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[reysim]

Monday May 19/ 2025

Today we left Hong Kong and headed home. Since the OB School was located remotely, we had to take two buses and three trains across the new territories that would take a couple of hours to reach the airport. We sat in the lounge for a few hours before boarding and had our last Chinese meal for some time. The coffee was good and Simon had a small beer.

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Friday, Saturday, Sunday May 16 , 17,18 / 2025

Friday morning, we had a tour of the centre.

Three days of Simon’s talks and not much to do except going out for dinner. We had Chinese, Indian, and Mexican/pizza with beer in the nearby town of Sai Kung, famous for its seafood. We walked to waterfront at night and marvelled at the many tanks of fish, crabs, and shells cascading in front of the restaurants. We saw the temple dedicated to the sea goddess, where fishermen ask for blessing before heading out to fish.

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Thursday May15/2025

This morning, we visited a traditional market, walked the length of the Shanghai shopping Street, stopping at the Jade market, and side-tripping to several other markets. Finally, we took a detour around Kowloon Park back to our hotel.

In the afternoon, we checked-out of our hotel and transferred to the Outward Bound school by a combination of subway, bus, and taxi. The trip took a couple of hours because the school is located far from the city in the outer new territories.

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Wednesday May14/2025

We took the subway from Kowloon to Hong Kong island and walked through a few shopping alleyways on our way to the central market. We took the mid-central hillside escalator system (a combination of three inclined movalators and more than a dozen steep escalators going up the side of the mountain) to Jamia Mosque. We saw a school group studying at the mosque and then walked to the botanical gardens and zoo, where we saw a variety of birds and mammals. After the orchid greenhouses, we went into Hong Kong Park and visited the Museum of Teaware at Flagstaff House.

Next, we took an express minibus to the top of Victoria Peak. It was an old green roof bus but comfortable enough. After looking around for a few hours, we took a double-decker bus back to the subway system. We sat on top to have a better view of the city with the most skyscrapers in the world going down. Then we took a subway train to our hotel.

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Tuesday May13/ 2025

After a breakfast latte at Starbucks, we walked through Kowloon Park (an open oasis in the middle of city congestion) and along the waterfront to the ferry terminal and beyond. We had the same view as last night, but in daylight. We stopped at the rebuilt time ball, where a ball was dropped (the new year’s ball drop comes from this) at a particular time of day (noon or one o’clock) for mariners to set their ship chronometers before leaving port. We returned to the hotel, via a side trip to the original time ball tower on signal hill.

We met a friend’s family for dim sum vegan lunch and then went to Hong Kong island for further sightseeing. At Man Wa Lane, I bought a chop: a stone stamp carved with my name in traditional Chinese characters. After I selected my piece (with a carved lion on top for my zodiac sign) I had to wait a couple of hours for it to be custom carved. During this time of waiting, we explored Man Mo Temple and Cat Street: an antique district lined with shops with a flea market in the intersecting alleyways.

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Monday May12/2025

After a relaxed breakfast, we packed and took a taxi to the airport. Our flight to Hong Kong left at 2:00 pm and arrived at 7:00 pm. We went through Immigration with no hiccups. Then we took a one hour bus to our hotel.

Before we called it a day, we went for an evening stroll in Kowloon, along the boardwalk beside Victoria Harbour and took lots of pictures across the water of Hong Kong lit up at night.

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Sunday May 11/2025

Today was our sole sightseeing day in Singapore before we fly to Hong Kong tomorrow. We took a taxi to the closest metro station and the subway to Gardens on the Bay. We walked to the cloud forest and desert blooms greenhouses with amazing architecture. We followed this with a stroll through the Supertrees: live plants on an artificial frame around cooling towers. We took a break from the heat by stopping inside the famous Sands Hotel, where we stayed ten years ago. It’s the one with three towers joined by a forested infinity pool deck across the top of all three looking like a piece of Stonehenge.

Then we walked around the marina boardwalk to reach the Merlion: a fish/wildcat mashup statue that spouts water into the harbour. Next we crossed two of the old bridges over the river, near city hall and the Victoria theatre, followed by a stroll along the riverwalk. The riverwalk used to be a collection of restaurants, but has now morphed into bars with happy hour drink specials. On our way to the cathedral, we side tracked to see a famous roof garden, and ended up at Raffles Hotel and its Long Bar, where the Singapore Sling was invented. You can get one for $41 (on par with the Canadian dollar)!

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Saturday May 10/ 2025

I have nothing to say because I stayed at the hotel while simon was holding his talk on campus. I watched TV, because for the first time in our trip, I found a channel that speaks English.

We went to Simon’s friend’s son for dinner. We had a lovely time and enjoyed the food and company

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Friday May 9/ 2025

During our flight through the night, we weren’t able to get much sleep. We arrived in Singapore at 7:30 am. Immigration was all digital, so we went through fast and easy. Simon had his talk at the University at 10:00 am. So we took a taxi there, had breakfast, showered and changed before everybody’s arrival.

It was a long day for both of us. We got to our hotel at 6:00 pm and crashed. We got up for breakfast 12 hours later.

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Thursdays May 8/2025

On the morning of our last day in Xian, we stayed inside the city walls and visited the homes of two communist party generals, both were instrumental in ending the Civil War in China against the nationalist party of Chang Kai-Shek. They unified in order to stop the invasion of Japan, who had already conquered Taiwan and Korea, prior to the start of World War II, and saw China as vulnerable, due to its inner turmoil. However, after the Japanese were defeated, the communist party took over and the nationalist party was exiled to Taiwan after World War II.

In the afternoon, still within the city walls, we walked around Lianhu Park and visited Guangren Sen Ri: one of the oldest Tibetan temples for Buddhism outside of Tibet. Compared to other Buddhist temples we have been in, this one was incredibly peaceful and calm with an abundance of prayer flags and gold-covered icons, Buddhas, and rooftops. Every corner of this complex was picturesque. We found ourselves watching people in fascination.

It was raining hard by the time we were leaving our hotel in the evening. We called a taxi to the metro and with a couple of transfers, we got to the airport in couple of hours.

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Wednesday May 7 /2025

Today we took the subway south of the City Wall to a couple of museums and a couple of pagodas. The latter made from brick and clay. The famous Shaanxi (province) History Museum always has crowds, but we got there early enough to have short waiting lines. After this we visited the Large Wild Goose Pagoda and then backtracked by subway to the Xian (city) Museum. Next, we transited through the Small Wild Goose Pagoda to catch the subway back to our hotel. Both museums were free for tickets and rated among the best in China, but were very disappointing due to mostly static displays without much explanation in English or Chinese characters.

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Tuesday May 6/ 2025

We got up early to beat the crowds at the Terracotta warriors, located way out of town. These were an army sculpted to protect the first emperor of this region in the afterlife.

First we took a subway to the main train station, where we failed to find the right bus. Instead we took a taxi for a hour on the expressway. After getting tickets, we visited Pit 1, with thousands of clay soldiers, each one a replica of a real life soldier 2200 years ago. Next in Pit 3, we saw the command structure and in Pit 2 recent excavations of the cavalry. Finally in the museum, Simon wanted to show me the bronze chariots and bronze horses, but since he was last here 20 years ago, these had been moved to the mausoleum site.

So we jumped on a shuttle bus to Mount Lishan: the hill the emperor was buried under. At this site, we took an electric minibus to a couple of museums. The bronze work was spectacular. This experience was fantastic . Now I can cross it off from my bucket list!

Everything here is a struggle in communication and exhausting in terms of walking and waiting in the sun, which takes away from the greatness of such an experience. This was the off-season and it was crowded with national tourists. We only saw half a dozen international tourists.

We took a taxi to the nearest subway station to get back to the hotel. It took us an hour on a subway and then a 15 minute walk.

[reysim]

Monday May 5/2025

After having breakfast at Starbucks, we headed to Daming Palace Heritage Park. We changed our train twice and walked along a stream to the ticket center. It was free for seniors. But we paid for a mini bus ride that we could hop off of and back on. It was a very dull museum except there were beautiful sculptures outside it.

We also stopped at the Palace Gate Museum, where the Silk Road passed through, as well as an ecological and archeological museum. After a couple more subway legs, we visited the Silk Road Western Market Museum. This was the starting point for the Silk Road to the Mediterranean. There was silk art show from Chinese silk artist. It was closed but they opened the door for us. We met the artist as well as her beautiful works.

In the evening, I was going for foot massage but they were closed.

Simon had burger for dinner and I had fries.

[reysim]

Sunday May 4/ 2025

This morning, we walked to the Drum Tower and then the Bell Tower followed by breakfast at Starbucks. Then we walked through a series of tunnels full of shops and several markets to arrive at the Beilin Museum: a forest of stele. A stele is a stone panel inscribed on both sides with sacred Buddhist text and sitting on top of a giant tortoise or other animal.

Next we bought our tickets and went up many stairs to the top of the wall. Unlike the Great Wall of China, the Xian wall is only 22 km long, but is wide enough to park six buses beside one another. However, there were so many people. I was pushed, stepped on, coughed on, and sneezed on! I was losing my patience, but we decided to cut it short and get back to the hotel. We stopped at McDonald’s for a late lunch.

After couple of hours of resting, we went out to see if we could buy tickets to a traditional Shaanxi opera. We got front row balcony, and I decided to dress up in traditional Chinese clothing like the hundreds of tourists. I had seen walking the streets in traditional costumes. I picked the one I liked and then sat down for an hour of hair and makeup. The talented ladies were excited to work on a tourist who wasn’t from China. They took lots of pictures with me. The hairpieces weighed a ton and the makeup was pancake flour white. They gave me jewelry, false eyelashes, temporary tattoos, and the reddest lips I’ve ever worn.

I definitely looked like one of the players in the opera and got lots of positive comments from the Chinese locals in the lineup. The opera was noisy. The usher we spoke with explained that people in this part of China yell a lot, and so this shows up in their singing. After the first hour, Simon put earplugs in!

The play was a beautiful harmony between singing, music and movements. The costumes with very long sleeves gave the actors an opportunity to speak with their movements. However, as much as I was enjoying it, I couldn’t handle the screaming and loudness of it. So we left in the middle of the show and returned my costume and hairpieces.

As we were walking back to our hotel, both towers were lit up, shining through the night. Everybody in costumes was hiring photographers to take their pictures in front of the two towers. Unfortunately, I had just returned mine!

[reysim]

Saturday May 3/ 2025

We landed in Xi’an just before 1:00 am. But we couldn’t get out of the plane because authorities had to do some kind of health inspection! O M G! They removed and quarantined four passengers. One seated near us. No other information was made available to us. Then, after a half hour delay for this, we disembarked.

Next, we went through 3 security scans and filled out 3 entry forms. But they didn’t let us go through the last step because the airline had reported the wrong information. The airline reported that our next flight was to Russia the next day, even when we showed our ongoing tickets a week later to Singapore. The officials didn’t believe us and probably thought we were Russian spies. It took us 45 minutes of waiting before the officials could confirm that we would now be allowed to continue through immigration.

Then, I was worried that I would have a problem with my fingerprints like the last entry. Thank god nothing happened.

Our hotel offered us a car pick up so we asked one of the customs officers to call the hotel for us. We wandered around the airport for another half hour trying to find the right door to exit to the pick up area. Once outside, we waited, and no car showed up, so we again tried to get someone to help us, since none of our phone apps were working. Eventually, a man showed up and took us to a huge bus and said this would take us to our hotel, but at 3 AM in the morning, we didn’t believe him and he didn’t understand our English. Luckily, a family showed up going to the same hotel. So we all got on board and ended up in the right place. The family was going to Russia the next morning! I wondered if they had been labelled as going to Singapore and had experienced the same problem as us. It is very likely that the airline transposed our respective information.

After sleeping in and checking out late from our airport hotel, we took the train system into the city centre. We enjoyed seeing several young girls and boys dressed as popular animation characters and many older teens made up in traditional costumes.

We checked into our hotel by the Muslim Quarter inside the city walls for the next five nights. Our hotel is in the busy narrow street full of street food restaurants, filled with people, tuk-tuks, and even the occasional car trying to squeeze through!

We walked to the great mosque. They let me in without ticket because I covered my hair right away and looked Islamic. Simon bought a ticket. We took lots of pictures. We walked back through the Saturday night market and narrow alleys. Vendors were selling anything and everything you could imagine. Before we got back to our hotel we had foot massages.

[reysim]

Monday April 28/ 2025 to Friday May2/ 2025

Simon had 2 days of conference and 2 days of teaching, so not much sightseeing is happening this week.

Monday :

I stayed in the hotel room today; hoping to feel better!

The conference was at the university outdoor centre from 10:00 to 5:00 pm.

I went to a late dinner with live music outside in the warm evening from 8 to 10.

Tuesday:

The heat is overwhelming here, but rain storms in the afternoons help to cool it down a little!

This morning, we were doing some sightseeing. First, I visited Starbucks for an oat milk latte. Then, we stopped at the old train station that was turned into a local street food restaurant. We stopped there for quick drinks that our driver and his friend were hungry for! Plus, they had lots of help requested questions for Simon.

Our next stop was the day market. There were lots of veggies, meat, fish, and spices. I took lots of pictures. We visited an orchid farm after. Beautiful flowers! Finally, they showed us the local hot springs in a valley by a village. It served as the community’s public baths.

Simon had to be back to the conference by 2:00 pm. So before they dropped me back at the hotel, I stopped at Mc Donalds for lunch.

Wednesday:

Simon had a workshop today and I stayed in the hotel.

That means I have nothing to report.

Thursday:

Simon was talking to students this morning, so they picked me up after and we had a tour of the university and their adventure park. We went to a money changer to get Singapore and Hong Kong dollars. We had a small veggie sandwich at subway and dinners with the university vice chancellor, deans, and faculty members.

Friday:

Simon went to the kayak regatta this morning. After relaxing in the hotel, a professional driver and car took us to the airport for our flight to Xi’an in China.

[reysim]

Sunday April 27/ 2025

This morning, we walked around the river. It was a nice breezy walk with lots of different scenery. We took lots of pictures. Our first stop was Kampong Morten: an original riverside village.

Later on, the more modern Dutch colonial houses were painted in bright colours which reminded us of islands outside of Venice!

We stopped for breakfast along the way. It took us couple of hours to get back to our hotel. We had enough time to rest and pack.

We were picked up at 1:00 pm. We had 3 hours drive to the University where Simon was speaking. On our way, we stopped at Bukit Malawati in Kuala Selangor. The site was an ancient sultan’s palace and graveyard. We took a tractor driven train to the lighthouse at the top, where hundreds of monkeys greeted us.

While we enjoyed watching the monkeys, but our most interesting observations were the human reactions to the monkeys. Fascinating! Most people were feeding them, so monkeys were climbing up and sitting on their shoulders. Some screaming and others just taking pictures.

Then we went to see fireflies. It was half an hour boat ride to where we could have seen the most. At the same time the sky was glowing with sheet lightning. I have never seen fireflies before so it was exciting. There were lots of blinking white lights along the river, whereas fireflies in North America tend to glow continuously green. The blinking white is meant to attract a mate for anevening hook up. It reminded me of blinking lights on Christmas trees. Sort of magic!

Then we drove another hour towards our hotel. The road was rough with lots of potholes and speed bumps. at one point, a wild boar ran across the road directly in front of the car’s headlights. We had a very good driver, Simon’s friend Zul, that handled it gracefully without hitting the animal. It was a full day for me since I wasn’t feeling a hundred percent yet.