China Part One

Our big trip this year was to China! We started in Hong Kong and met up with Dave and Mikelle, some friends from home.

Utah was stunning when we left it:




Hong Kong is a massive city, with endless sky scrapers. The view at night from Victoria Peak:




We took a ferry to a little fishing village on a mile-wide island. We wanted to go fishing, so we approached some people with fishing boats at the pier...but how do American tourists communicate to Chinese commercial fishermen "take us fishing for fun, we don't want to keep any of the fish?" We thought we'd communicated well, but we ended up with a 2 hour boat ride with no fishing, breathing diesel fumes. Oh well. :)

Our Captain:


At one point during the boat ride our captain took out a plastic bag with a fish steak in it, put the fish on the roof of the boat, and tossed the bag right into the sea. It was the most exciting moment of the entire boat ride because we thought he was getting bait ready for fishing, but no, just putting piece of fish on the roof.

Some of the many boats docked:


Here is an apparently disliked political figure:


Some stuff for sale at the market:
I think these are sea horses.  They're also sold at the pharmacies apparently for medicine.


Blow fish skin:


Organs.  Thanks to my anatomy class, I could identify most of them and it was pretty strange because they were about human-sized.




I also had my first encounter on this trip with the squat toilet:


There were sometimes sitting toilets too:


When we got hungry, we decided to try "Dim Sum," a popular dish among the locals. I got chicken and rice, and after picking through it a bit I found several pieces of meat that didn't look like chicken. Eventually I found one with legs! I was pretty much done with my dim sum upon that discovery!


Dave inspecting his mystery meat meal:


Todd with a mouth full of dim sum:


We went straight to a McDonalds. French fries never tasted so good!


We ended up swimming in the South China Sea- there was garbage in the water, but it was still fun.  Sorry no photos of that.

Here's one incredibly tall building (there are a lot of these)


We made it back to our hotel in one piece. Here's the tiny bathroom where you can shower, brush your teeth, and use the toilet all at once:


After a few days in Hong Kong we took a hard sleeper train to Guilin on the mainland. It was a bit tight, but we didn't care- it was fun and comfortable once we laid down!


Mikelle snoozing:


Todd and Dave played the balloon popping game on Todd's I-phone with a toddler who nearly broke the screen slamming her finger into it.  It was pretty funny.  We met several Chinese travelers that knew english and Todd stayed up late talking with one of them. 


Todd with a person he met on the train


Todd's eye: