The Journey

My apologies in blogging delays but life as been a whirlwind since we arrived in Hong Kong at midnight last Friday.

Saturday our groug gathered at 8am for a 1/2 day guided tour of the city followed by a dim sum lunch - we had probably 6 hours of sleep since we started our trip on Thursday morning - the same day of the second earthquake off the coast of Japan, our 1st destination - gulp. Fortunately, no tsunami this time and our flight departed as scheduled.

Hong Kong is fabulous!  Beautiful, colorful, clean.  We enjoyed a great tour and then walked to the harbour for a laser light show held nightly at 8pm.  We took a picture of the famous Bruce Lee statue and drove by Jackie Chan's seaside home.  So much luxury in Hong Kong - everyone was wearing an expensive label of some sort.  We noted the many similarities to our own Atlanta.  Big city, multi-cultural, teenagers in skinny jeans absorbed in the i-Phones.

Sunday we check out of our hotel and with much anticipation boarded our in China airline flight to Nanchang.  We had an 1.5 hour flight and then we would take a bus to our 5-star hotel in the heart of historic old Nanchang.  Nanchang was once the capital of China until one of the Emperor's decided to build a home in Peking, now Beijing, aka The Forbidden Palace.  Nanchang is the capital of the Jiangxi province and our Reese is from Suichuan County located 3 hours south.  Nanchang is home to 5 million people, I believe.

We landed in a remote, small airport and upon landing I head straight for the ladies room prior to immigration and come face-to-face with my first "squatty" toilet!  I was informed of this standard toilet in China years ago but was told we Americans would be warned to take care of business in advance so to avoid the encounter.  Fortunately, there was also a western toilet of the 2 available.  Unfortunately, it was occupied - for awhile... A line was forming behind me of other ladies and I waved them on to the squatty until I thought "oh what the heck." Went in, closed the door, looked at this rather intimidating porcelain-banked hole in the floor and walked right back out...I waited what felt like an eternity for the opportunity of using the western toilet and received a few snickers from the other ladies at my rather obvious objection in pursuing this Chinese experience.

So up to now, everything has been so perfunctary that it overtakes the acknowledgement of what today is really about.  We've been on the schedule of meet here, do this, hand papers over, complete more documents, stand, walk, go there- marching around like infantry under orders from a drill sargeant. 

Finally we board the bus to take us to our hotel!  I survey our surroundings on the bus ride.  Much different from Hong Kong I notice but we are 40 minutes away from Nanchang.  I see a lot of incomplete buildings.  They look like housing starts but not completed.  I saw this in Jamaica too - no big deal - and I look forward to seeing the big city of Nanchang and continue to gaze out the bus window on the Chinese landscape.  I have read so many books on China in these past 5 years and I am enjoying matching my visualizations to this reality.