Hong Kong - Wednesday & Thursday

Back to Gwangju, back to reality. After spending a few days in Hong Kong I've got the posttravel depression again (just like after Sweden). Korea just isn't as awesome. This is true. But this place gives me a lifestyle where I have the ability to go to Hong Kong for a few days, so I'll quit my bitching now. Okay. Done.

On to the good stuff. Where to start? I did so much in so little time, and now there is so much writing that I really don't want to punch out after only a few hours of sleep and a frightfully cold desk to type at. But I'm on my first break of the day, I have loads of crap to print out for the month, and this is probably the best way to spend my time.

Tuesday night: After much debate on leaving Tuesday to Seoul or Wednesday to the airport we finally agreed that going directly to the airport would be the most responsible and money saving plan. Unfortunately, since we had waited until last minute to finalize this plan we ended up having to leave around midnight to go to Seoul, to take a cab to the airport. A very smelly, expensive cab, to be exact. But after tolerating the sweet stench of dirty cab driver for 45 minutes we made it to the Incheon International Airport. It was probably around 5 am and Fliss, Emilie, and I were on little to no sleep, and I was suffering from extreme gas due to the cheap beer I consumed a handful of hours before. Not a good start.

The trip quickly turned around as we got inside the terminal and were reminded that there was a Subway sandwich shop somewhere inside that served a full subway menu. By full menu I'm actually emphasizing their turkey status, which was 100% fully stocked. So, at around 7 am the three of us were happily chowing down on the best foot long ever invented. I should seriously considering being the new spokesperson for them, fuck Jared.

After one bus, one cab, two airplanes, and a 6 hour layover in Shanghai we arrived in Hong Kong. Well, in the airport at least. Which is actually on a different island (though they all are closely connected). While we were walking down to catch our second bus of the trip, Emilie ran into some friends of hers from her hometown that had moved to Korea, that were also visiting Hong Kong. Seriously, I used to think bumping into people in Minneapolis made the world small, but now you know it really is! We chatted up with her friends throughout the bus ride, took some pictures, and Fliss gave us an oral tour guide of her vast collection of Hong Kong knowledge.

During the bus ride my initial impression was simply wow. Everything was very new, very clean, very high, very bright, and OH MY GOD WE'RE DRIVING ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD! Obviously because of Hong Kong's giant British influence they abide by many British rules. For instance going the wrong way on escalators and while driving, and having automated recordings on the subway constantly saying "please mind the gap."

Emilie drinking a beer in the airport.

Strolling around by our hostel

Cool looking Chinese money

Having an airport photo shoot

View from the bus

Ok, so let's stop here and talk a little bit more about Hong Kong because I know most of my American readers just assume a handful of things about China. Mainly that they own the world, make all of our stuff, and aren't allowed on Facebook. Parts of these assumptions are true, but Hong Kong is a different situation. After a quick Google search and a little copying and pasting I have some basic facts about this place:

Government:

-Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. Following British rule from 1842 to 1997, China assumed sovereignty under the 'one country, two systems' principle. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's constitutional document, the Basic Law, ensures that the current political situation will remain in effect for 50 years. The rights and freedoms of people in Hong Kong are based on the impartial rule of law and an independent judiciary.

Geography:

-At the south-eastern tip of China, Hong Kong covers Hong Kong Island, Lantau Island, the Kowloon Peninsula and the New Territories, including 262 outlying islands. Between Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula lies Victoria Harbour, one of the world's most renowned deep-water harbours.

• Total area: 1 104 square kilometres
• Land developed: less than 25%
• Country parks and nature reserves: 40%

Language:

-Chinese and English are the official languages of Hong Kong. English is widely used in the Government and by the legal, professional and business sectors. Trilingual professionals who speak English, Cantonese and Putonghua play a vital role in the numerous enterprises trading in Hong Kong or doing business with mainland China and Taiwan.

• Cantonese speakers: 88.7% of population
• Putonghua speakers: 1.1% of population
• Other Chinese dialect speakers: 5.8% of population
• English speakers: 3.1% of population
• Other language speakers: 1.3% of population

That's enough useful information, let's get back to the useless details of my daily trip itinerary.

Wednesday night: About an hour after riding our double decker bus through the city we arrived at our stop. Now we just had to figure out where the hostel was from there. Immediately I noticed all the name brand shops, delicious smelling restaurants, and massive amount of people trying to get through on the sidewalk. It was a cluster fuck unknown to my small town Gwangjuian self and I kinda liked it. When we located our hostel we went up with Emilie's friends and they tried to book a last minute room. We ended up paying half of what they were supposed to pay and I couldn't be happier that we booked ahead of time. Obviously there were a few down sides to the hostel. It was half the size of my old apartment, barely had any hot water, and the elevator up made me have a panic attack every time. On the plus side we were in the heart of it all and the view from our window was awesome. Oh yeah and it's super cheap.

The amazingness of our location was emphasized even more that night as we got out of our hostel to do our first sight seeing around 10:30 pm. It was a flower show in Victoria Park, a famous park just a few feet away from our hostel. As we approached the mass of people I started to not like the crowding so much. Not to mention I was dead tired, hungry, and generally beat after a day of traveling. But I took a few pictures, found my new fascination with taking pictures of children on their parents shoulders, and tried my first bite of Chinese street food. After about an hour pushing through the masses we all mutually agreed that it's best to go home, get some sleep, and save our energy for the next day filled of fun.

The view from our hostel

Cute kid on shoulders at the flower show
Haggling over the flower prices
Cute baby in gold.
Random bamboo that looked cool

The red balls that were hanging everywhere

Thursday: So let's just start by saying we did have set plans for everyday, but you know it's a good vacation if you just don't get everything done. Too much of what you had planned was interesting, or in our case on Friday we were just too hung over, because Thursday was awesome. But on Thursday we were out of the house by 10am and made our way to meet Emilie's friends on Kowloon, the island next to Hong Kong and explore the day with them. Once we arrived at the hotel we realized that we didn't know their last name and they weren't waiting outside as planned. My guess is they probably just got super lost the night before and opted to stay somewhere in sight. I know that I'm terrible with directions, and new cities, and foreign languages, and this place had all three combined. But English really was spoken everywhere, so that's no excuse. We waited a bit longer but decided to make our way to the subway.

A crowded mess of people on the Subway

Emilie and Fliss striking a pose

Our first stop was a famous temple in the middle of Hong Kong. We started walking towards the subway but got a bit side tracked by the shops and the fact that the weather was amazing and going underground was not. We decided to walk to the next subway stop instead and then Fliss told us that there was a Ladies Market very close to where we were. The word Ladies Market is more than enough to entice three girls on vacation with money burning a hole in their pocket. So we turned down a crowded alley way in between apartments and began our search for junk we can purchase in Hong Kong. Personally I only had one mission, buying a decent pair of shoes to walk in because I failed to pack a pair. As luck would have it this ladies market was filled with shoes and I purchased a pair of sandals and cute flats both for under $20 bucks. Fliss was a stickler with the discounts, she didn't even attempt to listen to their first price and staunchly demanded the "New Years discount" every time.

Buying shoes at the ladies market

A few random shots along our walk

Coolest trees just hanging out on the side of a busy street

The temple with a million people that we couldn't get to

This guy would not move. He wanted something in that store!

Meanwhile Emilie was searching for something a little more pricey than two shoes for $20 bucks. She asked Fliss, leader and queen of all Hong Kong knowledge, how to go about getting a good knock off bag and Fliss made it clear that we are in the land of fakes. Within seconds Middle Eastern men were coming up to us saying "hand bags, watches, hand bags, watches" and the girls opted to follow their purse yearning hearts and the Middle Eastern guys to sketchy apartments above the market. The first guy just took us up about 5 floors to look at a book filled with his current selection. Emilie wasn't satisfied, she wanted to touch and see all the bags first hand so we went back down. Next we followed a little lady to her tiny apartment and I got my first bout of purse envy. All of the purses were quite nice and my cheap ass almost crumbled and spent big bucks on a new one. Obviously, if anyone reading this knows me, you know I would never do such a thing. Instead I sat back and enjoyed the bargaining process. Emilie finally found the bag of her dreams and she got it for a pretty good price too!

Em is a little distraught after the shady purchase, but happy with her new bag!

Eventually we made it out of the ladies market and on to our original destination. But, being the Chinese New Year and all, this temple had quite the line. Or should I say mass of people crowded in front waiting to get inside. We all had enough people crunching the night before and decided that it'd just be better to get on with our day than waste it in line. So we wasted it in other ways. First, we went through a mall near by and found a place to eat, which was desperately needed after all that shopping. We didn't really know how it worked but it seemed to be a Chinese version of fast food. I unknowingly ordered two meals for myself because I thought everything was ala carte. After ordering came the hard part: finding a place to sit. This was probably my worst experience in Hong Kong. Basically after picking up the food you go look for a spot to sit, but there are none, so you walk around with your shaking tray and continue searching. Then we realized people just camp out in front of people who look like they're about to finish, so we tried that, and we even secured a table. THEN some bitch goes and sits down like milliseconds after "our" table gets up and claims that she has 4 people so she gets the table. What???? How do you even begin to argue that logic. WE WERE WAITING! We finally managed to find a table but it wasn't even sitting together. On top of that the food was terrible and this whole experience angered us for a good few minutes, until we discovered more shopping.

Actually we HAD to shop because we had about three hours until the parade and it wasn't worth going back home and coming back there. At the first place I found the camera bag of my dreams, a much better substitute for my fanny pack looking thing with straps. The excitement of the new purchase was then topped when we found exactly what I had been hoping to find... A bar/restaurant with a patio outside overlooking the skyline. We walked past it with envy knowing damn well the fanciness from its outward appearance far surpassed our budget. We walked back into the mall and saw a Starbucks and debated having a coffee there while we wait for the parade and then decided to fuck it and have an over priced drink. After situating ourselves on the lovely patio furniture we saw that the prices weren't all that bad and had a glass of wine. Then we had a bottle. Then we had another bottle. Then we had another bottle. Then they told us we have to leave in 20 minutes so Fliss ordered another bottle. Then Emilie lost her ability to walk and I was on cloud nine. We asked our waiter where to go for fun and we headed to the subway.

Right before we found the patio of our dreams

Fancy lit up bar on the patio

Where all the magic happened

And commence drunkeness

At this point Fliss took over my camera and took well over 100 pictures of us drunk walking through the quiet and calm subway. To our surprise we ended up running into that waiter of ours and he helped us find our way to the bars. As if that's what we needed! Or the the free margaritas we got for ladies night! Somehow we managed to stay out until 3am. The majority of the night was spent having Fliss run up to any white person and saying "You're ENGLISH!!!!" (because most Hong Kong expats are from England and she doesn't get to speak with many of her people in Gwangju) and Emilie saying "I just want to kiss someone!" Eventually she got just that, from a random boy walking down the street, and I got a kebab. Yes, a delicious, lamb filled kebab. The three of us drunkenly inhaled the rollup. Fliss managed to get most of it on her clothes as opposed to her in her mouth while I kept yelling "we need more sauce!!!" The night ended amazingly. Well almost. Minus the part where we got in a cab and Fliss insisted that they were ripping us off (for a whopping $2.00) and kept yelling at him "You're taking us in a circle, you're taking us in a fucking circle!" Once we got to the hostel Fliss ran out of the cab in a fuss. Emilie then offered to pay the cab driver in kisses and I subsequently left so I didn't have to view this exchange. By the time they all made it back to the door I was informed that the driver refused the kiss payment and Emilie reluctantly paid in cash. Cue bed time.