Hong Kong Adventure

So here is my recent trip to Hong Kong. In went to change my Chinese tourist visa into a Chinese work visa. I had to leave mainland China to do so. I know I have not posted about being in Shanghai in a while. I have literally had a post typed for a month, and I just never posted it. I will soon. But I figured I would get this one up. There are going to be a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes in this. I was going to go through and clean it up, but I am lazy. I typed 99.9 percent of this on my cell phone as I was in HK or on the airplane, or in a taxi. So, I will use that as my excuse. I will post a link to my pictures sometime (hopefully soon)

Wow... this trip to hongkong has been a roller coaster. That might not be the best way to describe it, but its something. It started off it what may be most ironic ways to start out a trip. At the airport. Yes, i know there is no irony in that, but there is a little in the fact it was the wrong airport. Shanghai has 2 airports. A domestic and an international. So, in my hubris i went to the international one. Which is the correct one to go if you are flying direct... but I had... or was supposed to have a layover in Xiamen. That makes it domestic. Well by the time i sort it out, i do not have enough time to get to the other airport. Normally it would be no bug deal. But for me, my visa expired on that particular day. Which means i had to get out of China or risk fines, jail, or not being allowed back in China.

So I had to buy another ticket with another airline. It was direct so I was supposed to get in at 6. A whole hour before my other plane would have gotten me there. Win! Except when we were on our final approach literally less then 10 mins before touch down the engines spool up and we start to get high. We had been experiencing turbulence the whole flight. Well the captain gets on the mic and says we cant land and we have been routed to Xiamen. An hour away from Hong Kong. We get there. We wait and wait and wait. Nothing. We ask flight attendants and they know nothing. I proceed to make a single serving friend (fight club). We we talk and a lady comes by with a crystal (acrylic ) ball with her master teacher in it and starts talking about energy and positive and negative. Entertaining. She was us to hold the ball to spread positive energy. After we do... what happens? All of the cabin lights turn on and the plane comes to life. Interesting. Well we are still chatting with her and she gets her husband and both talk to us for an hour about energy and spreading positive energy. Well a flight attendant comes and we ask if she knows anything nope. She continues on her way and another comes by moments later (they are walking through the cabin the whole time pouring drinks etc. I assume this crystal lady has already talked to this attendant. She gives the attendant the ball. Immediately the plane starts to move. We are pushing back from the gate. She gives the ball back and the pilot come on and says we have been cleared for takeoff. Everybody rushes back to their seats and the flight attendants prepare the cabin. We are in the air minutes later... at about 11:45pm. Yay!

In hong kong finally... after about 8 hours on a plane that should have only been 2. So we are at the airport. I brought with me RMB (Chinese money) because i was told it is easier to change it into Hong Kong dollars. Makes sense. That is if the money changers were open at the airport, which they were not. I was only going to change 100 and then use a cheap changer near my hotel. Well getting in and through customs after 1, public transit is closed. Which means taxi. Well a taxi from the airport is about 400 Hong Kong dollars. So i pull the money from an ATM. Simple. Instead of bringing 50 100Rmb notes i could have just used a bank of China atm. Oh well. Get to my hotel after 2. I go to a 7-11 and get a beer and a sandwich. I go to bed.

Instead of going to the China Visa office at 9, I sleep. I am tired. I get up, get on the metro, and then cant find the visa office. There is no address posted on the building it is in. Meh. I go in and do the paperwork and wait. Everyone said the waiting is the worst part cause it takes hours. Well hours for them was 15 minutes for me. Super easy and fast. I take a ferry across the river from hong kong island to Kowloon (sp?). I talk to a tourism person and she tells me that since the weather is good I should take the tram to the top of the mountain on Hong Kong island. She also has many other great ideas and suggestions like going to the money museum at 2 IFC on the 55th floor. So i go back over to hong kong island. I go to the money museum and it is actually very cool and has stunning views. I then walk to the tram... As I said, the lady said the weather was nice. Well nice to her is different than nice to me. Yes it was clear out... but it was over 30° and humid as heck. I do not deal with heat very well. I sweat. I sweat a lot. Well... Hong Kong is kinda a tropical island. So I am screwed. I get to the tram drenched with sweat... pretty much from here on out I am wet. The tram is an old cable car train up the mountain. Pretty neat. The view from the top is awesome. I take it in and take pictures. Then i go to the tourism booth and the guy there tells me i should hike a trail (it was actually a paved small road). He told me the views were better and they were. He tells me i should go to the symphony of light instead of staying at the top of the peak.

I take a bus down. I take a ferry across and get there as it starts. Its interesting. They play music and some buildings light up and change colors and shoot lasers into the sky. They do this every day. It would be cooler if all buildings participated. I was more taken in just by the skyline... the music part was good but for me at least not needed to enhance the experience. I walked around a bit and saw some kid crash his rc helicopter into a tree. So i tried shaking the tree as his mom tried the controls. I said we needed something to throw. With no rocks or sticks around, mom tries her flip flop, which almost gets stuck. I proceed to use my shoe. One throw and the chopper is down (so is my shoe). I walk a little more, ferry back to hki walk around a little, get fast food, come home, then watch an Anthony Bourdain show where he comes to hongkong. I sleep.

Wake up and go to the visa office to pick up my visa. My throat is a little sore and i am a bit sunburned. Once again super quick and easy. Let me say,one Chinaism is that they are afraid of cold water (not actually scared, but the term is close enough). Even if they get it from a water filter machine they have to add warm water. Why? Cold water makes you sick . Historically, very true, because they had untreated dirty water. Some parts of China they still have to boil it. But the legend continues even at our school. Kids fill up a cup 95% cold and then add hot water. Heck some kids do 99% cold and then add just a drop of hot... I was talking to co teachers before. A lot of them also add hot water to cold because cold water makes you sick. One admitted he liked cold but around the wife he had to have warm water or shed get mad. Why the tangent? So at the consulate office in Hong Kong using bottled water with a machine that filters, i drank 3 cups of cold water (hongkong hot and humid even early) the guard stops me and shows me there is hot water.

Anyway after my visa I went to one of the places Anthony Bourdain went tod to get some roast meat. I walk to a park instead of eating in a hot crowded restaurant, so i can get a breeze. It was yummy, but honestly pretty on par with Chinese roast meat places. I went to watch the noonday gun get fired. There's a history to it... google if you are interested. It was fun to see. Watch it yourself http://youtu.be/Zkz484Gxxb8 After the gun, i noticed there were little old women driving boats. I had no idea why, but people got on she they take them somewhere and drop them off. Of course I have to see what its about. She speaks almost no English and wants to know where I am going. I just say i don't know and shrug my shoulders. She thinks for a moment and says 100. 100 for an adventure (less then 15 usd). So i get on. A minute later I realize what it is. It is a ferry to take people to and from their yachts. Well. O get the grand tour of the area, and she takes me to where chinese people have their old fishing boats amd what look to be house boats. She takes me around and not quite into the actual harbor but by the breaking wall. It was fun cause some of the yacht people tried flagging her down to pick them up. She ignored them. I was like a king. After my 30 minute tour i disembark.

I head over to Kowloon to visit the space museum (free on Wednesdays). It was okay. Great for free... not sure if i would have been happy if I had to pay. Then again i have high expectations for space/science museums. I then walked around for a bit. Took the metro and went and saw a famous old temple. Not an ornate on the outside one. It was made of brick. It said something about its history but i can't remember. Anyway they were burning a ton of incense in there. They had cool spiral incense that burns for 7 or 8 days. Then I saw the toy and hobby museum. Interesting. It was full of old and new action figure dolls plastic character toys. It was cool looking at some of the things. Some I knew I had, others I had no idea they existed. It had them from all over the world and gave explanations about who and what some of them were and the history of them.

Time to go to my apartment and nap. I have already walked miles in the hot humidity and it is taking a toll on me. I want to see and do so much because who knows if ill come to Hong Kong again. (People say November is the best time... not as hot and humid) I get up and proceed to head down to the harbor to watch the symphony of lights from the other side. On the HKI side, at least where I was, there was no music. I actually kind of liked it, because of trying to figure out the lights with the music, you just got to take in the lights for what they were. And the pier I was on I could see both the HKI side and Kowloon. I walked to the IFC mall as I heard there was a roof where people eat, and it is public space even though there are restaurants right there. So I went up to sit. An announcement comes on about the Guinness World Record light show at the tall building across from the harbor. So i stay and watch it. I recorded it so check out the like so you can see it too http://youtu.be/95MdGfG_uic. I then walked around and found the longest covered escalator. Im not exactly sure how it claims the title as there are some thing like 23 sections to it. But all together is is like 800 meters long going up to the mid levels. It toom about 20 minutes. In the morning it runs down and the afternoon it runs up. So now I am at the top... and what happens next. I have to go down. Well screw walking down the stairs. I decide to just walk down sidewalks on intertwining roads. I get home. I stop by 7-11 and get some ramen and Gatorade. I shower and get ready for bed...

well then i start feeling ill and cant sleep. I get chills. Hot and cold at the same time... pretty much feeling like crap. I go so far to even look up doctors in Hong Kong (since i have to work on Saturday ). My throat is still maybe like allergies or something but everything else... well pretty sure it was heat exhaustion and dehydration. Finally get to sleep after hours of tossing and turning. Wake up feeling much better. Throat bad but everything else good. Also I am soaking wet. So it's like i had a fever and it broke. I decide i am just going to play the day easy.

 I get up and go to the maritime museum. Very interesting. Not much to say other than that. I spent nearly 2 hours there and could have spent more. But I wanted to take a harbor tour. The boat set sail at 3:10. It was a classic look Chinese Junk boat. Though instead of sailing under wind power it used a motor. Anyway. It was 120 for 45 minutes. There were only 2 other people on it besides the crew. I took off my socks and shoes and just took it in. A night cruise is 200 (a symphony of lights cruise is 300). I do want to take a night cruise... but I won't do it this time around. After my sail i went back to the maritime museum. On the top floor there is a restaurant /bar and it was happy hour... i was gonna get tea... but i decided on beer instead. Its my day of relaxing. I had 2 pints and went on to my next adventure.

Ding ding... that is the nickname of the hong kong trams. They are narrow double decker electric trams that run on tracks. People use the. Instead of subways. They are cheap. One price instead of the prices that increase the further you go. They are called ding dings because the driver uses a bell to warn pedestrians and cars. Resulting sound... ding ding I took a ding ding to the end of the line on the west side of HKI. There was a dock where ships get loaded up. Despite all of the heavy machinery it was open. People were there playing games, sitting, talking, taking pictures. I of course had to join. So I go and take a few pictures of the sunset. It was lovely. I walked around the area for a while. Just soaking it in. I get back on a ding ding.I head the other direction. I got off at a stop. Grabbed some dinner. Got on the subway and headed back to my hotel. I still was not feeling great and needed to get up early. Granted it was already nearly 10.

I woke up in the morning, showered and got ready to leave. Walked to the airport express train. Took it, checked in and boarded. Lo and behold. Once on board we get word there is a problem with air traffic control... so we sit. The flight attendants serve us our meals, so I knew it was gonna be a wait. Luckily it was only an hour. So smooth sailing from there? Nope. We land in Xiamen as we are supposed to for my layover. This time, since its planned and scheduled I get off the plane. I go through customs and immigration. No problem. I get my new ticket and go through security. That was a mistake. Normally getting through security is a good thing. Well it was supposed to be a 3 hour layover. I had a movie and was ready to go... Well it was a stormy day in China so flights were delayed. 5 comes and goes (when I was supposed to leave)... as does 6,7,8,9... finally get to board at 9:30.

So why was going through security a mistake? Well they are in the in the middle of redoing the airport. So, there was one coffee shop open (and a few limited supply shops). Add on top of that I think if there was an air conditioning unit, it must have been set at like 30 degrees cause it was warm. So, there is an airport with literally thousands of layovered passengers and one dinky coffee shop and 2 crappy markets. Luckily at about 7, the airlines gave us food! Granted it was still airline food. I took it as a celebration of when I should have been home. Anyway, if i did not go through security I could have gotten fast food outside of the terminal. Better yet, i could have explored Xiamen. I would have had 7 hours to do it. Taken a bus and explored the city... heck, a lot of (at least some) airports in Asia have free tours if their cities for layovers. But nope. I went through security. You could be saying to yourself... why didn't you leave and get a new ticket and come back in... well that would have worked... if i had known when my plane would leave. Nobody at the airport new. Our gate had a delayed boarding soon sign up for 5 hours.

So i finally get to Shanghai. Now it is Taxi time (public transit is closed)!!! The line, no exaggeration is at least 500 meters long. The entire length of the terminal and then 4 zig zags. It went relatively quickly. I still did not get home till after 12:45. So, from hong kong to Shanghai door to door. 15 hours.

I thoroughly enjoyed Hong Kong and I can see myself coming back. I did not get to experience any of the night life whether it be bars or markets. I also didn't eat at any fancy restaurants. Nor did I get to chill by the beach. But in the 3 days I was here I did a ton and had fun. Though next time i may want to go in the winter (its warm, not hot). Hong Kong is what New York could be if they took pride in the city. Dont get me wrong, New Yorkers are proud of the city... but Hong Kong does a lot to make their city clean friendly and accessible. The metro system is great, clean and efficient. It is super international. Big buildings and a beautiful skyline. Almost everyone speaks English.

Literally it did not feel like being in Asia. I could have been NYC and not known (other than the cleanliness and lack of cabs honking and no constant sirens). It still has a different feel. Some parts are very Asian but since HK was controlled by the Brits till 1997 there was a super strong western influence. It is a great place to go if you want to travel internationally but are afraid of being completely immersed or afraid of not being understood. Its like a foreign country or something exotic lite... that's really only if you are familiar with being in a big city. If you are not it would be much more of a shock. But it was so close to being western it could easily have fooled me. I mean there are definitely different areas with different feels and some are more Asian... but heck, Chinatown in Flushing Queens feels like Asia. Granted i did only get to explore a small part of it...

One thing i super appreciated was the signs posted all over no hawking and no spitting and saying there was a fine for doing that. All over Korea and Shanghai it is a common sight and sound to hear and see people hawking and spitting out big loogies. Very rare did i see it in Hong Kong.

Sadly i did not get to enjoy any of the night life during my time in Hong Kong. I mean, there were many things i did not get to enjoy. It just means more to do when I go back!