A Hong Kong Visit

We went to Hong Kong last weekend. It was a two-hour airplane ride to get there.  Although Hong Kong is included in China, the city used to be a British colony. It was returned to China in 1997 and since then, Hong Kong has been a Special administrative region of the People's Republic of China.  This means the city is under a different law/system from mainland China. 

 For example,  the money is different: Hong Kong uses Hong Kong dollars, Mainland China uses Yuan.

These are the Hong Kong dollar bills.

These are Chinese Yuan bills.

In mainland China, the government controls what people read and watch. For example, many books in English are banned and internet access is limited.  But Hong Kong is not under this policy. So, we could access to internet sites such as YouTube, Google, and Facebook, and I could buy a couple of books, about China in English, which I have never seen
in Mainland China.

There are more differences particularly because of the British influence. People in Hong Kong speak Cantonese, which is a different Chinese language from Mandarin.  Mandarin is spoken in most places in Mainland China. Also Hong Kongers (also called Hong Kongese) can speak English very well. People drive on the other side of the road from the Mainland and the U.S. The drivers in the cars sit on the right side of the cars.

Did you know there is a Disneyland in Hong Kong?  This was the first time in Jay's life that he had been to Disneyland, so he was very excited. But as soon as we arrived there, Jay got sick and he couldn't ride many of the attractions...Too bad.  We managed to see the parade and fireworks. Jay had a good time...

  

The next day Jay felt even worse so we remained in the hotel room and we couldn't go into the city of Hong Kong. We will go back in the future..M

One last look at our room...

As we prepare to end the school year, I took one nostalgic video of our classroom before we move to our new building.  It has changed a little from April,as all good rooms should do, to reflect the ever growing progress of kids.

It was a learning experience as I used my camera phone and the system burped an unhappy burp when I tried to mail it to my home PC.  It is a truncated video but should still provide some entertainment value.

Hot Pot and Sichuan Opera

The area we live in is famous for its hot cuisine. One of the popular
cuisine is a hot pot. There are many " 火鍋”(means " fire pot" )
restaurants in Chengdu.  There is a pot in the middle of table and you
put whatever you choose such as meat, chicken, fish and
vegetable,(literally, whatever!)  into boiling broth and you eat as
they cook.

You can choose a broth base, hot chili pepper, chicken, beef, and fish
head, etc. We ordered “Red pepper oil" and white base. We have young
children so kids eat white broth base, which is not hot. As you can
see, "Red pepper oil" is beef base broth with very spicy chili oil and
hot pepper floating! We ordered slice beef, sausage, backchoy, Chinese
cabbage, mushrooms, ground shrimp, etc.

The restaurant is famous for its show as well as its hotpot. Sichuan
is known of the opera.  And one of the operas has "face changing "
man.  We could enjoy this wonderful face changing man while we were
eating the hot pot.  Jay could see the man who changed his faces many
times in front of him. But we don't know how the man did!! Literally
the man could change his face/masks while you are blinking! I heard
it's a national secret and our Chinese friend who took us there even
didn't know how to do!! It's simply entertaining!!

Panda Breeding Center

We finally made a trip to the Panda breeding research center.

We were told that we needed to be there at 9 am in the morning at the reservation, when the Pandas would be fed. At that time, the pandas are most active and after breakfast, they tend to take naps or go back to a building where all the air conditionings are on if it's hot.

So, Jay and his brother woke up early and we arrived before the pandas’ breakfast time.

Do you know what pandas eat?

Bamboo or bamboo shoots are 99% of the diet of giant pandas. So, this place has a lot of bamboo. But I learned that they eat 20-40 kg of bamboo or 50 kg of bamboo shoots every day so the research base buys bamboo from a nearby bamboo farm and the bamboo in the research base is just to supplement if they need more. The pandas in this research center also eat apples, and steamed panda bread (which include a lot of vitamins)

The digestive tract of giant panda is very short; food doesn't stay in the digestive tract for a long time. Therefore their absorbed nutrition is low. Most herbivorous animals can digest 80% of their food while the giant pandas digests less than 17% of their food.

Wild pandas spend 16 hours per day looking for, and eat bamboo, captive pandas spend generally 10-12 hours (50 % of each day) to eat.

We could see pandas being very active, playing with each other and eat bamboo with both hands.

This is panda poop! Depending on the kind of bamboo they eat, the color is different. This is one of kinds. Each adult giant panda produces 10-20 kg every day. The research center turns "the waste" into wealth such as paper and art and crafts by recycling these poops!

There are red pandas as well. Jay saw 22 pandas that day!

Dear Class, 

This is a picture of me by the pool at the Yacht Club. I am visiting my grandparents in Springfield, Illinois  because it is my Grandma's 70th Birthday. Springfield is the capital city of Illinois and also where Abraham Lincoln (our 16th president) grew up. 

We got pictures taken on Monday morning of our cousins, families, and our family. It has been super hot and sunny here during our trip. It has been 90F over most of the weekend. We went swimming every day. My cousins names are Will, Carter, Brandon and Charlie. I love it here in Springfield. 

News from Japanese Kindergarten class

We had a rainy day today but we still had recess outside.  We performed in the assembly this morning, "Chicken Soup with Rice - September through June".  Charlotte's mom came in last week and we made Calder Mobiles; we also saw a play "The Very Hungry Caterpillar".  We are going to the Tilth Garden tomorrow. 

Transportation in China

Today we would like to talk about transportation in China.

 

There is one subway line which opened last year and goes north and south in the city. Three more subway lines are under construction throughout the city now. It's still not really convenient to go many places by subway. So people ride bicycles, scooters, electric rickshaws, buses, taxis, and personal cars when they go places.  Imagine, there are 14 million people living in the city so there are so many of those vehicles on the roads. Bicyles are more for daily transportation than recreation, as they are in America.  People ride bicycles to go grocery shopping. Many of the bicycles have electric motors like scooters so you don't have to pedal.  We use taxis a lot since they are convenient and cheap.  The first meter starts at 8 yuan (1.3 dollars). Taxis in Chengdu are green.

 

In America, almost every household has a car or two. But not in China. Having your own car is still a luxury.  Because driving is very difficult in China, many foreign companies make their employees use Chinese drivers.  We will have our own car and a Chinese driver.  In China, we are not allowed to drive with and international driver's license and it's also quite a different way to drive from the States. If you don't know how to drive in the Chinese way, it's very dangerous to do so.

In major cities in China, there are big concerns about air pollution. In our city, Chengdu, it's a big concern also. As an effort to reduce carbon dioxide, private cars are only able to drive 6 days a week on certain roads. The day the car is not allowed to drive is determined by the license plate.

 

In China, cars seem to have priority on the road--not like in America or other countries. We need to be very, very careful to cross the road even if we have a green sign and we are crossing a pedestrian cross walk.  The cars will not stop for pedestrians.  Instead, they will beep their horns and continue driving at us! We are the ones who have to avoid being hit by cars. The most scary thing of all are the scooters and bicyles because they sometimes drive in pedestian roads and we can't hear when they are approaching from the back because of their electric motors.  

 

   Here is a photo which shows a scooter, a bicycle and a car, all driving on a pedestrian path (sidewalk). 

 

 

Here are some pictures which show the many kinds of vehicles.  

It's almost an art to put so many things on a bicycle.

 

    This man has his own shop on his rickshaw!

 

 

 

    This is a little taxi. It can be seat two people inside.

 

 

 

 

    This is Jay's school bus! 

 

 

    It's a busy place!