Hong Kong
The next day was another travel day. The plan was to fly from Nanchang to Guangzhou and then take a "bullet train" (in quotes because it wasn't fast at all, just a regular train) to Hong Kong where we would call for the hotel shuttle to come pick us up.

After some confusion on my part about where the shuttle would pick us up and finally paying a "cab" way too much money to drive us, we arrived at our hotel. Yay!

HK felt like such a relief after mainland China: no more "great firewall of China" so we could access the internet, all the signs are in English, no more crazy traffic. HK is just really easy.

The plan for the first day was to go to the Big Buddha at Ngong Ping. I think you can take a bus there but the fun way to do it is to take the cable car. They have two kinds a standard one and the "crystal cabin" which is basically the same thing I guess except the floor is glass so you can see down. Georgie chose the crystal cabin so off we went! Its a beautiful 25 minute ride that travels above the ocean and up over the hilltops. G was thrilled!

Getting up to the Big Buddha (Tian Tan Buddha) requires a walk of 268 steps. By this point in the trip we were like... STEPS!! More steps?? But, it was worth it :-)  After spending a few hours poking around, having a snack and trinket shopping we decided to call it a day with a simple dinner at Pizza Hut!! Like most American restaurants in China the food was somewhat similar but the experience not quite the same. The pizza was pretty great though!

This is about 5-10 mins into the ride. The cable car started way down at those buildings on the right. So neat!

Georgie got really excited when she saw the Buddha.

we were looking around and all of a sudden this random cow came walking past. I'm not sure where it came from and I'm not sure where it was going. There was no one around but the cow didn't seem at all confused.

I cannot even begin to describe how hot it was. I think it was like 95 degrees with what felt like 100% humidity. So sweaty. Every time we came across one of the a/c units we were so thankful.

This is one of my favorite, not Georgie, pix from the whole trip!

haha!

That's one really big Buddha :-)

So many steps!

Georgie's informal photo session. She's such a ham!

There was a whole store of Lucky Cat stuff. Georgie spent FOREVER in there. She was in heaven.

The views were beautiful.

some of the more interesting Pizza Hut offerings: hot dog with peanut butter toast?? wings, fries and peanut butter toast? this isn't the kids menu either.

The view from our hotel window. You'd think being SO close to the airport it would be noisy but we couldn't hear a thing.

 

Kicking it around Nanchang:
Nanchang isn't a tourist destination. There's not a lot of sightseeing to be done but that doesn't mean we couldn't make the most of what is there. Part of the newer construction along the river is The Star of Nanchang which is a huge ferris wheel. I don't remember it being there in 2008 but apparently is was built in 2006 and cost over $7 million US. Our guide said that for a short time it was the largest ferris wheel in the world but that now it...s the third largest behind the new one in Las Vegas and one in Singapore. Its 525 feet tall (80 feet larger than the London Eye), holds up to 480 passengers and takes about 30 mins to make one rotation. As soon as Georgie saw it her eyes got huge!! and she said "I want to go on THAT!"

It really was pretty cool! The view was awesome!

Our next stop was Tengwang Pavillion. We went there in 2008 and recalled it being a pretty and peaceful spot. The outside looked ok but they're doing a pretty extensive remodel of the inside so it was all torn apart. Plus, by this point in the trip we'd climbed an awful lot of stairs and seen an awful lot of old Chinese buildings. The views were still nice and, on the top level, there was a breeze so it was somewhat of a relief from the intense heat.

From there we took the short walk over to the Gloria Hotel where we stayed almost 7 years ago. Its not the greatest hotel in the world but it will always hold a place in my heart. It was there that on December 7, 2008, we were given the most wonderful gift in the world when Georgie was placed in our arms <3 p="">
She smiled as we walked up the circular staircase from the lobby to the conference room while I told her the story of when we met.

Besides the ferris wheel, Georgie had one more thing she wanted to do in Nanchang; she wanted to get a foot massage :-) She'd heard me talking about the $8 foot massages I guess and it sounded fun to her. So the three of us headed over to the famous Nanchang foot massage place. Other than it now being $12, its pretty much the same experience. I wasn't really sure what Georgie was going to think of it but, no worries, she loved it!!! A couple of minutes in she started giggling which made us giggle which made the guide giggle... I'm sure we were a sight!

We attempted to purchase some porcelain (Jiangxi province is where porcelain was first created) but the long string of shops that used to be there apparently aren't anymore and we were so hot we lost motivation and decided to skip it.

The Star of Nanchang

all those dark grey buildings behind Bobby's head were under construction. Entire cities are being raised in just a couple years. Crazy.

Tengwang Pavilion

See the ferris wheel? Its big!

The ceiling of the pavilion is really pretty

Mosaic inside the temple

NO pick or trample
NO smoking
NO pets
NO watering the plants yourself or maybe that's spitting?
:-)

The stairway where I first saw Georgie's beautiful face in person

Bobby and I were excited to finally get some of the delicious Nanchang eggplant that we remembered from our first trip. This time not spicy, for Georgie.

At the massage place dramatically proclaiming the lukewarm water "too hot"

Georgie loved her neck massage!

These were sculptures were in a sad little gallery area. It probably used to be nice but no more

I liked this one... its a copy of something famous I think but I can't place it???