90% of the song topics falls into these following topics: I love my country, I love my city, China is great, Charge forward!, The youth is our future
  • I discovered a Korean boy band called Super Junior. I am now on the prowl for their CD along with 14-year old Chinese girls.
Bird Nest & Concert Facilities
  • 6 circular performance stages surround a large square performance stage. Performances rotated amongst the stages.
  • The Bird Nest is too big to hold a concert. As an audience you never feel engaged.
  • Upkeep hasn't been the best.
  • No lights anywhere! We had to pee and walk down the stairs in darkness.
  • To make fog/smoke, they had people walk around the stages with pots harboring an unknown chemical reaction that made smoke. I am certain those fumes were toxic. (Check out the bottom right-hand side of Picture #6)
  • Long concession lines (50+ people deep) throughout the whole concert
  • Although it is an open-air stadium it was designed such that all the seats are actually covered from any potential weather.