St. Patrick’s Day, Lantau Geocaching Power Trail, and Update

St Patrick’s Day was an interesting experience in Hong Kong. I wore green during the day, and my celebration started at 2 pm by going to the bar on campus to have a beer with some 100% Irish people from actual Ireland. Unlike in the US where people just talk about their Irish ancestors these people were actually Irish, so my small fraction of irish wasn’t very impressive.

After all of my classes were done I met up with some other people and painted my face green in preperation for going out. After some Irish singing in one of the residence halls we eventually left for Wan Chai to go to Delaney’s Irish Pub.  On our trip on the MTR we got lots of weird looks because we were a bunch of non-Asians in all green with green face paint, and green wigs, and the occasional Irish song being sung. It was pretty entertaining.

When we arrived in Wan Chai it was interesting that the closer we got to the bar the more green we saw, and when we finally arrived the place was packed with all expats in green drinking Guinness. It was fun being able to celebrate in an Irish Pub, especially because it was odd that this Irish celebration was taking place in a former British Colony in China.

Two days later, on Saturday, Peter Lofgren and I participated in a geocaching even on Lantau Island. I had found it through the HK Geocaching Facebook group. We met at the MTR station on Lantau Island and then took the bus to the fishing village of Tai-O. From that point we set out on a hike back to our meeting point at the MTR.  There were around 20 geocaches along the trail and all of them were very close to the trail. It was fun to meet a group of local geocachers and share stories. The trail was very scenic, but a relatively easy hike. It ran right along the water and the side of a mountain. Sadly it was cloudy/rainy so it wasn’t as scenic as it might be on a sunny day. It was very interesting to talk to the locals about their careers and life in Hong Kong. I got to see a cool former British fort and add a number of caches to my count. Peter and I were getting tired though so we left the group and came back to campus a bit earlier than the group was finished.

Outside of adventures the past few weeks I have spent a lot of time just chilling on campus and hanging out with other exchange students. I have had a number of Midterms that all went well, but they are all over now. I am really enjoying my Chinese Political History class, it is giving me a good perspective on how good a job the CCP does at staying in power. They are very smart and deliberate in their actions. My microbiology lab class is interesting right now because we are doing an unknown project where we are given three unknown species and then through a series of chemical tests we determine what species they are from a list of options. Our group finished a week early so I will get a week off from that class before our two test that we have. Something annoying about that class right now is that the professor accused all of us of cheating (which I didn’t) on a lab report and gave us all zeros and will be making the final harder. He told this to the class in a 10 minute discussion that he thought was “too important to say in English” though so I really don’t know what happened, beyond what my lab partner summarized for me. Its annoying but oh well, since I am pass/fail it really doesn’t matter.

I am sad that I am more than half way done with my exchange. It has been an amazing experience so far. Meeting people from all over the world and getting to travel to many exciting places and experiencing Hong Kong.  One thing I want to focus on in my remaining time is more of the natural aspect of the places I go. I have spent a lot of time in the human made parts of Asia, modern cities and ancient architecture in cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei and Hong Kong. I want to experience more of the aspects that are not human made.  I accomplished some of this exploration this weekend but I will describe that in a later post after I describe my trip to Shanghai.

Future plans for the semester:

Homestay in a Mainland Chinese student’s home

Trip to Kuala Lampur, Singapore and possibly Indonesia

Trip to Guilin/Beijing/Bangkok with my mom at the end of May.

Exploring more of Hong Kong

            Museums, hiking trails, boat trip, Lamma Island, Monkey Hill, back to Repulse bay

            Ocean Park/Disneyland

Where I have been map: Red is places I have lived, Green is places I want, Blue is places I have been.

Zoom in on China area for better detail, the rest of the world isn't really relevant.

Hints for Travelers

This is a general post that I will update about things that other exchange students/travelers might want to consider.

-Get an octopus card as soon as possible. Everything is done with it. You use it for the mtr, and the buses, and can use it to pay at many restaurants and stores. Also if you are a student you can get a card that allows you to get half off on the MTR. To get one just go to an MTR station. If you lose your octopus report it as soon as you can.

-If you don't have a lot of baggage and you have time there is one way to the airport that is really cheap. A taxi will cost ~300 from campus and taking the Airport Express on the MTR costs 60. For 18 (student price, less than 30 for not). You can take the bus from campus to Mong Kok, where you then take the MTR to Tung Chung, at that point you take the S1 bus the airport. It can also be done in reverse.

-When you want to get back to campus in a cab the say Fo dai. I don't know how to convey the tones but that will probably work. Fo dai is the abbreviation for Fo gay dai hoe (not correct pinyin), which means university of science and technology in cantonese.

-Sim cards are really cheap, sometime you actually get more value than you paid for. For example pay $55 and get $60 worth of minutes.

-If you are tired of chinese food and Mcdonalds being your only options SoHo in central has many options from all cultures

-When packing for getting here/once you get here you may want to buy a mattress pad because the beds aren't very thick, and for sure you will want blanket because it can get cold at night. These can be purchased close to campus at Taste in Hung Hau, or at Ikea in Kowloon Tong.

-if you are at a market everything should be bargained for. Usually it is a safe bet to start at 1/4 to 1/3 of the price they give you to start at. Walking away when you don't want their price usually works well to bring it down because they will come after you.

-Use the lift advisor when trying to find your classes. A lot of the floors don't connect, so while you may think you are on the right floor you really would have to go back to the ground floor and take a different elevator.

-Use zuji.com for flights instead of kayak. Kayak seems to suck for Asia.

-Flying out of Shenzhen might be cheaper than Hong Kong and you can take the MTR there for 30 HKD.

-If you can, get a Charles Schwaub Card before leaving. I am in the process of doing it now. They refund you all ATM fees.

-Avoid exchanging cash for cash, instead withdraw with your ATM card you will get a better rate.

-Don't pay your residence fee in Travelers Checks they only cause problems because they confuse people

-Get a multi-entry chinese visa before leaving. In the US they cost the same as 1 or 2 entry visas. Once in Hong Kong you can get a visa but only double entry. It is much nicer to be able to go in and out whenever.

-If you do the Singapore/Kuala Lumpur trip many exchange student do, I would recommend taking the bus between the cities. It is cheaper and only takes 6 hours. With the time of getting to the airport and going through security and such it ends up being pretty even, especially since the Kuala Lumpur airport is 70 km away from the actual city.

-If you want to go to the Patronas Towers in KL wake up really early because tickets sell out like in the first hour, and people start waiting more than an hour before they go on sale.

-Use sites like ctrip.com and zuji.hk and airasia.com to book flights, kayak isn't cheap for Asia.

-If you are interested in finding nice Hostels in Beijing, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Taipei, Bangkok, or Phuket, contact me.

-In both Beijing and Shanghai you can't return your metro cards at the airport, so if you want your deposit and remaining value return them elsewhere.

-You can't return your personalized student octopus at the Hong Kong airport (you can others) so make sure you do it before hand.

-If you have to check-in in Terminal 2 of Hong Kong airport, know that there are actually no flights out of that terminal and you have to take one or two train rides to your actual gate, so budget a little extra time.

-For cheap taxi rides at a flat rate, call Dennis Taxi 9739-1363. He speaks english and will get a driver to pick you up almost anywhere and doesn't charge luggage fees.

Ladies market, LKF, Exploration

The past two weeks have been pretty uneventful. Last Monday I went in search of a Green Bay Packers jersey at a street market that  another exchange student had gotten one before the Super Bowl. I arrived there, and stepped out of the MTR into the middle of a bustling street market. The shops cover up most of the road, leaving little room to walk. I fought through the crowd in search of the jersey. After passing many electronics and lingerie shops (sometimes both in one), I eventually found a shop, but they seemed to have every type of jersey except for the Packers. I could have bought multiple Brett Favre Vikings jerseys (boo!) and many soccer jerseys, but no packers jerseys. I shall return however. While at the market I convinced myself that I needed a real bow tie (which I then learned how to tie), a “kick-ass” pair of chopsticks Adam Kern had requested, and a case to protect my iPod. Something I am considering buying is a pair of Dr. Dre Beats. By their starting price (600 HKD), they are obviously fake (real price $250 USD), but I am confident that if I bargain with them enough I can get the price lower, especially if I tell them I know they’re fake. Then I will try them out, and as long as they have good sound quality I may buy them.

Street nearby Ladies Market (people get angry if you take pictures of their stalls)

On Thursday, I went out clubbing with a bunch of the other exchange students. Our first stop was to Mr Wongs, which I don’t remember if I have described, but is all you can eat and drink for 40 or 50 HKD (depending on what Mr Tree Ball Wong feels), which Mr Wong brings out to you. Afterward we headed to LKF where we bargained for cover into a club, which was fun. My group told the guy that I didn’t want to spend any more than 160 HKD and they wouldn’t go in unless I could, so we eventually got that price which included cover and drinks until 4 am. Sometime during the night, I lost my octopus card, which was annoying but I only lost the deposit (50) after I reported it missing.

Friday I woke up late and eventually got some food, and after went to see the movie 127 hours. I like seeing movies in Hong Kong, they have Chinese subtitles, and I get to practice my character recognition. They also don’t have ads before hand, so they start right on time. If I visit Thailand I want to go to a movie, because supposedly they play the national anthem before the movie, and you have to stand up to respect the king.

On Saturday, Peter and I went down to Tsim Sha Tsui to go to some museums. We bought a 6 month student pass to see all of the museums in Hong Kong for 25 HKD, and then headed to the Space Museum. The space museum was very disappointing, especially after visiting the Space Museum in Washington DC. The best part was some “rides” including a spinning chair controlled by a spinning gyro. Afterward we took the ferry across the harbor, and got a good view of the skyline. In central, we went on a search for Mexican food, which we eventually found in SOHO. The food wasn’t spectacular, but it was better than constant Chinese food. We also got to see one of the longest covered escalators in the world, which rises from sea-level half way up the side of Victoria Peak to the mid-levels. I had forgotten my camera, so no pictures :(.

MTR on a different day

At 8 pm we took the MTR back to TST to watch Symphony of the Lights, which is a light show accompanied by music that is put on over Victoria Harbor. The show wasn’t very exciting, but it is something that everyone that comes to Hong Kong should see once, mostly because the view of the skyline over the water is amazing at night. The coolest part of the show was some powerful green lasers on top of all the tall buildings. 

Taipei Part 2

Sunday was the last day for some of our group because they had to be back by Monday. Finally, it was sunny out, so a few of the other people and I went back to Taipei 101 to finally experience it when there was a view. When we finally got up to the observation area the view was very cool. We could see out over the entire city including the mountains to the east. We even got to go up to the outdoor observation deck. It was very windy and because of that they only had some of the roof open. This wind is the main reason for the dampener. Without the dampener the building would start to sway uncontrollably from the wind.

After Taipei 101 those of us that had a flight left for the airport. I headed to a nearby town of Dan Shui by myself because everyone else was too tired. Very conveniently, the MRT took me right there. Dan Shui is a town on the coast of Taiwan. I spent most of the afternoon exploring the town. They had a cool riverside market that had lots of locals enjoying the day. I tried some very interesting seashell snacks. A bunch of small shells are cooked in a mixture of spices and tasty sauce. To eat the shells you put it in your mouth and then suck the meet out, so you get to taste from the shell and the meat inside.

Tree I was sure had the Geocache

I also attempted to Geocache but without a  GPS I was unsuccessful, oh well. I did get to enjoy a very scenic sunset over the ocean.

After sunset I headed back to downtown to meet up with the lazy people. We met at a mall to go to a restaurant called Din Tai Fung. It is a very good restaurant with locations throughout the world, but their original restaurant is in Taipei. We ate some very good dim sum food. After dinner it was late so we headed back to the hostel.

Monday morning, our last day there, Rens and I headed to the Taipei zoo. Just like everything else in Taipei it was reachable by the MRT. This zoo is probably the best zoo I have been to in Asia.  All of the enclosures were high quality and the animals 

were in much better conditions that the other zoos I have seen. The location in the mountainous area was also very cool. Sadly though we didn’t have much time at the zoo because we had to catch our flight back to Hong Kong, so shortly after we headed back to the hostel to collect our baggage and head for the airport.

INSERT PIC

Instead of using the bus we had used to get from the airport we chose to use another form of transportation, high speed rail. This is a very fast train (350 km/h) that goes from one end of Taiwan in 2 hours. The train was very cool, very comfortable and very fast. Oddly though the train station in Taoyuan is not very close to the airport, but thankfully they have an easy shuttle bus to the airport.

Zoo animals

We waited for awhile in the airport for our flight and then got on the flight to head back to Hong Kong. The flight was even better than the flight there. If your seat is in the first 33 rows you essentially get business class seats but for no additional cost. I got an almost fully reclining chair with a footrest and of course meal service for the short flight. So if you get the chance fly EVA air.

High Speed Train

Overall Taipei was very cool. I liked the group of people I traveled with and I enjoyed the activities we did. I really like the culture in Taiwan. It is very orderly and nice. I also like that I was able to start to use my Mandarin skills and was able to pick out words in people’s conversations, or do things like ask someone how much something costs (Zhe ge doushou qian?). One thing that I was disappointed about was I didn’t get a chance to explore the more natural parts of Taiwan that are south of Taipei. If I ever get a chance to return I think I would go explore the mountainous areas to the south that are easily reachable using the high speed rail. 

Taipei Part 1

This installment will be in two parts so that I can take a writing break but you can still read. 

From March 11-14 a group of exchange guys and I took a trip to Taipei. Most of us were on slightly different flights getting there, but my choice of flight was perfect. The time made it so I missed no class, but still arrived on Thursday evening. I also found my new favorite airline, EVA air. For the 1.5 hour flight we got a meal, entertainment center, and free drinks of any type. And it wasn’t terribly expensive either.

Upon arrival to Taiwan we got the very warming welcome of “Federal legisislation requires that we announce that smuggling of drugs or weapons into Taiwan carries an automatic sentence of capital punishment.” I knew I should have left the heroin and rocket launchers in Hong Kong!

Immigration, as always was simple, and then we went and bought bus tickets from the Airport to our hostel. Taipei’s international airport isn’t actually in Taipei it is in a nearby city of Taoyuan which is about 45 minutes away by bus. This bus would have been fine, except they didn’t announce stops and we ended up taking it too far and had to take a taxi to our hostel.  The taxi drive was interesting because the driver drove us through some very narrow alleys with things such as bicyles and cars making the alley even skinnier, but eventually we made it to our hostel.

Taipei is well known for its clubs so after getting settled we headed out to explore. The club we wanted to go to was in the base of Taipei 101, which is currently the second tallest building in the world (soon to be surpassed in Shanghai). It was very foggy so the top of Taipei 101 was not visible at all. The original club we were going to told us they were closed for a private event, which was disappointing (they might have just turned us away because we had no girls), so we went to another club. This one was interesting mostly because they had censored music, which is odd in a nightclub but oh well.

Waiting Line

Something that was nice though in this club and it was also apparent in daily life in Taipei was the well organized way people go about their lifes. People lined up to get drinks at the bar rather than a mad fight for counter space. In Taipei’s equivalent of the MTR (the MRT) people also line up and actually wait for people to get off the train before boarding, it was so nice. They also are very good on escalators of not blocking the walking half of the escalator, much better than Hong Kong or the US.

After the flight, I was a little tired so I didn’t stay out too late, and eventually me and most of the other people headed back to our hostel and went to bed in preperation for an early wake up to explore the city of Taipei.

Sun Yat Sen

Guard (Blogger won't let me rotate)

The next morning we woke up relatively early and headed out for Taipei 101 which was a 15 minute walk from our hostel. When we got there though it was pretty cloudy so we decided to wait for another day and instead headed for the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall. Dr. Yat Sen was the leader of the the revolution against the imperial rulers in 1911 and founder of the Republic of China. The hall was pretty cool, it was mostly a history museum, but also included a giant statue of Dr. Yat Sen that was guarded. We got to watch a changing of the guards ceremony as well, it was pretty similar to the one at the Tomb on the Unknown soldier in DC, slightly less regimented though.

Bit of a history break here. In 1911 Dr. Sun Yat Sen led a revolution against the Qing Dynasty of Imperial China. The newly formed Republic of China existed until 1949 when the Chinese Communist Party overthrew the government (the ROC allowing them to exist caused this, which is why the CCP does not allow other political parties).  The leader of the ROC , Chiang Kai-Shek, and some of his followers along with most of the cultural relics of China fled to the island of Taiwan. Now the People’s Republic of China ruled by the CCP is in power in China. The official stance of the government of Taiwan is that they still have power over all of mainland China because the CCP didn’t take over following the rules. The CCP thinks that the ROC is an illegitimate government. Because of China’s position and power in the UN and world politics their stance on this keeps Taiwan from being recognized as a legitimate country. Taiwan is not a member of the UN, and China will cut relations with any country that does recognize Taiwan. This leads to signs  in China such as in Shanghai’s airport there is a line for International travelers and a line for Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan travelers.

Ok back to the day. The next destination was the Chiang Kai-Shek  Memorial. The entire park is very cool and an interesting modern feeling to traditional Chinese architecture.  Sadly it had been raining for most of the afternoon so the memorial area was not as scenic as it might be sometimes.

CKS Memorial

After the memorial we ate at an excellent Hot Pot restaurant. It was all you can eat restaurant that was excellent. It had hotpot and ice cream and soda and lots of good food, seafood and other meats.  Worth every penny!

After dinner we headed back to the hostel and then got ready to go to a club called LUXY. LUXY is a very popular club in Taipei and is world renowned from what I have been told. They have three dance floors and bars stage performances by a group of girls who probably never have to buy their own drinks. The bars were very cool with lots of cool lasers and lights. The first room once getting into the club was also very cool. It was a room full of lasers very similar to a Bond movie. After being at the club for awhile some of us headed back to the hostel, while others stayed much later.

Saturday, those of us who didn’t stay later at the club woke up and headed back to Taipei 101 for a second try. The sky seemed clearer so we bought our tickets for the elevator, the fastest elevator in the world. When we were purchasing the tickets they warned us that the view was not very good, what we were surprised of though was when we got to the top it wasn’t that there wasn’t a very good view it was that there was NO view.  We could see absolutely nothing, which was very disappointing. We did get to see the giant Harmonic Dampener that keeps the building from falling down.

View  from the top

Dampener

After coming back down from the observatory we met back up with the rest of our group and headed to the National Palace Museum using the MRT. This museum has most of the best Chinese artifacts in the world that the ROC took from the mainland on their retreat. It wasn’t all that incredibly exciting to me because it was mostly just better versions of many artifacts I had already seen in Beijing, but still cool.

After the Palace we went to an outdoor spa that is heated by the active volcanoes in Taiwan. They had different levels of heat but I mostly stuck to the lowest level of hot. Something that was odd was that when we wanted to wash the sulfur smelling water off of us we had to take a very cold shower. We were in a place with 90 degree celcius water available but the tap water was unheated, very strange. No pictures were allowed so you can just imagine lots of old people sitting in a giant hot tub made of stone.

After the spa we headed to a Longshan Temple where I got to try practicing Buddhist worship. I sacrificed some Pringles and burned some incense while wishing for good fortune.

Afterwards we took a taxi to Shilin night market. It was crazy. Multiple blocks of stores full of absolutely everything. Food, Trinkets, Cats and Dogs, Shirts, plus restaurants and carnival games. I bought a glass statue that was made right in front of me. It was very cool. It glows in the dark as well.  It is the best market I have been to so far.

Puppies

The night ended with us taking the MRT back to our hostel and then some of us went to a different club, but I was tired and not wanting to pay an expensive cover fee so did not join.             

Guangzhou/Shenzhen

So I am muliple weeks behind in the blog, and I am going to catch up this weekend.

Four weeks ago, I went with a group of exchange students to Shenzhen and Guangzhou in Mainland china. We took the very convenient MTR to Shenzhen on Friday night. In Shenzhen, after getting ripped off getting a bus to take us less than a mile it seemed, we arrived at the spa we were staying at that night. After eating dinner nearby, we went in and started our spa experience.

Cultural KFC and Mcdonalds

After showering and getting into some “fancy” robes we got foot treatments including cutting our toenails with a razor blade, which was cool. Then we arranged for a 2 hour massage.  As far as massages go this one was not the best. My person spent way more time on my right leg than my left, making me feel unbalanced, and talked on her phone for some of it.   It was interesting because we had 3 people in a room. Our massueses spoke very little english and we spoke very little mandarin so there were two separate conversations going. They did call Matt “Beautiful” though.  We then got to sleep on the massage beds for the night. The next morning when we checked out it turned out that the entire total cost was 168 yuan! Awesome deal. Somehow we found out what our masseuses made an hour and it turned out they don’t make enough in a day to afford the MTR ride to Hong Kong, which is a little depressing.

After checking out we went to the rail station where we bought tickets for going to Guangzhou. While we were waiting for the train we went to the Lo Wu shopping center that I had been at before. Although I didn’t really intend on purchasing anything, I ended up getting a fake soccer jersey and fake beats by Dr. Dre. Surprisingly the headphones still work and are of decent quality. I am sure they aren’t US$250 quality (their real price) but they are defintely worth what I paid for them.

After shopping we took the train to Guangzhou, which is the third largest city in China. The train went over 200 km/h so we made it there in about an hour. Upon arrival though we had to take a very long taxi ride from downtown to the hostel we were staying at, and upon arrival we weren’t really in a touristy type of mood. So we walked around the general area of the hostel and found a restaurant that was obsessed with Mao. They had Mao clocks, and posters, and pretty much everything. Kinda creepy. Throughout the trip and especially at meals it was really nice that we had someone who speaks Mandarin with us, because he could order for us and translate. Thanks Alex. After dinner we explored some of Guangzhou’s nightlife along the pearl river and then called it a night.

The next morning we went to see one temple just to do something cultural. I am getting a little tired of Chinese temples and this one wasn’t terribly spectacular. Although a large city Guangzhou doesn’t really have much for sights besides the Pearl river and temples. It also has a very high observation deck, but it was foggy and we weren’t really interested in seeing more tall buildings since there are plenty in Hong Kong.

Temple

Fast Train

After eating at the completely cultural, Papa Murphy’s we took the train back to Guangzhou and the MTR back to Campus. 

Downtown

Something I had yet to do in my time in Hong Kong was go to the most popular destination, seeing the skyline of Hong Kong and Kowloon and going up to the peak of Mt. Victoria. I had been waiting for a nice clear day to go and this day that finally arrived, so as soon as I finished classes I took the MTR to Kowloon where after taking a few pictures from Avenue of Stars, which is a deck that runs along the Harbor, I got on the Star Ferry to cross the harbor.

View from Ferry

 

Cool Buildings seen from Hong Kong Park

Central Skyline. Triangle building is Bank of China, Tall building is IFC II

After walking around Central for a while, including going to Hong Kong Park, and taking lots of pictures of the cool buildings. I was ready to take the Peak Tram up to the top of the peak. The Peak Tram is a rail line that connects the top of the peak to mid-levels and was made so people living at the top had easy access to the bottom. Unfortunately for me, my journey was during the one week of the year where it is closed for maintenance; thankfully I can go back. Instead, I took the bus up the mountain, which takes a lot longer. In the end this cancelation ended up working in my favor. On the bus I sat next to a white guy, who looked American/Canadian. Eventually we started talking and had a good conversation about travel throughout the region. He was a professor at Rutgers and was in charge of their study abroad program. He even taught a class on Skyscrapers there, at the top we ended up separating because I wanted to go to the top of the Peak Tower to watch the sunset, and he had already been.

I went up to the top of the Peak Tower and watched the sunset and then did some homework while I waited for the light show to start at 8 pm. The light show was pretty unexciting, especially because they didn’t play the accompanying music. The only cool part was that I could see that there were buildings pretty far away from the harbor that still participated. After the show was over I walked back down to the bottom of the mountain using the trail. It was a very long walk that ended in the mid-levels where I got a chance to photograph the escalator.

Sunset

View at night.

Midlevels Escalator

When I got home I looked up the guy I had met on google, because we had not exchanged contact information. I found him on Rutger’s website, his name is Seth Gopin. And he is a pretty neat guy. He is a French knight, and was once the official voice of the Tibetan government in exile to the US. I sent him an email, and surprisingly to me he responded rather quickly, and we arranged to meet up the next day to walk around Central and then go to dinner.

 The next day after classes were over, I took the MTR to Central and met Seth in the lobby of the Bank of China building. We got passes to go to the 42^nd floor of the building, and took then went up and took some pictures from above. Afterwards we walked around the city looking at the buildings, and he explained to me the architecture behind them.  It was very neat. There is a lot about the buildings that I would have never noticed. And he knew interesting history, like that the Bank of China building is so not Feng Shui that some people wanted to tear it down when it was originally built.

Notice the reflections everywhere. This creates the opposite effect as a vanishing point.

View from inside Bank of China building

After exploring we walked to his favorite restaurant, which serves Sichuan food. All of the food we ordered was fantastic, it was probably one of the tastiest meals I have ever eaten. The dishes were spicy, but the coolest thing is the effect of the Sichuan pepper corns. Sichuan peppers have a mild topical anesthetic in them, so they make your mouth numb when you eat them, which turns into a tingling feeling in your mouth. It almost feels like spicy but not really and it goes away after awhile. It was a cool experience. I hope to stay in touch with Seth in the future.

Excellent Sichuan Dish. You have to dig through it to find the part you eat.