So begins my very first blog entry. Ever. Sorry in advance for the spelling - it doesn't seem like I have a spell checker available.

The flight

Very Very Very long. Perhaps the longest ever. In all seriousness, the flight wasn't that bad. I left SFO at 12:30 AM (Sunday night), so I was able to sleep through most of the flight. I arrived in Hong Kong at 6:30 AM on Tuesday. Good thing that I don't like Mondays 'cause I didn't even get to have one this time. Then again, Mondays are really only meaningful to those of us that are employed (which I am not, effectively...).

There was one oddity about the flight - there was a girl who kept staring at me in the SFO terminal. I ended up behind her in the herd getting on the plane, and helped her to get her luggage in the overhead bin. I gave her a nice smile, and thought that was it. To my surprise, I looked back from my seat five minutes later, and saw her standing right behind me! She asked me to sit by her, because she was "scared" to "sit by herself". I naturally assumed that she was totally hitting on me, but I agreed anyway. It turns out that she really was pretty scared, and really did want someone to just talk to. Imagine that. She was a nice gal from the Phillipines, on her way home after spending 8 months at sea on a Cruise Ship. We chatted quite a bit, but neither one of us bothered to get or offer contact info.

The Arrival

As I mentioned, I arrived in Hong Kong at 6:30. The airport is HUGE. I was definitely a bit shell shocked (and tired) at first. I spent my first half an hour wandering about the terminal, cursing myself for not even knowing the exchange rate. Finally, I decided to just go to an ATM and pull out HK$200. I thought it was a fortune, that should last me the whole week. Or not. As I would later find. I ended up purchasing a water for HK$16, which meant that I probably didn't have a fortune after-all. Though I still lacked an exact relation of a HK dollar to a US dollar. Airport water bottles probably aren't the most accurate measures...

After some random stumbling, I finally found the bus terminal that would take me to my hostel. I thought I would be slick and save HK$20 (however much that was - I still didn't have a clue as to what the exchange rate was) by buying the return ticket in advance. One week, and two countries later, I think it's safe to say that the unused return ticket was wasted :)

Stepping off the bus in Mong Kok, I knew without a doubt that I was in China. It was like China town in SF, but multiplied by about a million times. It was oddly quite - I was expecting the whole place to be a mad house. I had only a little bit of time before the madness began - for Mong Kok is actually one of the busiest and most crowded areas of the busy and crowded Hong Kong. It is also one of the most sketchy, apparently. I think that I found more hotels that you pay "by the hour" than I found streets, and there were a LOT of streets.

My hostel was a bit hard to find. I ended up on the right floor but at a #703, door with no markings what-so-ever. It looked like some random house. I hesitated, and walked into a clearly marked hostel three or four doors down. The door for this hostel was answered by a woman who must have been around when Hong Kong was first settled like 10,000 years ago, who was the nicest woman ever, but didn't speak a lick of english. Through hand gestures and pointing, we determined that I should go back to #703. She politely locked up shop, and walked me down there. We knocked on the door, and I gesticulated in broken sign language to the nice Chinese man that I was looking for a Hostel. In perfect English, the owner, Jacky told me that I was in the right place.

The amble

I walked from Mong Kok to Tsim Tsa Shui (I probably butchered the spelling) along the (in)famous Nathan road. Jacky assured me that it was a 2 hour, straight shot road. I couldn't possibly get lost. 4 hours, and 5 times getting lost later, I arrived. I took a bunch of very clear "shortcuts" to save a curve in the road here, or a bend there. It was actually quite fun.

I eventually arrived at the water front (after walking past about 10,000 Indian tailors who were convinced that what I needed, more than life itself, was a new suit for HK$1000). They were sure it was a good deal. I wasn't so sure:

1. I didn't really have room in my pockets fora new suit.

2. I still didn't know how much $1000 was. I knew it was more than the $200 that I had in my pocket...

The water front is really amazing. Hong Kong is actually quite a beautiful city. (I'll attach some photos when I figure out how to do that.) By this point, I was in desparate need for cafine, so I rejoiced when I saw a sign that was seemingly sent from providence. "San Francisco's Best Coffee Company!!!" I knew that I would get ripped off in there, but I didn't care. I'm from San Francisco, and I like the "best" coffee. Who could argue?! I spent HK$24 for coffee and a muffin. Hmmm... Still didn't know what that means, except that it is 1.5 HK airport water bottles. Maybe I could convince all of the governments in the world to trade in units of HK airport water bottles, and I would never have to learn the exchange rate...

I next stumbled onto the "Avenue of the Stars", which is apparently HK's version of the stars on Hollywood Blvd in Hollywood. I was expecting to see a ton of names that I would never recognize, but was pleasantly surprised to see the likes of Jackie Chan and Jet Li. I was now looking directly across the harbor towards Hong Kong island, where all of the action was supposed to be. It looked like a solid wall of glass and concrete, stretching from horizon to horizon. I continued walking, and ran into a ferry building. For the nominal price of 1/8 HK airport water bottles (HK$2), I jumped on a ferry and crossed into the financial center.

HK Central is a wacky place. It's super busy. Full of suits walking to and fro, siging the next deal, saving the world - you know the drill. Central had this uncanny ability to get me lost. The entire time that I was there, I had to carry a map, and reorient myself every 10 or 15 steps. Ok, which direction am I going again? For some reason, I always had this notion that North was the direction that I was heading...

By this point, I had purchased an Octopus card, which is the one-stop-card for all HK transport needs. I wish I could have taken a picture of me trying to shove the card in every possible hole that the Peak-Tram turnstile had before figuring out that I just had to tap the card on the sensor. It was quite comical - I even almost lost the card forever when I shoved it into a slot that was clearly too small for the card to fit...

I eventually figured out the Octopus card deal, and I took the Peak Tram up to the Peak look-out station, and paid 1 watter bottle for lunch with an amazing view. There were a ton of tourists at the top, and they got a bit annoying. I decided to walk the entire way down, which turned out to be a great decision! The entire trail down was surrounded by loads of trees and shrubbery. You never would have known that you were in Hong Kong at all, except for the fact that all of the slopes were covered in concrete (apparently the best way to prevent landslides is to concrete over the entire hill...), and the random HK government cleaning lady who was supposed to be cleaning the trail, but decided to pull over and have a nice and conspicuous pee right on the trail for everyone to see. I don't think that this was normal behavior - she had the same sort of luck as a lot of the crazies in San Francisco...

I'm American. Let me in.

When I got to the bottom of the hill, I ran smack into the US counsalte for Hong Kong. I thought to myself - "Hey what do they DO in there anyway?" I figured I'd just pop in to say hello and see if I could offer helpful advice on how to best spend my tax dollars. It turns out that the very large and armed HK guards at the entrance didn't see the need for me to do so. They seemed convinced that the tax dollars were, in fact, being well spent and saw no need for me to audit the building. For some strange reason, they also didn't really see a need for me to say "hello" to the US Ambassador, or whoever is in charge of the counsalate. The fact that I said "take me to the big man, or you know, whoever runs this joint" to the guard probably didn't exactly promote my case...

The Canadians

I eventually started getting tired, and decided to head back home to take a nap. When I got back, I met a trio of Canadians that were experiencing a bit of culture shock, being that they were in China and all. They were so cute. This was the first time that they had ever left the country, but they were sure to sew very large and bright Canadian flags on there packs. I ended up going to see "Alexander" with them. Odd experience - seeing a (very very bad) American movie on my first night on the road. It was fun to hang out with them. We all marveled at the madness that is Mong Kok at night.

The Mong Kok midnight madness

I stopped marvelling at the madness at 3:00 AM, when I could still clearly here every passing car and individual on the streets (7 floors below!!!) while I was futily trying to sleep. Apparently our air inlets were situated right below the street, so that we wouldn't miss a bit of the action ever. I also found the fact that the walls in the hostel were micro-scopically thin very helpful. I would have hated to miss any of the footsteps of anyone in the building, or on the floor above. That would have been tragedy in itself! At least I could stretch out in my 7'x 4' cavernous suite! All for the small price of 5 or so water bottles!

Let's get real, ya'll

In all seriousness, the place wasn't that bad. It was clean, the staff was very helpful, and it was close to the subway. I just like to make things a bit dramatic...

All and all, it was a good first day on the road.

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