Giving new meaning to Peripatetic

Peripatetic – One who walks from place to place; an itinerant.

There’s something amazing about travel that one can place feet on two continents and stretch until home is where sleep is found tonight. This year has been the year of travel; I didn’t realize exactly how much travel until Glenn mentioned that he limits himself to 70 days of travel a year. That of course sounded like a lot to me so I went and added up how many days I’ve been on the road. What I found startled me, because I’ve already been on the road 68 days this year and it’s not even October. One of my friends accused me of writing a book for my last update, so I decided to give you the cursory highlights and let you follow the links to get to the book

I posted the pictures at
http://www.char1es.net/gallery/asia/
and if the extended entry isn’t enough for you, you can check out the real book at http://www.char1es.net/guide.html

The trip went something like this, 20 hours on planes, Hong Kong, Macau, Hong Kong, Shanghai Hong Kong, Macau, Hong Kong, 20 hours on planes. Recover from Jet Lag.

The one story that best summarizes this trip is my last evening in Macau–fun with friends, good food, a lot of activities and a measure of stress. It started with meeting up with Kasu and Kristopher for dinner. They know the best restaurants and the journey is fun because it always takes a little while to figure out where we�re going to go and then actually get there. Eating in Macau is always a bit of a gamble (no pun intended) the odds are definitely stacked in your favor and in this case the wontons, noodles and dish of clams were excellent.
There are fireworks at lots of different times during the year in Macau, they actually used to make them here before safety and cost got to be an issue, this evening was the second weekend of a fireworks competition, so we got to look across the fountains at Nam Van and watch the fireworks exploding beneath the Macau Tower. Leaving after the first half we caught a standing room only bus to E.S.Kimos only to arrive late for a snack with Top Hou and Crio. Crio is making Kristopher speak to her only in English, so in that light they made me order in Cantonese. I was still running late so I went back to the center to get my stuff, say farewell to Winnie, Sarah and Coey, and hop on the back of Kasu�s scooter for a heart pounding ride to the ferry terminal. These are not big scooters maybe 60cc and smaller than my mountain bike and there I was hanging off the back with my rucksack, clinging to the tea set I’d gotten that morning.

There is more to this story but it goes beyond the scope of highlights, so you’ll have to follow the links.

Sept 3 – Day 52 – Travel to Hong Kong
The journey to Hong Kong involved catching a 9:00 AM flight from RDU to O�Hare in Chicago. This was a non event compared to the main course of 15 hours in a 747 en route to Hong Kong. 15 hours, I mean what can you say to that�? Yes please? When you add in the time shift you technically are traveling for almost 2 days even though the actual journey is only 20 some hours. I actually slept for a bit during �the Alamo� and I think that was a big help because Jet Lag was bad, but not nearly as bad as the last time I was in this part of the world. For instance I was up till 10 or 11 just about every night I was there. It was a huge blessing to be able to function from day 1. One of larger issues for me, regarding jet lag, is your stomach doesn�t like to listen to your head when it comes time for dinner so I wasn�t hungry for a few days.

Sept 5 – Day 54 – Macau
Having spent the night in Hong Kong I took advantage of jet lag to travel over to Macau at 6am. Promptly after leaving the ferry terminal I went to my favorite bakery to get a Bo Louh Bau and still arrived early enough to catch the Missionary Church Service.

Sept 7 – Day 56 – Hong Kong
I need to get my visa processed so I could go to Shanghai and I headed to Hong Kong. Seeing as I hadn�t really spent much time at all here when I flew in this was my chance to get re-acquainted with the city. I love public transportation, and Hong Kong has some of the best, the MTR is an underground train that takes you to most of the major places in Hong Kong and Kaloon. The KCR trains service the New territories and the buses go every where else. Then there�s the more interesting ways of getting around, like the trolleys the run up and down Hong Kong or the Peak Tram that is pulled by cable up the steep slope to the peak. I met Andrew Sprunger and we ended up trekking around Hong Kong for a while. He was born in Hong Kong so he knows how to get around. I’d never been to the Mid Levels before so we wandered through there. Only in Hong Kong would Buildings be built up a hill and that the sidewalks would have escalators.

Sept 11 – Day 60 – Shanghai
At the end of last summer, I told Chris Showalter I would visit in October, a year later found me visiting in September, so I was just a little late on that one. She and her husband Nate, run the Community Center in Shanghai. We visited the only English speaking protestant church in Shanghai one of the most random groups of people I�ve ever been in the midst of. This foreign passport holder service was a group of Mexican, African, European, American and Asian Christians. I�m still trying to wrap my head around it� I’m in China, I�m at a church but it doesn�t feel like anything I’ve ever been part of or heard of. Nate took me around to meet with several different people. I got to visit the Hyatt which with the lobby starting at the 53rd floor going up to the 88th floor is the highest hotel in the world. The amazing thing is there is an atrium that goes up through the center of the hotel so from the 88th floor you can stare straight down to the lobby. It�s quite a trip. The next morning, going to the other end of the spectrum, Nate and I went biking about a mile from his house and saw an agricultural community in the shadow of sky scrapers and extravagant expatriate quarters. Shanghai also has the fastest ride to airport, a maglev that goes 420km/hour, so 8 minutes and I was checking in for my ride back to Shenzhen.

Sept 14 – Day 63 – Hong Kong
Why is nothing ever simple? I just wanted a simple taxi ride from the airport to the border back into Hong Kong, but no, I have to haggle with taxi driver who just won’t give me the normal meter rate and then get sold to another taxi driver. It’s a little stressful really, but walking across the border is kind of a fun way to get back and if it saves you 800 HK, then it’s worth it. Plus as soon as you’re across you can jump on the KCR and use the wonderful Octopus card to get anywhere. I am totally fascinated by the Octopus card. It’s a magnetic smart card so just wave your bag over the sensor and you pay for your Bus, MTR, KCR, you can even buy food with it.
Glenn�s always busy but he took time out of his schedule and I got to spend a good amount of time with eating, meeting with some of the Hong Kong pastors and talking about what�s going on, and what may be.

Sept 17 – Day 66 – Macau
Glenn left for one of his trips so I went back to Macau. This time I did the food thing. The first thing I did was go to Fernando’s for Lunch. Fernando’s is one of my favorite restaurants, yes in the whole world. It’s right on the beach and you can hear the surf even if you can’t see it. They have amazing chicken and the bread, oh the bread. The evening was a special as I got to spend time with Sarah and Kasu teaching them some guitar and hearing what they’ve learned in the last year. Then the next morning I got to go shopping for a tea set with Tim. I found the best tea shop ever. It’s this hole in the wall on the west side of Macau and has been there for over 100 years. The current proprietor is at least the grandson of the original owner. Seeing as this was the food highlight trip, I went to Macau tower’s 360 buffet with Kristopher and Crio for a great lunch.

Sept 19 – Day 68 – Hong Kong and Home
You would think that with as much as I’ve been traveling getting to the airport wouldn’t be a big deal. But in this case it was one of the most stressful trips I�ve had in a while� The rundown goes something like this� Having spent the previous day in Macau I wanted to catch the 11:00pm Ferry to Hong Kong so I could catch the last MTR in Hong Kong back to Lok Fu and still get a reasonable amount of sleep. Having left E.S.Kimos and said my last good byes I jumped on the back of Kasu’s scooter with my backpack and teasets and high tailed it through the streets of Macau to the ferry terminal arriving in plenty of time. I tried to get a ticket for the 11:00 ferry but the earliest they had was 11:30 and that was for Super or 1st class. I broke down and bought it but that meant that I’d missed the last MTR from Hong Kong. Reaching Hong Kong I tried to find a bus to Lok Fu but they weren’t running at that point so I broke down and flagged down a taxi. Having reached the Apartment I realized I left my keys inside on my previous trip. So unfortunately I had to wake up Andy. Waking up early or later that morning depending on your perspective, I packed and headed to the bus stop and proceeded to catch the wrong bus, half an hour later realizing that I was on wrong bus I also realize that I was an hour and 40 minutes by bus from the Air Port� Whoops, another expensive taxi ride. But I caught the plane, or at least to Chicago. The flight from Hong Kong was delayed a bit and compounded with the fact that I had to go through customs and only had an hour layover� well I missed my plane.

In the light of my prior number of 68, 17 days in China doesn’t seem like that long of a time, but as I drove home from the airport I realized that it�s has been a long time away from Durham and now I need to settle down and work for a while.