The Trip So Far
Oct. 4th, 2007 10:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unforthHere's that more to come that I've been promising. Hopefully I can get this written fairly quickly, it's already 9:30 PM and I'm tired! ;)
My flight was at 9:45 AM from Narita. Knowing it was an international flight, I set out for the airport on the first train that left, at 6 AM. I then proceeded to have pretty much every thing that could go wrong go wrong. The trip took longer than anticipated. I got on the wrong train, and had to walk to the terminal. Which was the WRONG terminal, despite being the one labeled "International." They confiscated my $15/bottle hair gel. When all was said and done, I got the platform less than 10 minutes before boarding started (9:15 or so is when I got there.) Nothing went catastrophically wrong, which was good I guess, but everything went just wrong enough to be annoying - which was infuriating after the first couple times. On the plus side, there was a mochi cream at the airport, so at least I had Halloween Pudding mochi creams to make me feel better. Once I was on the flight, thankfully, things got a bit better, and I didn't give them the opportunity to lose my luggage because I didn't check anything.
I spent the flight reading about Hong Kong, because I still didn't have a clue what I was actually going to do there. I flagged all the stuff that looked interesting, discovered that there is tons of beautiful hiking in the area, and generally sorted out important things like how to get out of the airport without it costing a lot and where I was going to stay.
Approaching Hong Kong by rail at 1 in the afternoon, it looks like a stunningly beautiful place. The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of China glitter blue in the sparkling...hazy...daylight. This is still outside of the city, of course, from the airport. All of the civilization is arrayed on the islands, but all of them are mountainous, so skyscrapers cling to the shoreline while tropical-looking mountains covered in green act as a backdrop. The effect is spectacular. All too soon, we arrive in Hong Kong proper, not on the island but on a spit of land that is part of the city and part of mainland China (not that I can go to China from here, that would require a different visa cause of the "one country, two systems" set up.) Kowloon is where I get off the train, and where I hope to find an insanely cheap guest house. I promptly get lost trying to get out the train station, and then lost again once I'm outside of it, and eventually end up back someplace I was 5 minutes after I started almost 40 minutes later, having been told by a helpful lady that it's the way to go. Murphy's Law, I'm telling you. By this point, I'm thoroughly annoyed and not at all pleased with Hong Kong. Meanwhile, the bus driver is an insane maniac, and he decides that he doesn't need to follow the route, why should he do that, and he doesn't speak English, so me and these two other tourists who are going to the same place as me sit there trying to figure out what the heck is going on. When I finally get to my stop, I'm instantly assaulted by men covertly asking me if I want copy watches (the guide warned me this would happen, but I didn't expect it so fast). I can't do ANYTHING, though, until I find an ATM, because I don't have a cent of local money. I walk past the place I want to stay, which houses over 2 dozen Guest Houses, and one again am assaulted by people asking me if I need a room. Thoroughly pissed now, I snap that I don't want ANYTHING until I find a goddamn ATM. Nodding, the guy gives me directions.
He's still waiting for me when I get back, and I'm more annoyed, because I'd picked out which guest house I wanted (one that's $80 for a single with a shared bathroom). Unable to dodge out, I ask him how much it is, and if AC is included, and end up going with his room, which looks nice and clean, does include AC, and is a shared bathroom for $120.
The hardest thing to get used to in Hong Kong, by the by, is the exchange rate. Do those rooms sound expensive? Well, they are in HKD. The current exchange rate is 1 US dollar = 7.8 HK dollars. Which is to say that those numbers should be divided by 7. Which is to say that, when you calculate it out, I could stay in my current hotel room for a month and pay less than I do for my room in Tokyo. Course, this room is smaller, and the shower is grosser, but even so. It took me two days to get used to just how LITTLE things cost here even as they look like they cost SO MUCH. :)
Anyway, I was arriving late enough in the day that I couldn't do museums and the like, so I had made a plan for what I would do: Hong Kong proper (called Central, located on Hong Kong island) is overlooked by a 1000 m high mountain called Victoria's Peak. I had decided I wanted to walk it before reading the part of the book that said you had to be insane to attempt this, and having made up my mind, well, I'm a stubborn moron. Furthermore, I had learned something awesome: October 1st was National Day (Chinese Independance day) and there were going to be fireworks in Victoria Bay. I put 1 and 1 together and got 2: Watch the fireworks from Victoria Peak. The fireworks were at 9 PM. I set out for Victoria at 3.
I hadn't gotten far before I realized that I HATED Hong Kong. This rather distressing. I was exhausted, I hated how dirty it was, I hated how everyone was in my face, I couldn't even glance at something without being asked if I wanted to buy it. Still, I tried to pull myself out of the funk.
Central itself is perfectly flat. This is because it is built on mostly reclaimed land. However, you don't go far south before land starts to climb. And by climb, I mean most of the city gives San Francisco a run for it's money. Top off that I don't have a map that shows how to get to Victoria's Peak, and I'm thoroughly annoyed by the time I find the entrance, having had to go up and down and up and down a bunch before finding the unsurprisingly named "Old Peak Road."
The climb was torture. I ran out of water at the face. In about a mile, the path climbs a full kilometer up. I really didn't think I was going to make it more than once; I almost threw up. It's funny, I thought I was kind of with it after walking 20 fucking miles; trying to go up like that, though, while wearing a back pack too, reminded me how much more I need to train before I can walk the Appalacian Trail. Finally, though, I made it to the top. All in all, from Central to the top (about 4 miles, maybe a little more) took me 2 hours.
Two nice people I'd met on the way told me the fireworks were actually at 8, and pointed out to me where they'd be shot from. Thus, after a bit of debate, I headed up to the highest point I could find - an observation deck another 5 stories above the top of the mountain - just after 6 PM to find myself a good vantage point. I snapped a bunch of pictures as the city grew dark and the lights came on, and I waited. The wind blew hard enough that if there hadn't been a retaining wall it could have plucked you off the mountain. People hid from it, it was so loud, and it was unending. After an hour, I had to put on music. Meanwhile, I picked a spot, and refused to move. 8 PM came and went. The wind blew harder, some how, and my ears rang as if I was at a rock concert. The platform was packed with people, but I started to have the bad feeling that they had told me the wrong spot, too; from where I was standing, if my guess was right, two of the tallest buildings on the skyline would block my line of sight. It was too late to move now, though, so I weathered the wind and I weathered the splashes of rain that came and I waited. All in all, I stood up there for three hours, having not eaten since about 2 PM. At first, I was annoyed - the wind was too strong to allow for reading, and too loud to allow me to listen to music without defeaning myself. After a while, though, I kind of zened out. I joked about writing an LJ post about it all, and composing poetry about how the wind could easily drive men mad (I was just reaching the Ways in Eye of the World, so this idea appealed ;) ). Finally, at 9:15, the fireworks started. Sure enough, the two buildings were in the way (if you look at the pictures you'll see what I mean) but even so, from the top of a 1 km mountain overlooking Hong Kong was still a pretty awesome place to see fire works from. ;)
After that, I got myself dinner; after the misery that had been most of the day, I got steak and mashed potatoes and ice cream, and it was HEAVEN. The ice cream in particularly was remarkably good. Then I walked back down the mountain - I had planned to take the tram, but the line was way too long - and headed home.
The first day was a saga, hence the long description. When I got to my guest room, it was well after midnight; all in all, including the time difference, I been up for almost 20 hours. I set an alarm for very early, and collapsed, but not before writing 800 words for Ni90. Trust me, nothing else is long winded like this was. ;)
The next morning, I plotted an ambitious course, cutting a swath across the main part of downtown Hong Kong. I hit HK University Art Museum, three different temples, a few shopping areas, and then found a cafe with net connection and called mom to let her know I was okay, and posted that note in my LJ. :) I walked myself to exhaustion, which was a bad call. All in all, though, it was a nice day, though not terribly remarkable in retrospect. My opinion of the city steadily improved, though, especially when I found cheap anime figures. ;) The most interesting thing I really did, though, was to try the grossest thing I could think of.
My guide book mentioned something called "100 Year Old Eggs." You take an egg, you preserve it for 6 months, and then you eat it, pretty much. This, I thought, sounded utterly disgusting. However, apparently they were sometimes used in pastries, and since they are supposedly a delicacy, I resolved that if I spotted one of the pastries somewhere, I would make myself give it a try. How bad could it be, people think it's so special, right? Well, for lunch on Monday I stopped at a traditional Chinese bakery, and there they were, baked into a pastry. So I went for it. And....it was kind of gross, but kind of not. The texture was seriously weird, and the smell was pretty lousy, but worst was just knowing what it was. I could only make myself eat half of it, and then I had to stop. There was just something not right about it over all. I was annoyed with myself for wussing out, but at least I gave it a try. ;)
Tuesday evening found me wandering the Night Bazaar, and in one fell swoop my opinion of Hong Kong changed. Bargaining at 10 PM for random street things? Pretty awesome. All that cheap China schlock you find in the states? A fraction of the price here. I've pretty much finished my Christmas shopping, at least for all of the girls I know (including multiple people on this list - it was all so cheap that I figured I could give people nice things and not care if they gave me gifts in return). Jade and embroidery and all manner of other things, cheaper than you could ever believe.
Yesterday, I once again woke up early, planning to go to the zoo, only to discover that it was raining - not zoo weather. So instead, I headed to the morning Jade Market, and then did a sweep of the museums in Kowloong, all of which are free on Wednesdays. In all, I went to four: The Hong Kong History Museum (one of the nicest museums I've ever gone to - interesting, informative, beautifully laid out, full of room reproductions, and entirely bilingual); the Hong Kong Science Museum (another of the nicest museums I've ever been to, with incredibly fun hands on exhibits and a truly awesome hall of mirrors); the Hong Kong Art Museum (not bad, though paled in comparison to the other two); and the Hong Kong Space Museum (which had a fun planetarium show but otherwise was about as mediocre as the guide had warned me it would be). In between, I went to the Peninsula Hotel, one of the nicest and oldest hotels in the city, and had afternoon tea, which was just plain splendid, the more so for including scones.
By the evening, though, I was getting grumpy. Things persisted in going wrong: I couldn't get money out of the bank for no good reason; my first two attempts at finding a place to eat dinner failed miserably; by the time I did sit down for dinner I was aggravated, and starting to wonder if my persistant bad mood might be PMS. :)
When my alarm went off this morning, I laughed at it and went back to sleep. Too many nights going to bed at midnight or later, then not sleeping well, then waking up at 7:30. I couldn't do it again. An hour, as it turned out, made little difference, and I set out after that for Ocean Park, which is basically Hong Kong's answer to Sea World - aquarium type stuff, some rides (including![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
buzzermccain's dream roller coaster, three loops without a single steep drop!) and a dolphin show. It was a lot of fun, even when my ride on the coaster made it clear that I was not actually in the mood for rides - instead I took pictures of jelly fish, the dolphin show, and the panda bears. I had a lot of fun, too. After that, I headed back in to town, did a bit more shopping, ate dinner. I got my fortune told, too - a palm reading. Apparently I'm going to find love when I'm in my late 20's, and make my fortune in my 30's. My man won't be my dream guy, but he'll be smart and nice, though I should stay away from Dragons - stick to Tiger and Horse. We'll have two children, and I'll live to be in my 70's. Not a bad life, I guess. :)
Hong Kong is noisy, dirty, and rather unpleasant in a lot of regards. I thought it would be like Tokyo, but damn was I wrong. From a distance, it is a sparkling metropolis with a skyline to dazzle. It's when you get close that you see all the grime. People are among the rudest I've ever met ANYWHERE - they'll shove you, step on you, and generally act nasty and selfish and never say sorry. What's worse is that it's catching - I've noticed I'm acting just like them, because why apologize when you know that they wouldn't have apologized to you? Cause they wouldn't have, there's not even a chance. All in all, I won't be sorry to leave it. That said, there are a lot of nice things, too. It's very compact, making walking a cinch. Once you're actually in businesses and such, the people are perfectly nice. The public transportation system is extensive and easy to use. And the US dollar has amazing buying power. Businesses stay open very late - yesterday I walked past designer stores still open at 10:30 PM. It's a fascinating mixture of tourist glitz, desperate squalor, and the strange juxtaposition of the haves and the havenots. People constantly hawk things to you: copy watches, guest house rooms, massages, or, in the case of booths in street bazaars, pretty much anything you let your eyes rest on for more than a moment. If they see you looking, they'll try to guess what you're looking at, and even if they're wrong they'll still try to sell it to you. On the plus side, bartering is the norm, and I've managed to shave a few US dollars, at least, off of everything I've bought. I feel like I'm spending money like water, but that's just the exchange rate.
I've been, as usual, delighting in food on this trip. My goal is to eat yummy things I can't really get in Japan. I had steak the first night, then on Tuesday I got Italian, real Italian, which was quite good. Last night, finally, I got around to eating Chinese - remember, please, that I don't actually LIKE Chinese food, but I wasn't going to not get any. I went to a Northern-style place (I'm going to get Cantonese food, which is local, tomorrow if all goes as planned) and it was good. I had mutton and onion sautee, pretty straight forward, though the desert was unusual to say the least, rice gluton balls in this thick sugary soup...er...thing. I didn't eat it all, but I ate all the rice balls, they were yummy. ;) Tonight, then, I got the other thing I really wanted: good Indian food. I got Tikka Masala; it was different than inthe states, but not unrecognizable, and very good. :)
Well, I feel like I could say tons more, but I also feel like there isn't much else to say. I suspect a lot of random comments will get shaken out of the brain once I get around to labeling photographs, which won't happen til I'm back - time is too valuable while I'm here. ;)
sapphohestia, mistress_sin, anyone else who likes cloth: Do you guys want any Chinese cloth?? Brocade? Silk? There's some astonishing stuff here, though not all of it is cheap. If you do want some, you should let me know what sort of thing (ie, general color, general pattern, etc.) and how much of it you'd want. Then you can either pay me back or consider it an X-mas gift, I don't care much either way. :)
Anyway, I'm off! I'm gonna try to make up for not writing yesterday. ;)
My flight was at 9:45 AM from Narita. Knowing it was an international flight, I set out for the airport on the first train that left, at 6 AM. I then proceeded to have pretty much every thing that could go wrong go wrong. The trip took longer than anticipated. I got on the wrong train, and had to walk to the terminal. Which was the WRONG terminal, despite being the one labeled "International." They confiscated my $15/bottle hair gel. When all was said and done, I got the platform less than 10 minutes before boarding started (9:15 or so is when I got there.) Nothing went catastrophically wrong, which was good I guess, but everything went just wrong enough to be annoying - which was infuriating after the first couple times. On the plus side, there was a mochi cream at the airport, so at least I had Halloween Pudding mochi creams to make me feel better. Once I was on the flight, thankfully, things got a bit better, and I didn't give them the opportunity to lose my luggage because I didn't check anything.
I spent the flight reading about Hong Kong, because I still didn't have a clue what I was actually going to do there. I flagged all the stuff that looked interesting, discovered that there is tons of beautiful hiking in the area, and generally sorted out important things like how to get out of the airport without it costing a lot and where I was going to stay.
Approaching Hong Kong by rail at 1 in the afternoon, it looks like a stunningly beautiful place. The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of China glitter blue in the sparkling...hazy...daylight. This is still outside of the city, of course, from the airport. All of the civilization is arrayed on the islands, but all of them are mountainous, so skyscrapers cling to the shoreline while tropical-looking mountains covered in green act as a backdrop. The effect is spectacular. All too soon, we arrive in Hong Kong proper, not on the island but on a spit of land that is part of the city and part of mainland China (not that I can go to China from here, that would require a different visa cause of the "one country, two systems" set up.) Kowloon is where I get off the train, and where I hope to find an insanely cheap guest house. I promptly get lost trying to get out the train station, and then lost again once I'm outside of it, and eventually end up back someplace I was 5 minutes after I started almost 40 minutes later, having been told by a helpful lady that it's the way to go. Murphy's Law, I'm telling you. By this point, I'm thoroughly annoyed and not at all pleased with Hong Kong. Meanwhile, the bus driver is an insane maniac, and he decides that he doesn't need to follow the route, why should he do that, and he doesn't speak English, so me and these two other tourists who are going to the same place as me sit there trying to figure out what the heck is going on. When I finally get to my stop, I'm instantly assaulted by men covertly asking me if I want copy watches (the guide warned me this would happen, but I didn't expect it so fast). I can't do ANYTHING, though, until I find an ATM, because I don't have a cent of local money. I walk past the place I want to stay, which houses over 2 dozen Guest Houses, and one again am assaulted by people asking me if I need a room. Thoroughly pissed now, I snap that I don't want ANYTHING until I find a goddamn ATM. Nodding, the guy gives me directions.
He's still waiting for me when I get back, and I'm more annoyed, because I'd picked out which guest house I wanted (one that's $80 for a single with a shared bathroom). Unable to dodge out, I ask him how much it is, and if AC is included, and end up going with his room, which looks nice and clean, does include AC, and is a shared bathroom for $120.
The hardest thing to get used to in Hong Kong, by the by, is the exchange rate. Do those rooms sound expensive? Well, they are in HKD. The current exchange rate is 1 US dollar = 7.8 HK dollars. Which is to say that those numbers should be divided by 7. Which is to say that, when you calculate it out, I could stay in my current hotel room for a month and pay less than I do for my room in Tokyo. Course, this room is smaller, and the shower is grosser, but even so. It took me two days to get used to just how LITTLE things cost here even as they look like they cost SO MUCH. :)
Anyway, I was arriving late enough in the day that I couldn't do museums and the like, so I had made a plan for what I would do: Hong Kong proper (called Central, located on Hong Kong island) is overlooked by a 1000 m high mountain called Victoria's Peak. I had decided I wanted to walk it before reading the part of the book that said you had to be insane to attempt this, and having made up my mind, well, I'm a stubborn moron. Furthermore, I had learned something awesome: October 1st was National Day (Chinese Independance day) and there were going to be fireworks in Victoria Bay. I put 1 and 1 together and got 2: Watch the fireworks from Victoria Peak. The fireworks were at 9 PM. I set out for Victoria at 3.
I hadn't gotten far before I realized that I HATED Hong Kong. This rather distressing. I was exhausted, I hated how dirty it was, I hated how everyone was in my face, I couldn't even glance at something without being asked if I wanted to buy it. Still, I tried to pull myself out of the funk.
Central itself is perfectly flat. This is because it is built on mostly reclaimed land. However, you don't go far south before land starts to climb. And by climb, I mean most of the city gives San Francisco a run for it's money. Top off that I don't have a map that shows how to get to Victoria's Peak, and I'm thoroughly annoyed by the time I find the entrance, having had to go up and down and up and down a bunch before finding the unsurprisingly named "Old Peak Road."
The climb was torture. I ran out of water at the face. In about a mile, the path climbs a full kilometer up. I really didn't think I was going to make it more than once; I almost threw up. It's funny, I thought I was kind of with it after walking 20 fucking miles; trying to go up like that, though, while wearing a back pack too, reminded me how much more I need to train before I can walk the Appalacian Trail. Finally, though, I made it to the top. All in all, from Central to the top (about 4 miles, maybe a little more) took me 2 hours.
Two nice people I'd met on the way told me the fireworks were actually at 8, and pointed out to me where they'd be shot from. Thus, after a bit of debate, I headed up to the highest point I could find - an observation deck another 5 stories above the top of the mountain - just after 6 PM to find myself a good vantage point. I snapped a bunch of pictures as the city grew dark and the lights came on, and I waited. The wind blew hard enough that if there hadn't been a retaining wall it could have plucked you off the mountain. People hid from it, it was so loud, and it was unending. After an hour, I had to put on music. Meanwhile, I picked a spot, and refused to move. 8 PM came and went. The wind blew harder, some how, and my ears rang as if I was at a rock concert. The platform was packed with people, but I started to have the bad feeling that they had told me the wrong spot, too; from where I was standing, if my guess was right, two of the tallest buildings on the skyline would block my line of sight. It was too late to move now, though, so I weathered the wind and I weathered the splashes of rain that came and I waited. All in all, I stood up there for three hours, having not eaten since about 2 PM. At first, I was annoyed - the wind was too strong to allow for reading, and too loud to allow me to listen to music without defeaning myself. After a while, though, I kind of zened out. I joked about writing an LJ post about it all, and composing poetry about how the wind could easily drive men mad (I was just reaching the Ways in Eye of the World, so this idea appealed ;) ). Finally, at 9:15, the fireworks started. Sure enough, the two buildings were in the way (if you look at the pictures you'll see what I mean) but even so, from the top of a 1 km mountain overlooking Hong Kong was still a pretty awesome place to see fire works from. ;)
After that, I got myself dinner; after the misery that had been most of the day, I got steak and mashed potatoes and ice cream, and it was HEAVEN. The ice cream in particularly was remarkably good. Then I walked back down the mountain - I had planned to take the tram, but the line was way too long - and headed home.
The first day was a saga, hence the long description. When I got to my guest room, it was well after midnight; all in all, including the time difference, I been up for almost 20 hours. I set an alarm for very early, and collapsed, but not before writing 800 words for Ni90. Trust me, nothing else is long winded like this was. ;)
The next morning, I plotted an ambitious course, cutting a swath across the main part of downtown Hong Kong. I hit HK University Art Museum, three different temples, a few shopping areas, and then found a cafe with net connection and called mom to let her know I was okay, and posted that note in my LJ. :) I walked myself to exhaustion, which was a bad call. All in all, though, it was a nice day, though not terribly remarkable in retrospect. My opinion of the city steadily improved, though, especially when I found cheap anime figures. ;) The most interesting thing I really did, though, was to try the grossest thing I could think of.
My guide book mentioned something called "100 Year Old Eggs." You take an egg, you preserve it for 6 months, and then you eat it, pretty much. This, I thought, sounded utterly disgusting. However, apparently they were sometimes used in pastries, and since they are supposedly a delicacy, I resolved that if I spotted one of the pastries somewhere, I would make myself give it a try. How bad could it be, people think it's so special, right? Well, for lunch on Monday I stopped at a traditional Chinese bakery, and there they were, baked into a pastry. So I went for it. And....it was kind of gross, but kind of not. The texture was seriously weird, and the smell was pretty lousy, but worst was just knowing what it was. I could only make myself eat half of it, and then I had to stop. There was just something not right about it over all. I was annoyed with myself for wussing out, but at least I gave it a try. ;)
Tuesday evening found me wandering the Night Bazaar, and in one fell swoop my opinion of Hong Kong changed. Bargaining at 10 PM for random street things? Pretty awesome. All that cheap China schlock you find in the states? A fraction of the price here. I've pretty much finished my Christmas shopping, at least for all of the girls I know (including multiple people on this list - it was all so cheap that I figured I could give people nice things and not care if they gave me gifts in return). Jade and embroidery and all manner of other things, cheaper than you could ever believe.
Yesterday, I once again woke up early, planning to go to the zoo, only to discover that it was raining - not zoo weather. So instead, I headed to the morning Jade Market, and then did a sweep of the museums in Kowloong, all of which are free on Wednesdays. In all, I went to four: The Hong Kong History Museum (one of the nicest museums I've ever gone to - interesting, informative, beautifully laid out, full of room reproductions, and entirely bilingual); the Hong Kong Science Museum (another of the nicest museums I've ever been to, with incredibly fun hands on exhibits and a truly awesome hall of mirrors); the Hong Kong Art Museum (not bad, though paled in comparison to the other two); and the Hong Kong Space Museum (which had a fun planetarium show but otherwise was about as mediocre as the guide had warned me it would be). In between, I went to the Peninsula Hotel, one of the nicest and oldest hotels in the city, and had afternoon tea, which was just plain splendid, the more so for including scones.
By the evening, though, I was getting grumpy. Things persisted in going wrong: I couldn't get money out of the bank for no good reason; my first two attempts at finding a place to eat dinner failed miserably; by the time I did sit down for dinner I was aggravated, and starting to wonder if my persistant bad mood might be PMS. :)
When my alarm went off this morning, I laughed at it and went back to sleep. Too many nights going to bed at midnight or later, then not sleeping well, then waking up at 7:30. I couldn't do it again. An hour, as it turned out, made little difference, and I set out after that for Ocean Park, which is basically Hong Kong's answer to Sea World - aquarium type stuff, some rides (including
buzzermccain's dream roller coaster, three loops without a single steep drop!) and a dolphin show. It was a lot of fun, even when my ride on the coaster made it clear that I was not actually in the mood for rides - instead I took pictures of jelly fish, the dolphin show, and the panda bears. I had a lot of fun, too. After that, I headed back in to town, did a bit more shopping, ate dinner. I got my fortune told, too - a palm reading. Apparently I'm going to find love when I'm in my late 20's, and make my fortune in my 30's. My man won't be my dream guy, but he'll be smart and nice, though I should stay away from Dragons - stick to Tiger and Horse. We'll have two children, and I'll live to be in my 70's. Not a bad life, I guess. :)Hong Kong is noisy, dirty, and rather unpleasant in a lot of regards. I thought it would be like Tokyo, but damn was I wrong. From a distance, it is a sparkling metropolis with a skyline to dazzle. It's when you get close that you see all the grime. People are among the rudest I've ever met ANYWHERE - they'll shove you, step on you, and generally act nasty and selfish and never say sorry. What's worse is that it's catching - I've noticed I'm acting just like them, because why apologize when you know that they wouldn't have apologized to you? Cause they wouldn't have, there's not even a chance. All in all, I won't be sorry to leave it. That said, there are a lot of nice things, too. It's very compact, making walking a cinch. Once you're actually in businesses and such, the people are perfectly nice. The public transportation system is extensive and easy to use. And the US dollar has amazing buying power. Businesses stay open very late - yesterday I walked past designer stores still open at 10:30 PM. It's a fascinating mixture of tourist glitz, desperate squalor, and the strange juxtaposition of the haves and the havenots. People constantly hawk things to you: copy watches, guest house rooms, massages, or, in the case of booths in street bazaars, pretty much anything you let your eyes rest on for more than a moment. If they see you looking, they'll try to guess what you're looking at, and even if they're wrong they'll still try to sell it to you. On the plus side, bartering is the norm, and I've managed to shave a few US dollars, at least, off of everything I've bought. I feel like I'm spending money like water, but that's just the exchange rate.
I've been, as usual, delighting in food on this trip. My goal is to eat yummy things I can't really get in Japan. I had steak the first night, then on Tuesday I got Italian, real Italian, which was quite good. Last night, finally, I got around to eating Chinese - remember, please, that I don't actually LIKE Chinese food, but I wasn't going to not get any. I went to a Northern-style place (I'm going to get Cantonese food, which is local, tomorrow if all goes as planned) and it was good. I had mutton and onion sautee, pretty straight forward, though the desert was unusual to say the least, rice gluton balls in this thick sugary soup...er...thing. I didn't eat it all, but I ate all the rice balls, they were yummy. ;) Tonight, then, I got the other thing I really wanted: good Indian food. I got Tikka Masala; it was different than inthe states, but not unrecognizable, and very good. :)
Well, I feel like I could say tons more, but I also feel like there isn't much else to say. I suspect a lot of random comments will get shaken out of the brain once I get around to labeling photographs, which won't happen til I'm back - time is too valuable while I'm here. ;)
sapphohestia, mistress_sin, anyone else who likes cloth: Do you guys want any Chinese cloth?? Brocade? Silk? There's some astonishing stuff here, though not all of it is cheap. If you do want some, you should let me know what sort of thing (ie, general color, general pattern, etc.) and how much of it you'd want. Then you can either pay me back or consider it an X-mas gift, I don't care much either way. :)Anyway, I'm off! I'm gonna try to make up for not writing yesterday. ;)
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Date: 2007-10-04 02:41 pm (UTC)You're culinarily much braver than me.
OTOH, I think I might like to try Idako some day, so... ^_^
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Date: 2007-10-04 03:05 pm (UTC)I suppose this kind of proves you're getting over your food picky-ness though. Yay you!
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Date: 2007-10-04 10:27 pm (UTC)You are way braver than I.
I shall think on the fabric offer and get back to you. (:
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Date: 2007-10-05 01:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-05 01:53 am (UTC)I took a picture of the half-eaten egg to commemorate the attempt. :)
Buyin cloth in Hong Kong
Date: 2007-10-04 05:55 pm (UTC)Funny you should mention it, but as you may recall (or as I may have mentioned), I'm working on a music room / meditation room / studio in the garage and want to use a piece of beautiful (think, muted colors, intricate design, e.g., bedspread from India) cloth as a ceiling. Maybe about 9 x 10. No further guidance -- surprise me in December.
Cheers,
Six women of Avignon playing banjos
Re: Buyin cloth in Hong Kong
Date: 2007-10-05 01:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-04 09:56 pm (UTC)Fabric would be awesome though, if you have space and weight. Something pretty? In blue or green or purple? Not too expensive. Is $4-5/yd doable?
Enough to make a dress? ~5 yds?
Thanks!
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Date: 2007-10-05 01:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-05 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-06 05:27 am (UTC)