Currently in the Hong Kong airport awaiting my flight to Beijing (be back here in a couple of weeks for real!).
Business finished up well in Taipei. For those of you keeping score at home this means I am now 28, unemployed, and with two degrees in computer science. Can you believe I am single?!
I am not sure the next time I will see the "beautiful island" (so named by the Portuguese... Ihla Formosa), but I suspect I will be back. In particular, I look forward to seeing Taipei 101 again. Over the course of the week I saw it in many different lights, from many different angles and in many different weathers. Its architecture is based on the segments of bamboo and it cuts quite a solitary image in the Taipei skyline. I will post my pictures soon.
Later today starts my organized tour from Beijing to Xian to Hangzhou to Wuxi to Shanghai. I have been an independent traveller for much of my time spent abroad and it will be interesting to be with a group. Most of the tour will be in Mandarin with some English translation. Hopefully my Mandarin will improve greatly.
One last thing on Mandarin... Hong Kong speaks Cantonese (a different dialect of Chinese). I tried to speak some Mandarin with the shop keepers in the airport and they gave me a very polite, but bemused look "silly foreigner"! Needless to say we switched to English and everyone was better off.
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My friends who are from Hong Kong tell me that while many people there understand Mandarin, relatively few people speak it. More and more people are getting used to hearing it from tourists, though the person you talked to at the airport may just not have expected it from you.
I found that in Hong Kong they were as likely to think I was butchering Cantonese as they were to think I was attempting Mandarin. You'll probably find that from time to time, someone decides they can't understand you before you open your mouth.
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