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Published: October 17th 2006
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In the last 48 hours I've utilized just about every means of transportation available. After my motorcycle and bamboo raft trip in Wuyishan, I hopped a plane to Guangzhou where I took a shuttle bus to one train station to purchase an advance ticket to Guilin. From there I took a cab to the other train station to catch an express train to Hong Kong. In HK, I crossed Kowloon Bay on the famous Star Ferry and took the skytram to Victoria Peak. After taking the express train back to Guangzhou I'm now aboard a slow train Guilin. I'm starting to think I should have hitched a ride on a rickshaw somewhere in there just for good measure.
At any rate, my first night in Honk Kong was no fun. I had been really looking forward to walking through the neon lit Tsim Sha Tsui district of Kowloon at night. It had been a long day of travelling and I wanted to get some good food and check things out before dad arrives in the morning. I couldn't have been more disappointed . Not only was it extremely dirty and unattractive but it literally smelled like an ashtray dumped into a
urinal. Now I'm not saying that the other cities I've visited, whether in China, the States or Europe, have had the scent of fresh cut daisies, but this place made we want to gag. I wandered around a bit anyway, working my way through a crowded night market looking for some decent street food. Finally I found a popular vendor where I could pick up a quick bowl of lo mien and head back to the hotel for a good night sleep. Well, I guess my luck had to run out sometime. To say that I have been culinarily adventurous on this trip would be an understatement. It's ironic that after all the odd things I have digested in the last few weeks that it was a simple bowl of noodles that would be my downfall. None the less I spent most of the night kneeling before the porcelain buddha.
When dad arrived the next morning I tried to put on a strong face. After all it was his first day in country and I didn't want a little projectile vomiting to put a damper on it. Either way it was nice to a friendly face and we spent the
rest of the morning walking along the waterfront and catching up. It wasn't long before last night's dinner was calling me back to the room where I was able to lay down for a few hours before we continued our day. A short nap and some pepto put me back on my feet and we decided to cross the bay on the Star Ferry and get some lunch in HK Central. By this time I was feeling a little better and I thought i could handle a little dim sum. I was wrong. An hour later I was tossing my fortune cookies outside the skytram station to Victoria Peak.
Despite my stomach issues, I found Hong Kong fascinating. Huge skyscrapers built practically on top of one another clinging to the water's edge looked as though they were floating in the bay. Similar structures climbed the neighboring mountains as if cued up and ready to take their place if they were to tumble into the harbor. The view from Victoria Peak was breathtaking. It seemed as though city would stretch on for infinity if not corralled by the bowl of surrounding peaks. Hundreds of vessels from huge cruise ships to
tiny fishing junks shared the choppy harbor waters that cut a trench through the forest of buildings.
After the 2 mile hike straight down from Victoria Peak to the concrete jungle of central HK, I was ready to call it a day. I was still a bit queezy and needed a couple hours to lay down before we walked down to the waterfront for the "Symphony of Lights" - an underimpressive choreography of lasers, neon and spotlights set to classical chinese music and orchestrated by the HK tourism board to show off the city at night. In my opinion, the brightly lit skyline is impressive enough on it's own but it was a pleasant evening and good to get out of the room for a couple hours before I completely crashed for the night. It's now the following evening and I'm still not 100%. After a short stop in Guangzhou, we are on a train to Guilin and then on to Yangshuo - one of the most anticipated stops on the my trip. I'm so glad my dad is along to experience this with me and I'm anxious to see what the next couple weeks has in store for us.
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