First trip across the border!

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Okay, so I may not be actually writing this entry while IN Hong Kong, but I felt it appropriate to give it that location regardless.

First of all, can I just point out how crazy it is to be able to say "Oh, I went to HK for the night"? Wow.

Let's back up a little bit. So, on Friday we of course taught (well, Martin did) and then got driven down to Futian for Chinese class around 1:30. There are 3 sections of Chinese Level 1 and you got placed depending on how well you did in the class in Beijing. We got placed in 1.2, the 'average-paced' class. There's also a accelerated class and a slower-paced one, but this seems to suit us perfectly. I like to be a brat and point out that I placed into 1.1 but they moved me to be with my lil hubby. Anyway, we could have moved classes but we really like our teacher and this pace is suiting us very well. Most of what we learn will be through studying after school & interacting with Chinese locals anyway.

After class was over, we took the metro for the first time to another part of Futian with Jimmy, Cali, Kris & Kelly. The metro in Shenzhen is SO clean and nice. Why again does Seattle's public transportation system SUCK? We spent a couple hours just enjoying the downtown Futian area (a beautiful library building, concert hall, central government building) and ventured into Book City, a gigantic bookstore with a large selection of English books. We finally grabbed some dinner at a random place and then made our way back to Yantian via metro & then bus.

Saturday morning the four of us (us with Jimmy & Cali) woke up early to shower, apply sunscreen, grab the essentials (we were planning on a day trip) and get on our way. Crossing the border we had been told was fairly simple, and it was, but it could have been a lot easier if our coordinators had actually given us some more specifics. Oh well. We filled out all the appropriate cards, showed a bunch of people our passports and found ourselves soon on a bus to Kowloon. Once in Kowloon, we had to go on a bit of a search to figure out how to get from the bus station in the northern part of the city to downtown Kowloon so that we could actually see the cool parts of Hong Kong. We stopped into a large mall, called Festival Walk, and immediately huge smiles spread across our faces. Nobody was staring at us. Nobody was even LOOKING our way. People had tattoos and piercings. There were a TON of white people. Almost everyone was speaking English. I passed a group of young Chinese people and heard the words 'sweet' and 'Kanye West' and wanted to die from happiness. I could understand everything! I wasn't being stared at! How is it possible that there's this alternate universe just a short bus ride away from China? WHERE WERE WE?!? Even more amazing, we found a place called 'Pacific Coffee Company' where the menu was in English, they were advertising a Seattle city brew and the coffee actually tasted like coffee. Heaven. To top off our excitement, there were computers in the coffee shop that you could use for free...and facebook isn't blocked in Hong Kong. Cali & Jimmy were only too eager to check their facebook accounts, as they haven't found any proxies that work and hadn't been on since leaving the USA.

Refueled by all this excitement (and coffee), we easily figured out the metro to downtown Kowloon. We had all been painfully craving Indian food for the past month, so were very eager to find our way to a VEGETARIAN INDIAN restaurant we'd heard about. Although we didn't find it (streets were busy and we were losing our patience), we randomly found an Indian place that said "Veg & Non-veg"! It's been great to eat with Jimmy & Cali, as they're both vegetarians as well, and Martin likes all veg food so it's never an issue with the four of us. If there is meat served, we'll just pile it on Martin's plate, and if there isn't meat, we're all happy. I'd never felt so happy just from eating food. Lunch was spent just making sounds over how delicious the Indian cuisine was and licking up every last drop.

We spent the next hour just walking around and finally decided to hop on the 'Star Ferry' over to Hong Kong Island to see what was there. It was only 2.50 HKD per person and gave us some amazing views of the city. Once on Hong Kong Island, we again reveled in the amazingness that is Hong Kong. I think there's a Prada, Coach, Tiffanys or Armani store on every corner though, very weird. We'd heard through a family friend that there was a western grocery store on the island named Olivers, and we were able to easily find it. It was like a Whole Foods- everything was incredibly expensive but SO AMAZING. We must have spent at least an hour in there, just walking around and remembering all the western food we haven't eaten in almost two months. It sounds silly, but you start to miss Western food quite a bit. They were also doing free wine tasting, something we don't get to taste a lot over here. Jimmy & Cali bought some of their favorite hot sauce and Martin & I got curry powder after much debate.

We'd heard about an area of Hong Kong Island called Lan Kwai Fong, known to be quite an exciting place for bars & happy hours. Now, if we'd come to Hong Kong before going to China, we probably would have thought things were cheaper. Unfortunately, we've gotten used to our 4 kuai beers, so drinks that cost more like 35 kuai each didn't seem like such a deal. Regardless, we found a place that was doing an unlimited happy hour of house wine & beer for 100kuai a person and we took them up on it. We drank and talked to our hearts content for close to 3 hours, made random friends all over the area (a rarity to be able to speak with so many others) and ended the night by eating delicious veggie burgers and fries. At this point it was close to midnight, so we knew we were going to stay in HK for the night. We took the metro back over to Kowloon (not nearly as cool as the ferry) and wandered around the main street for awhile.

After the boys getting offered prostitutes, stopping in a hostel where there were surely drug deals going on and deciding we just wanted to get off the streets, we found a building of very cheap guesthouses our coordinator had told us about the day before. There were security guards at the entrance and middle-aged women showing us the rooms rather than 20 year old men who called themselves 'B2', so that made us breath a sigh of relief. Jimmy tried out his very broken Mandarin with the two women who spoke mostly Cantonese, but it worked and we got 2 very small basic rooms for the night and went straight to bed.

The next morning we ate at McDonalds for breakfast (I know, I know, but hey, did you know they serve PANCAKES?!), took the metro back to the first mall/bus station we came to, got more coffee, hung out at the mall for a few hours, Cali bought an ipod touch and finally, reluctantly, we boarded the bus to go back into China. Once back, we stopped at a local restaurant for a yummy lunch of noodles, cabbage & a tomato/egg dish while chatting excitedly some more about how amazing the weekend had been.

And that, my friends, is just the beginning. We have the whole rest of the year to explore Hong Kong.

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Photos

Boat
Boat from the bay

Indian Food
We had the most delicious meal of Indian food

View From Ferry
One of my favorite views from the ferry we took to Hong Kong Island

Hong Kong Streets
One of the views from the street we walked down

Our Hostel Bed
We had a tiny room, but it was cheap!

Comments

[Elyse and Pete]

Can't wait
AHHH!! I can't wait to go to Hong Kong. We fly out of there next Thursday and are thinking of staying Wednesday night before our flight Thursday afternoon. We will all have to go sometime together now that you are pro's at it. Tell me on Wednesday what the coordinators should have told us.

[mama clare]

border escape
Sounds like a much needed reprieve and lots of fun exploration took place. Good eats and good chats and nice scenery too---I'm glad you found Olivers and had delicious Indian food and even tracked down the pancakes---a great blog and love to you both. So glad you have good pals now to travel and explore with! love, mamaC