Back from China

Just recently returned from a week in Hong Kong and Shanghai. I love to travel, but organizing a trip like this for an elected official is very stressful! I am so happy and relieved to be home. Don't get me wrong, I felt very fortunate and grateful to get to visit Asia, but I had very little free time. Well, I did have time to do a little sightseeing in Hong Kong.

This is a photo I took from the sky terrace up on Victoria Peak, one of the highest points on Hong Kong island. This is just a small portion of the thousands of skyscrapers and highrise apartment buildings in HK. It's beautiful and a bit overwhelming! It was really hot and humid there - about 90 degrees every day and it never got cold at night. I also took the ferry across Victoria Harbor to the Kowloon side, to see the view of HK island, where I was staying. Unfortunately, the air pollution was really bad and it was hard to see buildings that were right across the harbor. Sad. The next day I took a city bus across the island to Stanley Market, a well-known market where tourists go to buy cheap souvenirs and trinkets. I was a little disappointed in the market. It wasn't as big as I thought it would be and the bargains weren't all that great either. I didn't see much worth buying. The bus ride over there was the best part of the journey. It was nice to get to see more of the island than just high rises, although they are everywhere, including in the beach resorts near Stanley.

After 4.5 days in Hong Kong, we took off for Shanghai, a 2.5 hour flight north. Shanghai is an even bigger city than Hong Kong, with anywhere from 16 to 20 million people, depending who you ask. It's just a huge, modern mega-city with miles and miles of new skyscrapers and high rise condo buildings, but mixed in with a lot of older buildings too. Shanghai is more China than Hong Kong, but I was told that the rest of China is really nothing like Shanghai. I had zero time to shop and sightsee in Shanghai but I did get a few photos from my hotel, from a super tall office building, and from the riverfront where we stopped one day for an ice cream break. A highlight in Shanghai was taking the super-fast MagLev train from downtown to the airport. The train, one of the fastest in the world, hits a top speed of 430 km/hour. That's 267 mph! The distance to the airport is 30 km, and the trip took about 7 minutes. It was pretty amazing to speed through the city that fast.

So, I'm really glad that I had the opportunity to visit Asia and see some of China, but I'm not sure if I would go back on my own. Hong Kong and Shanghai are not that different from any other modern big city, like New York. Plus, China's such a long trip! I think I'll travel closer to home for a while.