I can’t figure out this past February. It’s like Katy Perry is playing Hot N Cold on repeat. While Shenzhen/Hong Kong isn’t getting the extreme cold and massive amounts of snow my home state of Minnesota is this winter, it has had extreme mood swings. The weather’s been hot or cold, wet or dry, clean or polluted. Correspondingly I’ve been busy or bored, sick or well, energized or exhausted, motivated or lazy. Nothing in between. This antithetical February has left me feeling disoriented and groundless. Nonetheless, here’s my attempt at a recap of this month.
Lunar New Year
Xīn Nián Kuaì Lè! (新年快乐!) Happy New Year! February 4-6 marked the beginning of the lunar year of the pig. Apparently this is the year to get rich, unless you succumb to laziness or clumsiness. Nearly everyone in China has a week off to go back to their hometowns and spend time with their family. Our bustling neighborhood of Xili in Shenzhen became a ghost town. The street by our apartment is usually packed with people but at the beginning of the month there was literally no one. It felt so strange to walk around with no worries of getting hit by e-bikes or navigating around people on their phones. Nearly everything was closed. Throughout the month, our neighborhood slowly came back to life, with a few people returning home every day. By the end of the month the streets were bustling with people yet again.
We had wanted to use our free plane tickets from Hong Kong to Manila during the Lunar New Year but because millions of Chinese people were flooding all the planes, trains, and automobiles, the airline wouldn’t let us use them. Thus, we found ourselves in a deserted city for the biggest holiday of the year.
Sicknesses
Immediately upon returning to Shenzhen from our January travels in Thailand, we both got food poisoning. This was our first serious bout of food poisoning. For three days we did nothing but stay close to our bathroom and our bed. I ordered all of the Pepto Bismol online that I could find (it wasn’t in the pharmacy) and due to the Lunar New Year holiday, it arrived two weeks later. I’m not sick very often, but for some reason I also caught not one but TWO colds in this short month! Uhg!
Hiking 50km of the MacLehose Trail
Since we didn’t go to the Philippines, we decided to go on a multi-day hike in Hong Kong. The MacLehose Trail is 100km long (62 miles), starting on the eastern coast of the New Territories and ending on the western coast. It is divided into 10 sections, each roughly 10km long. We had hiked 1.5 sections of the trail last spring, which is how we first discovered it. Our goal was to hike the first half of the trail: 50km.
The trail is most commonly hiked as several day hikes, with few people exclusively camping on the trail. Being different, we wanted to camp on the trail. Day hikers and overnight hikers have different needs, which made it difficult for us to find information about trail water sources. We did ask this guy about water sources; however, the streams he mentioned were bone dry since it was February. So, we had to rely on plumbed water sources. Toilet locations are often listed on maps, but the distinction between flush toilets and outhouses is never made. Eventually, we figured out that bathrooms near a bus stop or a major road usually had running water. Before we figured this out, we were each carrying 3 liters of water (we filled up whenever we could) in the event that we had a long stretch without water (e.g., overnight). Water is heavy! Even though we were pretty minimalist and have a lot of ultralight gear, our packs were super heavy due to the water.
The MacLehose trail’s terrain varies with each section. The first section is a paved road along the rim of the High Island Reservoir. While the scenery was beautiful, walking along the road was not pleasant as taxis and minibuses constantly were whizzing past us.
The second section took us off the road and onto a paved path that brought us up our first peak, down to the beach, and along the coast. The views of the beaches were fantastic and I loved waking up to the beach sunrise.
The third section was brutal. It finally had an unpaved path but we were either climbing straight up for several kilometers or straight down for several kilometers all day long. When we finally finished this section, we were practically crawling into the campground, which of course was crowded with families celebrating the Lunar New Year. In fact, we were so tired after this section that we went back home for a few days before returning to the trail.
The fourth section was my favorite. This one is also rated one of the most difficult sections of the entire trail, but I really enjoyed the variety of terrain. While we climbed up and down a couple of peaks (with the option of climbing many others), we also walked through a bamboo forest, along the ridge of the mountains through a paragliding party, and finally in a forest next to streams with water.
Along our hike we saw a ton of cows. They all belonged to local farmers, but their pasture was our hiking trail. Our first campsite was littered with stinky cow pies. A couple cows visited us during dinner that first night, one of them begged Martin for some of our ramen noodles even. By our third day on the trail, we had seen so many cows, we stopped taking their photos. While we didn’t see any monkeys, I did see a porcupine our last night on the trail. After that sighting, we decided to hang our food from a tree overnight.
The first three days of hiking was over the Lunar New Year, so the trail was super crowded with groups of people. Some groups were trail running clubs, others were extended families wheeling carts of camping equipment, and others were couples out for an energizing day hike. The campsites were never full but were always crowded.
Our last campsite wasn’t actually a campsite, but instead a barbecue area in a wooded park next to a flowing stream. Unfortunately, there is a 28km stretch of trail without a campsite, which is why we ended up there. We were the only people camping there. It was so peaceful to sit in the woods on the doorstep of one of the biggest cities in the world: Hong Kong.
In the morning, the barbecue area became a busy community gathering space filled with retirees out for their morning walk, stretches, and gossip. Oh, how I wished I could speak Cantonese!
Vegetarian Food Festival
We returned to Hong Kong again on the 24th of February for a vegetarian food festival in the center of the city. We took the high speed train to Hong Kong, and from there walked 20 minutes to the wrong bus station. Hong Kong navigation is never as easy as it first appears. After much ado, we arrived at the festival exhausted and starving.
Even though the festival was small and a little crowded, I had fun getting inspired by ingredients. I watched a food demo (in Cantonese), bought tempeh (I can never find this!) and some vegan salted caramel sauce (what a treat!).
My Brother’s Birthday
To celebrate what would have been my brother’s 36th birthday, I didn’t make Ben Bars – although my mom did, of course. Instead, after the vegetarian food festival, we went out to eat at Beef and Liberty – an American burger restaurant (oh, the irony). My veggie beet burger was delicious, but the dish that won the prize was the Impossible Burger Chili Cheeze Fries – Vegan. Even my brother would have loved them.
Working and Studying Again
Martin began work two days after we finished our MacLehose hiking adventure. My spring semester classes started the last week of February. While my teaching load is a little light this semester, the schedule is completely different from last semester. I love having a routine, and I feel very chaotic since I have yet to get used to the changes.
The last two weeks of February were spent looking toward the future. My goal is to have most of my lessons planning completed by the end of next week so that when I begin my master’s degree program, I’ll have time to devote to it. As a result, all my free time has been consumed with lesson planning.
Amazingly, on the last day of February, I paid my tuition for my master’s program. This is no small feat as a Chinese ID is needed for most international transfers originating in China. What a relief that this has been taken care of!
February By the Numbers
- 21 – days in Shenzhen
- 7 – days in Hong Kong
- 14 – English classes taught (24 hours)
- 2 – Chinese lessons taken
- 359,618 – steps walked
- 1 – book read: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (amazing)
Nice photos. Have you not experienced an empty Shenzen Chinese New Year before?
It should happen every year I believe / Håkan in Sweden
Good point. Lunar New year does happen every year. 😂 We were in Shenzhen our first year living here (2017) and it was quiet then too but we lived in a different neighborhood and I had to work during the holiday so it didn’t feel so deserted. Last year we went back to the States.