Found free wi-fi in the Tokyo airport. Here is a recap of yesterday.
NOTE: While trying to upload pictures I broke my card reading. Photos of Hong Kong will come in a few days.
The wake up call came early. Too early. By 15 min. I guess our guides didn’t trust us to get up on our own. So the phone rang at 4:30.
It was a restless night sleep. Early morning fro travel have a tendency to be that way. Not wanting to over sleep wakes you every 45min.
The flight from Guangzhou was uneventful. Lots of families heading home with new member. Not just folks from our group.
I was in row 6, so I was one of the first people off the plane. I counted 25 babies on the flight. Only 6 or 7 were from Brad and Joia’s group.
I hugged the Farmers and my new friends good bye and headed for customes.
Because our flight was mostly transfers, most of the luggage was also transferred to other flights. My bag got mixed up in them. It took almost 90 min. to track down.
But it was found, again with friendly, helpful, smiley people.
I waked to the hotel (attached to the airport) and check in.
WHAT TO DO
I sat down at the desk in the hotel room trying to decided what to do with my one day in Hong Kong. It came down to seeing the city or spend the full day to get to the country to see a 200 ft. tall golden Buddha stature outside a temple and monastery.
It was a hard choice, but in the end I decided to hit the city. I was tried and needed food. I knew I could find food and could get back to the hotel easily if I needed to.
The day was planned in three acts.
So I headed to the express train from the airport to down town.
LUNCH
I was just short of noon when I got down town. I oriented myself to my map and the city.
I hadn’t eat anything all day, so food was the first order. The train station downtown was also a high-end mall. It had lots of restaurants, but they were all going to cost $25. It was my last day, so I thought I should still go native.
Leaving the station/mall I found myself in the business district. I wondered into a local fast food restaurant, which wasn’t really fast food. It was Chinese food, but of much higher quality than Panda Express or something you would find in a US mall.
Even though the restaurant only had small tables, the seating was still family style. You found an empty seat, not an empty table. It was the only way we would. The place was buzzing and packed.
Two things worth noting at lunch. First, the managers wore paper hats. Men in suits and ties were wearing old school McDonald’s style paper hats which read manager in English and Chinese.
Second, a British man in front of my threw a hissy fit over his drink. I was behind him when he and he female companion ordered. They got the order right, he might have miss understood what he was ordering.
The man screamed and yelled and threw a temper tantrum a 5 year old would have been proud of. The manager came over and accommodated him immediately.
Thoughts that went through my head in the order they came: The people working here can’t be paid enough to have to deal with this. Customer service here (like in the main land) is amazing. I’m glad it is a British guy acting like an ass, not an American.
I thanked the people giving me my food in English and both poorly pronounced Mandarin and Cantonese. And I smiled extra big.
THE TRAM (ACT I)
The first stop of the day was the tram. Hong Kong is spread of a could of very hilly islands. There is a 120 year old tram that runs 1500 feet up one of the hills at a pitch of 14-30 degrees. The guild book said to see the city from that vantage point.
So off I went.
When I had gotten downtown I was tired and very hot. It was the hottest day I encountered in China (and we had lots of very hot days). Being on the cost, it was also much more humid. I wasn’t sure how long I was going to last.
But then came the energy. It was one part lunch and three parts downtown.
I felt like I was in mid-town Manhattan. I love big cities. The energy. The life. Tens of thousands of people packed together. Just awesome.
When traffic was allowed to cross the street, it did from all directions. For someone who is enjoying being quiet, inside myself more and more as time passes, I love this sort of thing more and more.
I also saw my first Bentley being driven. Beautiful car. (If anyone is looking for an early Christmas present, I wouldn’t say no.)
Found the tram. Bought a ticket. Up I went.
Hong Kong is a beautiful city. 6.5 million people is a space smaller than Manhattan island.
The pictures don’t do it justice.
PACIFIC MALL(ACT II)
Stop number two was a huge fashion mall. It was about a 45 minute wall. It is amazing, things look much simpler in a handheld, flat map.
The city on, the other hand, is a little bigger and not flat.
It was a good walk, a hard walk, but a good walk.
By the time I got to the mall I was exhausted.
And very very sweaty. I wasn’t wearing my micro fiber shirt. Instead it was cotton. Clinging to every bit of sweat.
I sat for a few minutes and finished off my oolong tea. (Side note: I love the fact that oolong is in my spell check.)
The mall was very high end. Polo, D&G, and lots of other stores I would have been very impressed by if I knew anything about fashion.
It was the type of place you could spend $100 on a t-shirt.
I went into a number of the men’s business wear stores. The clothing just sung. The fabric was beautiful. It was like going into the Prada, looking at the painting.
All I could do was shake my head and smile.
In my sweaty state I didn’t touch anything. I am not sure if the attention I received in the stores was because of the high level of customer service or if they feared I would soil their clothing.
THE NIGHT MARKET
The last stop was to the Taylor street night market. It was only 2:00p and the market (according to my guide book) would open at 4pm.
I hopped on the subway. I figured I would get the lay of the land and grab a bite and a cold drink.
I found the neighbor hood. Wandered for 30 minutes.
Once again, very hot and sweaty. Found some French bread stuffed with tuna and baked and a cold malted beverage.
It was only 330p at this point. Looking at the map, there were two other street markets close by. I was off.
School had just gotten out, so the streets and stores were filled with high school students. The stores amazing. I would have been fun to be a teeny-bopper girl with a small hand full of cash.
I wondered for close to two hours.
My second favorite section was a group of toy stores. Really they were action figure stores. The Chinese and Japanese do toys, comics, and cartoons so whimsically. I ended up buying some. The coolest figures ever. See the store’s web site: red magic.
My favorite place was a group of photo kiosks. You know the kind where you climb in to have your picture taken. They were computerized. After you took a bunch of pictures you could chose which pictures you wanted and dress them up.
You could add heats, starts, and write words. (Ex. I saw: Friends forever, true love)
This places was packed with high school kids. Very fun.
I then bought a few bootleg >Astro Boy watches from the street vendors for 2 dollars each. If they are working by the time I get home I will be amazed.
I returned to the Night Market at 630p only to see they were just setting up and it was going to be underwhelming in comparison to what I just left.
I decided to head to another part of down town. Walked around for an hour. Window shopping.
Then back to the hotel.
After stopping in airport for a little food it was back to hotel.
Asleep by ten.
Alarm at 600a.
Off to the airport.

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