Hong Kong!!

My first and only day in Hong Kong was decent. I say decent because the city felt so much like America that there was little culture shock of any sort. I mean, here I’m super excited to get into China and I enter this area with Starbucks and McDonald’s everywhere and a shopping mall that makes me think of what cool shirts I want to own.
We got up again for sunrise. And for the first time during this voyage, nearly everyone else did too. Dean John told us last night that he would be disappointed if we didn’t get up to see our entrance into Hong Kong because it is one of the top five ports to sail into, or something like that. So lots of kids were up, flashing their cameras at the scattered islands covered in skyscrapers.
Hong Kong boggles me. We docked on one island full of huge buildings, essentially, a city in itself. But then a seven-minute fairy ride away is another city, the main city I believe. And it’s like that throughout the island region. There are all these cities separated by water and mountains, and as far as I know, they are all considered Hong Kong. Maybe I’m wrong. As we entered into the port city, skyscrapers appeared to the right through the haze, then to the left of our ship, and finally after awhile, up ahead, straight in front of us we saw even more buildings. They were all over. Huge signs on the tops of buildings read Sanyo, Phillips, Sharp, and other large corporations.
The ship wasn’t cleared until 11:00 so after the sunrise and breakfast I took a two hour nap, as did Kathryn. Immediately after exiting the ship we were dropped off into this enormous mall. The gangway actually led to an entrance of the mall and in order to get anywhere we had to walk through it each time. So yeah, this mall was as American as you can imagine. A Patagonia and Birkenstock store were the first businesses we saw as we entered. Toys R Us, KFC, Pizza Hut, it was all there. Of course, there were sporting good chains I haven’t heard of and a variety of other stores that are Chinese, but they all sold familiar looking clothing. Chinese girls filled the mall with their trendy brightly colored clothing and jet black hair in cute hairstyles, making me wish I had hair like theirs. I later had a chance to roam the mall for a bit and I found myself wanting Puma gear and all these other material belongings that I haven’t really longed for lately.
Anna, Kathryn, Emily, Janelle, Keith, and I searched out a restaurant for lunch and eventually settled on one that ended up being overpriced, but I’m over it. We each ordered our own dish and then laughed at the fact that we were the only ones in the restaurant who weren’t sharing multiple plates and instead were hogging our own. I’ve gotten pretty good at eating with chopsticks, by the way. It started in Burma by choice, and then in Vietnam it was inevitable as they rarely ever gave us forks, and so now that I’m in China I feel comfortable eating a meal with nothing other than chopsticks, although doing the noodle thing is quite messy.
After lunch Anna, Kathryn, Emily and I spent forever trying to figure out the Hong Kong bus system before realizing we were on the wrong island for the bus we needed. So we hopped on the Star Ferry and took the short ride over to Hong Kong Island. Our ship had dropped us off at Kowloon, which as I look at the map right now, is actually a small peninsula off the mainland. Once in the main city we took another fifteen minutes trying to figure out the buses and how we were going to come up with exact change.
Eventually we figured it all out and loaded into one of the many double-decker public buses in Hong Kong. The buses in the city are super nice with TV’s airing Chinese commercials and previews for movies. But the view during our ride to Stanley Market, our destination for the day, was more worth looking at than the entertaining foreign television. To get to the other side of the island, roads lead around the city and because the city is so crowded with buildings, the roads are on the sides of the mountains that break the island in half. So we were basically driving above the city, on the side the mountains. Below us was the ocean, beaches, and of course, many, many buildings.
After a half hour we arrived at the market. Everything seemed to cost a lot there, but then again, I just came from Vietnam where it’s like a giant dollar store. And because my next four days will be spent in Beijing, I was super cheap, wanting to save my money for that. We roamed the market for a few hours, trying on cheap name-brand clothing, buying four dollar Von Dutch hats, and looking at things that none of us wanted to spend our money on. We eventually had to head back because we had told Erin and Janelle we would meet them on the ship at 6:00. After the rush-hour bus ride back to the ferry, and the ferry back to the ship, it was just 6:00.
There ended up being ten girls for our Hong Kong dinner that night. I’m not the biggest fan of huge groups, but it was all good. We walked towards the main drag of Kowloon where fluorescent lights written in Chinese symbols made the entire street glow. We settled for a cheap Chinese restaurant a few blocks in.
Sorry, I’m really tired and sort of rushing through this. Anyway, there was this laser light show at 8 pm and we stood along the water, watching the buildings on Hong Kong Island light up and shoot green lasers in the sky. It was cool, but I mean, I’m been to a Phish show before, and that is cool lighting. Erin, Anna, and I walked around the mall after the lasers ended and retired back to the ship to pack and shower once the stores started closing at 9:30.

Sort of a boring blog entry. Sorry! I’ll be in Bejing the next four days though, so I’ll make up for it eventually. I can’t believe I just spent the last day in Hong Kong, it’s so crazy to me. It’s definitely a beautiful city.

These 5 am wake-ups are not working for me. I’m off for the airport.