Where to start, where to start…

On the flight to Beijing touch down, the pilot told us–visibility to due to pollution is 4 km. Yes, it is polluted here, however, the city is very clean.

Our backs are killing us as the beds are so hard. Welcome to China.

Yesterday was Day 1 of our tour and I’m sick as a dog. I think it was the plane food. I had an allergic reaction to something and was rough. OF COURSE, I felt horrible on the day we trekked up the Great Wall of China which was incredible and we have fantastic pictures.

Kitty and The Germ

The Great Wall

The Great Wall

The Great Wall

The Great Wall

The Great Wall

I am really surprised that Beijing beat out Toronto for the Olympics. They did a great job, but there are a few things that would have made me vote for YYZ.

First–toilet paper. Really? You have to carry it around in your purse or you are out of luck. Second–soap in a bathroom. For all the screening and forms we had to fill out about H1N1 virus, you would think the public health would be a bit more up to par. I have not been pleased.

The Great Wall was indeed great. I was worse for wear but managed to walk it. There were moments of it being vertical.

Today we went to Tiananmen Square. Interestingly, no one here has any idea about what happened. No one in China has ever seen the images of tanks rolling over students.

Military presence is EVERYWHERE and in every form. Imagine every uniform you can think of, and you’ll see it here.

Also, NO Facebook. I have the application on my BB so I kind of got around it, but the government has banned it. Of course, there is no YouTube. Yep, kitty and the germ have been CENSORED!

Here are a few details about Beijing so far…

1) babies don’t wear diapers. They have a slit in their pants, they shit on the street and hopefully their parents pick it up. I saw a man today bag shit just like you would your dog.

2) cars don’t stop for pedestrians or obey the traffic lights

3) it is crowded!

4) people smoke a lot less than what we were expecting. I heard it was super smoky, but it hasn’t been.

5) taxis are cheap cheap cheap

6) The birds nest and the Olympic stadiums were just awesome. We took a million pictures, were amazed at the architecture, had a great time

Bird’s Nest

It’s BIG

Olympic Mascots

7) The forbidden city was huge and very impressive

Forbidden City

Inside the Forbidden City

Lovely

8) I am a tourist attraction here. People are wanting to be photographed with me. Marc has a few hilarious pictures, but since we are being censored, we can’t post until later

Tourist Attraction

9) on our group tour, we are traveling the shortest amount of time. A year, 7 months, Euros are traveling machines

10) We saw the MOST amazing Kung Fu show last night. We had seen small portions of their act on the world dance competition. Fights, ballet, artistry–awesomeness

Us with the cast of the Kung Fu Show

So–We are being censored (not anymore) and can’t include pictures. More to come shortly. Off to Shanghai tomorrow.

So last night we went to the Kee Club in Hong Kong. One of the Spoke’s reciprocal clubs. Let me say–formidable. First of all, it was full of French people which of course I just ate up. The club itself was significantly smaller, with no outdoor space. The decore was a lot more Euro glam (tres francais) and the menu couldn’t have been more different. First of all, I got a menu with no prices. So French. Next, the menu only lists the ingredients of what was in the dish–not what the dish was or even a description. We had really no idea of what we were getting, how it was prepared or exactly just what we were in for. Needless to say, it was innovative and absolutely fantastic.

Soo much fun!

The club has 2 levels. We ate on the second floor. After dinner, it was 70s and 80s music. The first floor was house music. We were told that the Singapore Grand Prix was on this weekend and as a result, the club was more quiet than usual. We thought there were a lot of people.

We left at 1:30 and it was nowhere near shutting down.

Kitty & The Germ at the Kee Club

The club is in the heart of Lan Kwai Fong (the English, expat area) and when we left the club, you would have thought it was Mardi Gras. Marc thought it was Spring break in Cancun. Absolutely wild.

The streets were packed

We had such a fantastic time at the Kee Club in Hong Kong, we are now going to go to the Kee Club in Shanghai which is supposedly very different.

More on that later!

So…we’ve arrived. Despite Tempis’ valiant efforts to make us lighten our loads, (which we did) we were still way overweight at the airport check-in. To save us $200, Air Canada gave us a box that we filled with contents from our rolling duffles to get underweight. It was hilarious. The flight was long. 15.5 hours. We read, we slept, we watched movies, we ate. It was just a super long flight.

Ready to Roll

Overload

The JW Marriott where we are staying is formidable. I am also loving the fact that Marc is a gold member so our room was upgraded and we are entitled to use the executive lounge. When I was in Anchorage–last week, I was in the Marriott executive lounge and it was nothing like this. There is a hot breakfast, happy hour with a ton of booze, cheese every day, fridges stocked with Perrier, juice, cheese all day long… Rest assured we are taking full advantage.

Kitty & the Germ on the Peak

So in a nutshell, I love Hong Kong. I love that English is everywhere, the city is full of expats and glamorous, well-dressed people. There is a unique hustle and bustle of the business world, amazing architecture and shopping that rivals nothing. Needless to say, considering my bag was 20 lbs over the limit and I am living out a suitcase for the next 3 months, I haven’t looked or even thought about buying anything. I have nowhere to put it.

Hong Kong Island and Kowloon

The Hong Kong dollar is 7 to 1 USD. I, of course, have a little calculator that I am using but the Germ, monsieur calculator himself is doing all the math in his head. Quick–what is 2888 divided by 7. exactly. get me the calculator. Marc does the math in seconds in head.

Taxis here are cheap. Significantly cheaper than any other big city I have been to. The city itself is not really walker-friendly. We have been walking everywhere, but it is not that easy to find safe crosswalks, sidewalks end without notice, on occasion sidewalks are half a meter above street level and falling off is a big concern for me.

Hong Kong @ Night

The weather has been hot and humid. Without the humidex, the temperature has been in the low 30s–not factoring the humidex (which they don’t factor in). As a result, all of the nice places jack up the AC. You always have to be prepared. I am writing from the lounge where I am wearing a lulu jacket and pants and am still a bit cold.

Yesterday we went to the peak and had the most incredible view of the city. We took the tram and loved every second and took a ton of pictures. I just couldn’t stop.

Bank of China Building

Tonight we are going to the Kee Club–the Spoke’s reciprocal club. We are really looking forward to it. Sunday we are off to Beijing.

So… more days to come. It hasn’t really sunk in that this is the very start of a very long journey. Right now we are in a very Westernized city (with street names like Argyl, Johnston, and Wentworth) Culture shock has yet to set it. We are feeling quite at home.

So…officially Tempis is wonderful. I heart her so much. She saved our sorry asses tonight. We were sort of ‘packed’. We had piles of clothes overflowing in our suitcases (1 rolling duffle each). Tempis came over, spent 5 hours with us and kicked our packing buts. She busted me trying to sneak in an extra tank top and insisted that 30 pairs of underwear were far too much. ok, ok, she was totally right.

We are now packed. A few things didn’t come off of our to-do list, but alas, we have our passports and all of our visas. We are as ready as we will ever be to get the show on the road.

This morning, neither one of us had our passports. We leave tomorrow morning at 7 am. My passport was at the Brazilian embassy. I at least knew where mine was. Marc’s was somewhere en route home from the Indian embassy. OF COURSE, the embassy didn’t have a UPS tracking number. We were so hopeful it was going to arrive by courier today. I confirmed with our concierge that UPS delivers between 1 and 2 pm. We were sweating, but low and behold, Marc’s passport arrived AND I finally got my visa for Brazil.

The weather, at least for the start of our journey is going to be HOT. Hong Kong is going to be 33. eff me. I will melt. I am not a hot climate girl. We’ll see how we make out. I have packed all of the summer clothes that I didn’t get to wear this year.

This evening I actually made a reservation for New Year’s Eve. People think I am crazy when I ask them what their plans are, but it will be around the corner when we get back. Lidia finally said to me, let us get through Thanksgiving before we are talking about New Years.
Stay tuned.

In the next three months I plan to describe:
a) cuddling a tiger
b) blowing in an elephant’s trunk
c) petting a cheetah
d) hanging with a panda

it is indeed going to be globe-trotting world wildlife adventure. Only a few more hours to go!
So off we go. 15.5 hours of direct flight from YYZ to Hong Kong. We’ll see everyone on the flip slide 3 months from now.

big kisses, big purrs.
^..^ kitty and the Germ

Hi Everyone,

We are ready to go! Right in time for our departure, we managed to setup our new blog. You can subscribe to it via e-mail by selecting the link on the left or – for the techies – via RSS. Feel free to share posting or comments on Facebook and or Twitter for example.

Please register if you like to leave some comments on our site. We will try to post regularly during our honeymoon.

Enjoy,
Marc

I don’t think the reality has set in that we are going. Last night=super fun. We had an extended guest list at the Spoke, an amazing night and fantastic turnout. I love seeing my peeps and they were indeed there in droves. I wore a DVF dress that is covered in airplanes. I thought it was very thematic. I can’t imagine that I won’t be seeing most of these people until the New Year. I also can’t imagine that I am actually going to be gone for 13 weeks. Jenny C–pregnant with twins, on bedrest, made it to last night’s Bon Voyage. JoJo, just had Lily a week ago. Kelly just had Reed two weeks ago. They were all there. It was fantastic. I was so happy that they were able to be there.

My current biggest stresses are

a) Packing
Tempis is coming to help me edit once I get back from Alaska (I leave tomorrow at 6 am). I had a nice little list that I was working from, but in my usual style, I started throwing stuff in the bag. There is far too much.

b) Laundry
I can’t stop thinking about it and am very hopeful it isn’t a huge issue. Imagine coming home after a 3-week trip. You could pretty much guarantee that the first thing you do on your return is empty the entire contents of your bag into the washing machine. We would do the same, except we won’t be home for another 10 weeks.

c) Brazil
I still don’t have a visa. I could get one this week, but alas, I am in Alaska and need it.

On Monday, September 21, I will go to the embassy early. Thank God it is around the corner (Bay and Bloor–over top of the TD bank). I will give them my passport, travel documents and pray that they can turn it around in a day. If not, I will pick up my passport on Tuesday and be without a Brazillian visa. Keep in mind, I have been working on getting the visas since the end of June. Brazil has not made life easy. Marc has an EU passport and doesn’t need a visa to enter Brazil.

But really, last night’s bon voyage party at the spoke was a huge success. I hope that it is an indicator for the fabulous things to come in the next few months. Thank you to everyone who came. I felt so loved and so blessed to have THE most incredible people in my life. I am one lucky bitch.

I was really quite pleased with myself, setting this blog up without the help of my computer fancy pants special friend MFB. A few people started to contact me and wanted to know why they couldn’t add their email addresses to the ‘follow’ option. Yahoo and google accounts only. argh.

Despite my exciting independent blog plans, Marc is reworking a different blog site that will allow any email address to follow us. I will keep my sexy six followers (yay!) up to date. I suspect we will use our old school domain–www.kittyandthegerm.com I will keep everyone posted.

We leave in exactly 3 weeks. I can’t believe it. I also can’t believe that I will be in Alaska for a week before we leave. The packing is really starting to become a daunting task. My chronic lists don’t seem to be helping. I can see four lists on my desk right now.

Tempis and Big have an issue with my planned footwear and want me to rethink my choices. I am bringing 5 pairs in total. The plan right now is to bring two pairs of Taryn Rose leopard shoes. One heel, one flat. They’re fun and fancy. I am all over the animal prints–from t-shirts and earrings to shoes and scarves, I will be letting out a big roar, or at least a little purr in each country on the journey. Meeeeeeow!

We’re packing. We’re listing. We’re going.

I can’t believe that in 3 weeks, we will be gone for months. That is 13! What an adventure this is going to be. Marc, being German, of course knows many people who have done a similar journey, often for much longer duration. Me, being a Canadian knows no one who has taken such a journey. Maybe backpacking straight out of uni, but knee deep into our careers? Unheard of.

The journey? Here are some stats.
Duration: September 23-December 23.
Route:

Hong Kong
China
Vietnam
Cambodia
Thailand
India
Dubai
South Africa
Brazil

So far I have decided what shoes and books will be coming with me. That’s about it. Making our time even more crunched is the fact that I am in Alaska for work the week before we leave.

First book: Gone With the Wind I have seen the movie so many times, and bought this book from the Margaret Mitchell museum in Atlanta on my first visit to see Marc. Of course it is a big, heavy, hard cover version which I will plan to post home.

Marc is currently in Chicago getting his visa for China. I have to say, of all the embassies I have dealt with, the worst has been Brazil. Without question the most efficient has been China. Brazil has been the least helpful, the most vague, and the shortest duration. I can’t believe that the visa will expire before I arrive and no one can offer me any suggestions. I am really hopeful that I am not stuck in the San Paolo airport.