Where
was I?? (a continuing saga of poorly drawn maps)
When I last updated this blog with
stories from my travels, we had just left Laos.
The map below shows our flights from Vientiane, Laos to Bali in red and
includes our layover in Kuala Lumpur that was long enough for us to see the
Petronas Towers (discussed below), and attempt to sleep in a hot and sweaty
hostel.
Unable to find a suitable hostel
in Macau, we decided to pull an all-nighter in the casino (probably the worst
idea we made all trip) before taking a boat over to Hong Kong where we would
finish our trip. This boat ride is
depicted below in red.
After four days in Hong Kong, it
was time to return to Yanji to begin our second semester as English teachers,
so we flew back via Beijing. These
flights are shown in green on the above and below maps.
Three Things I’m thinking about This Week:
A Story About Pants
On my last night in Yanji before
the trip, I opened up Christmas presents from my family. While the presents had been sitting for
nearly a week since Christmas (and probably two weeks before that), I had been
waiting to open them until my family received the gifts I had sent them. However, mail delivery takes a long time from
this side of the world (as any of you that have seen my postcards can attest
to), and when it came time for me to leave Yanji for two months my gifts had
not yet arrived in Northbrook.
So there I was, two months ago,
Skyping Northbrook and opening the gifts that were incredibly thoughtful. I got season 4 of How I Met Your Mother, a travel towel that I would use on the
following trip, a second pair of gloves because (as I have written at length)
it was really cold in Harbin. My brother
gave me a Wisconsin scarf, and I also received two pairs of sweatpants.
Because I had already packed my
bag for the trip, I didn’t bring the pants with me, but the first pants I went
to wear when I got back this weekend were the pants I had received for
Christmas. The first pair were Notre
Dame pajama pants (which I am actually wearing as I type this), and they are
excellent.
The second pair were Chicago
Bears sweatpants, and they were strange.
When I first put these pants on a
couple days ago, I became annoyed with the fact that they didn’t have
pockets. While I have running shorts
without pockets that I deal with, I’ve never worn a pair of pants without
pockets. Assuming that I would only
really be wearing them around the apartment, I went ahead and put them on.
Once I put on this pair of pants,
however, things became even stranger.
Now I’m aware that I am a thin person, but these pants could not stay
around my waist at all. I thought this
was odd because even though they were enormous around the waist and hip region,
they were an almost perfect length.
These pants must have been bought at one of those Big and Tall stores or
something. I would probably need to wear
them with suspenders.
Luckily, they had a drawstring
around the waist, and I pulled it tight and tied them in. This might have been a weird pair of pants,
but the material was incredibly comfortable and I wanted to find a way to make
them work. When I tied them up at the
waist however, I noticed that the waist area was strangely narrow. Curious to see what was wrong with these
pants, I went to my wastebasket and picked up the tag I had removed
earlier. The tag said they were medium,
so I guess they should be fine.
Later that night, Gavin and I
went to dinner at our favorite downstairs restaurant and I noticed that the
pants were kind of sliding down my backside.
I’ve never really thought about my ass as something that is there to
hold up my pants, but with this bizarro pair of pants I almost had to keep my
butt out just so they stayed up.
After dinner, I went to use the
restroom and realized that the pants had no fly on them. Again, I’ve worn athletic shorts that have no
fly on them, but those shorts also stayed up on their own. These pants had a highly sophisticated knot
tied along the front to keep them from only falling down as far as my ass. So as I stood there in the bathroom untying
my pants it hit me:
Are these women’s pants?
After I got the knot undone, and
after I had relieved myself, I looked at the tag that was actually attached to
the pants, and sure enough it had the word Women’s in white letters across it. As comfortable as they were, I promptly went
to my room and put on the Notre Dame Pajamas.
I don’t know which one of my
family members gave me these pants, and if they were trying to make some
strange joke that I just don’t understand; but I assume that I won’t be able to
return them when I get back stateside this summer, so I might just be regifting
these pants next Christmas.
Tall, Taller, Not Quite Tallest
Over the course of the past two
months I’ve visited 2.5 major international cities (Hong Kong, Shanghai, and
Kuala Lumpur) as well as the amazing airport of one (Singapore, but I’ll save
that story for later), and seen a lot of tall buildings in each of them.
Having grown up relatively close
to Chicago* I have a small obsession with skyscrapers. This obsession manifests itself by
spontaneously Googling the phrase ‘Chicago Spire’ every so often just to see if
any progress has been made with the building that will put Chicago back on the
map (no progress has been made) and occasionally perusing the pages of
Wikipedia detailing the tallest skyscrapers in the world.
*In my last three years at Notre Dame I refused to say I was from
Chicago. I’m from NORTHBROOK, not
Chicago. While I was travelling,
however, I lied and told people that I’m from Chicago. I’m sorry if I deceived anybody.
My obsession with skyscrapers has
caused me to sometimes be confused while visiting cities whose central area
does not include them (London, Paris, Beijing) because when I think of cities,
I think of skyscrapers. Luckily for me,
many Asian leaders feel the same way, so I was treated with views of some
awesome skyscrapers. Here are my
thoughts of a few:
Shanghai World Financial
Center: Shanghai, China
The thing about the Shanghai
Skyline (at least the Pudong side) is that while it is pretty sparse, this
building is actually enormous. While it
doesn’t look that way from the other side of the river, standing next to this
building I could tell that it was tall.
What I didn’t realize was that it is actually the 3rd tallest
in the world.
Jin Mao Tower: Shanghai, China
I think part of the reason this
building doesn’t look as impressive is because it stands right beside the much
taller one I just wrote about. However,
this tower is actually the 11th tallest in the world, and somewhat
deserving of that measure (although some of that does come from the
spire). We had drinks at the ritzy bar
on top of it, drinks that were far too pricy.
The Petronas Towers: Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia
In 1998, I was an 11 year old in
Northbrook when I heard that my beloved Sears Tower was no longer considered to
be the tallest building in the world and that some twin towers in Malaysia had
taken the new title. At the time I
probably couldn’t even point out Malaysia on a map, let alone comprehend the
idea that one day I would stand in front of these towers and exclaim out loud
how they are definitely not taller than the Sears.
The fact that these buildings are
5th and 6th tallest in the world is a crime against
humanity, and their mere 88 stories are proof of that. While they might look cool, call me
unimpressed.
International Commerce Center:
Kowloon, Hong Kong
I spent far too much time inside
this building than I should have spent (more on that at a later date), but it
is spectacularly beautiful and clean.
The exterior also looks great, but the problem is that I never got a
good look at it from afar. This building
is actually across the inlet from Hong Kong Island and not part of the
beautiful skyline of the city. It really
is a shame because the building has yet to get the credit it deserves as the 4th
tallest building in the world.
Two International Finance
Center: Hong Kong
I’m fairly certain that Batman
stood atop this building before he flew across the Hong Kong sky and kidnapped
Lau in The Dark Knight. Any building that Batman stands on top of
(like the Sears Tower) is fine by me.
This one is so tall (12th in the world) that I have pictures
across from it where the top is shrouded in fog.
Central Plaza: Hong Kong
This building suffers mainly
because the Hong Kong skyline is so massive; it is difficult to get a good
picture of. For this reason, you can’t
really stand across from the skyline and get a picture of this building and
it’s two more famous friends. It is
still a decent building though. (16th
tallest in the world)
Bank of China Tower: Hong Kong
Probably one of the more famous
buildings in Hong Kong, even if it isn’t the tallest, it is probably the
coolest looking. I’m also fairly certain
that Batman crashed through the windows of this building in The Dark Knight, so
I think it’s even cooler. (17th
tallest in the world).
One Note on Lost
While I was travelling, I met
many people that came from various parts of the world. Because it takes some level of wealth to be
able to travel around the world (although not that much) we can assume that
none of these people came from poor beginnings.
One thing I noticed was that no matter what country they were from, they
all spoke some level of English.
This got me thinking about Lost, and about the characters of Sun
and Jin. While I can accept that Jin
came from poverty and would only understand Korean, it makes no sense that Sun
wouldn’t have been taking English lessons for her entire life. If we are to believe that her family is one
of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Korea, then it would only make
sense that Sun would have an excellent education that not only would have
included English instruction, but probably studies in an English speaking
country.
The fact that Sun doesn’t learn
English until she takes sketchy lessons with some guy she is hooking up with is
probably the most unbelievable aspect of the show. I can accept crazy smoke monsters that turn
into humans, frozen donkey wheels that move people through time, and even
parallel universes; but the fact that Sun doesn’t speak English from a young
age is more ridiculous than any of these things.
One
Meal Worth Mentioning
While we were still in Bali I
realized that in Macau we would be able to get some Portuguese food. At the time I wasn’t entirely sure what
Portuguese food entailed, so I decided that there was one person I knew that I could
ask. My sister had just been to Lisbon
(which, unlike Macau, is actually within the country of Portugal) so I sent her
a message asking what kind of Portuguese food we should get. She responded by telling me that when she was
in Portugal, she actually didn’t eat any Portuguese food.
When we arrived in Macau a couple
days later, I was determined to eat a Portuguese dinner just so that I would be
able to outdo my sister that was actually in Portugal.
My Portuguese dinner included an
appetizer of Portuguese sausage, which was excellent; and a main dish of
Portuguese-style beef which was also very good.
While I wish I could do a better job of describing these things, there
was nothing all that unique about them.
It seemed like a lot of thinly cut steak like you could get in
America. It was great, however.
Beers of Note:
Bintang
In Bali, the beer of choice is
Bintang, and while it is almost as ubiquitous as Beerlao was in Laos, it
doesn’t quite have as large of a stranglehold on the market. There are so many westerners in Bali that
imports like Heineken and Guinness can be found in most convenience
stores. While Bintang is a satisfactory
beer (especially to get drunk off of); I didn’t like it as much as Beerlao.
Storm
Apparently the only microbrewed
beer on the island of Bali, I found this in Ubud and really enjoyed it. The pale ale reminded me a lot of Sierra
Nevada, which was a welcome surprise in the middle of Indonesia. I only had it twice, however, as it was a bit
pricier than Bintang.
Brooklyn Lager
I had this on draft when I was in
New York last summer, and was so shocked when I found bottles of it at a
restaurant in Hong Kong that I had to drink some. While this is a solid beer, it is more
notable for me because it exemplifies
the fact that you really can get anything in Hong Kong.
Quotations of the Week:
“Hopefully it will be cloudy so
that it will be nice out.” –A crazy girl hoping for a lack of sun so that it
isn’t as hot in Indonesia
Picture of the Week:
This is a picture of me in front
of part of the Hong Kong skyline. Like
New York, Hong Kong has an incredibly long skyline and it really isn’t possible
to get it all in one picture. Just above
my head you can see Two International Finance Center (as discussed above), and
the taller, more futuristic building to the left is the Bank of China Tower.
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