Sunday, October 16th was Cohort 15's last day in Beijing and their transition day to Hong Kong. They'd have a presentation on doing business in China, go on a hutong tour (focusing on life in old Beijing), tour the Qing Dynasty summer palace, and then head to Hong Kong that evening.
In the background, Beijing National Stadium, also know as the Bird's Nest, from the 2008 Summer Olympics. You'll notice everyone from the Suits: Hassan, Paul, Gagan, Isaac, and Manjit, plus John who started hanging out with them during this trip. Isaac was rather annoyed with the cliques in his cohort and tried to break away from his to get to know other people. He kind of got John accepted into his group a few days in too.
After a presentation on doing business in China, the hutong tour began. A hutong is a narrow street or alley, or just the neighborhoods in general, between siheyuan (traditional courtyard residences) in the older, northern part of Beijing. Isaac and his classmates rode in pedicabs to see this part of the city. There are many videos of this part of the trip that I'll include in the video montage post later.
They visited the park and had lunch also.
After lunch they toured the Qing Dynasty Summer Palace. The Summer Palace includes palaces, lakes, gardens, and more.
The Summer Palace has more water than land and the largest body of water is Kunming Lake.
Touring the Summer Palace was the final activity in Beijing. After that they took a plane ride to Hong Kong. It wasn't too long a flight, but did get them settled in their hotel very late that night.
In Hong Kong, Isaac's class stayed at the Salisbury YMCA Hotel and had seminars every day at Hong Kong Baptist University. In Beijing they'd been almost non-stop tourists, but in Hong Kong the focus changed and the pace was not so frenetic. The most common routine was to ride a bus to HKBU in mid-morning for a seminar session.
On Monday, October 17th, the first full day in Hong Kong, the cohort listened to a seminar on Chinese Wisdom and Modern Management. Isaac found the discussion on the Chinese point of view to be fairly fascinating, but felt that the "our way is good, your way is bad" perspective was rather off-putting.
The university put on a welcome lunch for them and the food was served family-style with a big dish in the center of each table. In the dish was a chicken head.
"Was that a garnish or were you supposed to eat it?" I asked Isaac later. He wasn't totally sure, but he was not interested in having any. One guy at another table did, but no one else.
That afternoon and evening there was a sightseeing tour of Hong Kong with dinner at Victoria Peak. Everyone was adjusting to the time zone by this point and feeling more energetic.
Victoria Peak is a famous vantage point in Hong Kong. Isaac really ended up enjoying Hong Kong and loved the city lights.
No comments:
Post a Comment