Made in China

---

I’m back to reality (if you can call Doha reality!) and I survived the whirlwind weekend full of 17 hours of flying, umpteen hours of shopping, and very few hours of sleeping.

What can I say about Hong Kong? Well, for one, it’s a huge departure from the city I’ve been living in for the past few months (which makes even Edmonton look like a thriving metropolis!). The city is very large and very compact. I obviously wasn’t surprised by this; however, a couple of things did surprise me. The good: 1) The lushness—maybe it’s just because I haven’t seen trees or grass in so long, but the city is so green! Actually, we all noticed how similar it is to Vancouver in that respect, so it’s not at all surprising that Van is the city of choice for Hong Kong natives moving to Canada. 2) The cleanliness—I guess they’ve ramped up efforts to clean the city since SARS, but I was very surprised at how clean the streets were. 3) The transportation system—Unbelievably, Hong Kong’s transportation system is easier to navigate than any other big city I’ve been to. So all in all, I was pretty impressed. However, there were some bad: 1) Rundown buildings—I was a little bit surprised at how rundown the buildings were (it looks quite new until you look up). 2) Humidity—I was totally taken aback by the level of humidity. I realized that I’m NEVER going to be able to handle Doha’s summers when I was whining and complaining about Hong Kong’s spring weather! You would walk outside and your face would be soaked within minutes. There were many times we sought refuge in any store that had AC regardless of what the store offered. 3) The food—I actually have been quite adventurous with my food habits since moving to Doha, so I was quite open to trying the Chinese cuisine, but the rancid smells and the half dead meat in the windows (not to mention the menu choices of shark, pig’s feet, and chicken heart!) erased that openness quite quickly.

I guess now I’ll back it up and go through the trip in a Cole’s Notes version. We flew into Hong Kong mid-afternoon on Friday and arrived at our hotel to discover that there was an all-you-can-drink buffet. Yes, that’s right, I said “drink” not “eat”. Obviously, this didn’t excite me much, but the others were quite happy, so we spent the first few hours of our trip in the hotel lounge trying different drinks such as the Pussy Foot and everyone’s favourite (including the non-drinker’s!), the Snowball. It tasted exactly like orange creamsicles, so I couldn’t resist the temptation and had to indulge. Before you all do a double take at that last sentence, my indulgence was so minor that it didn’t even give a slight buzz, so no freaking out to those who’ve been trying to get me back on the drunk train ever since I stopped.

Speaking of drunks, with all of them in tow, we went over to the mainland part of Hong Kong (Kowloon) and went to the Temple Market. There were rows upon rows of knockoffs, jade, and expert negotiators. After a bit of shopping, we went to a palm reader and all had our palms read. Now, either the group I was with are all way too similar or the palm reader sticks to a script, but many of us heard the same thing over and over again. Regardless, it was still fun to have our palms read by a Chinese fortune teller. Finally, around 11:00 p.m. we found a little local place to have some food and had a lot of fun trying to explain what we wanted, only to resort to pointing to photos in the end (that’s how most places work in Hong Kong, which doesn’t work well for “The Modifier” 😉. Some of us were hit with a bit of jetlag, so ½ the group bailed to the hotel the other ½ took a little tour around the bar district and harbour. During this walk, I was able to flex my thigh muscles while using an eastern toilet (or, more aptly, no toilet) and I managed to not take heed in the fortune teller’s advice to watch my wallet closely and ended up losing (getting stolen) my treasured $30 H&M jacket (luckily, the wallet is still with me).

On Saturday, we had a bit of a late start and finally headed over to Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple to see temples from all three of China’s main religions—Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. I’m not sure if anyone has visited a Chinese temple before, but I was not aware of the incense phenomenon that happens along with worshipping. Always good for someone allergic to incense! The photos show how smoky it is, so I’m sure you can imagine how much I was sneezing! We found refuge in a tranquility garden and saw the cutest little turtles hanging out waiting to be thrown in the boiler pot (just kidding! Actually, probably not). After our trip to the temple, we made our way to the electronic district and some of us (*cough* Lindsey!) went a little nuts with the electronics. Actually, we each got our fair share. I picked up a snazzy little pink Motorola mobile. Oh yeah, that’s right. Pink. It has the capability to take photos and videos and play music. Right now, I have “California” as my text message notification and “Gold Digger” as my ring tone. So professional. Other than that, though, I really wasn’t in a shopping mood and didn’t buy much else besides a few tourist knickknacks. So sad. I was in the shopping Mecca and I just wasn’t in the mood.

Saturday night, the others were lured in by the drink buffet once again, so we ended up arriving at our next tourist destination, Victoria’s Peak, right before it closed. Our plan was to go up there for dinner, but we ended up not getting there until 11:30 p.m. and all of the restaurants were closed. We did get enough time to enjoy the spectacular views though. Victoria’s Peak overlooks all of Hong Kong Island, the harbour, and Kowloon. The view is breathtaking. The cable car ride to get up there also too your breath away, as most of the trip was at a 45 degree angle! Oh, one funny little story that I hate to admit to, but I will… We were up at the peak and I was watching all of my drunk friends goof off on this hill that they were trying to climb. I was just about to lean my head against a pole when I realized that it was completely covered in ants. I had a little spaz and said, “thank goodness I didn’t lean back”. Well, my horrible short-term memory haunts me again. Not even five minutes later, Dwayne was holding my video camera and looked over to me….leaning against the pole! He calmly told me to get my head away from the ants, but I, of course, spazzed and made everyone check my hair. Yes, this is caught on camera. This will definitely be a highlight for those who think vacation videos are boring. I got over it and the hair check revealed no ants; however, on the trip back down the peak, I just might have found an ant, but I decided it was much better to ignore that reality and pretend that my hair was bug free.

After finding a restaurant that was still serving at 1 a.m. in the trendy area called SOHO, we headed to Lan Kwai Fong, the trendy bar district where there are ex-pats o’plenty. The bar area reminded me a lot of New Orleans, as most of the partying was happening on the street. Because you can drink on the street, the popular thing to do is buy your beer at the 7/11 down the block and join the party.

Despite another late night, I was up bright and early to go for breakfast with a familiar face. I met up with Susan’s (my cousin, for those of you who don’t know) friend Amy, who has been living in Hong Kong for the past three years. I’ve known Amy for the past 10 or so years, so it was great to see a familiar face. Her and her fiancé directed us to a cool little beach area called Stanley where there was more open air markets and a beautiful colonial building right on the water. We spent most of our day at Stanley and then went back to Hong Kong to cram some last minute shopping in before we had to catch our plane.

Luckily, the plane was quite dead, so I was able to spread out across four seats and get some shut eye before arriving in Doha at 5:00 a.m. and heading to the office for a full day of work. Such a crazy life here, but it’s been worth every minute.

Next adventure: Egypt and Turkey. Kristy arrived about an hour ago. She's going to explore the thriving metropolis of Doha for a few days and then we’re off on Friday. In the one week we’re away, we hit three continents (Asia and Europe in Turkey and Africa in Egypt)!

---

Photos

The Wanderer Finds a Pug
We all thought we have to keep a close eye on Lindsey, as she likes to wander, but Chris definitely gave her a run for her money. Here we found him bonding with a pug in a random store.

Real Flowers!
Surprisingly, the desert doesn't really have a lot of fresh flowers, so we're not used to seeing real vegetation!

Comments

[Jac]

I loved these pics
I would love to go there, so this is a little piece of travelling that I can live vicariously through!!! Keep them up ....you're starting to slack! XOXO Jac