TravellingMatters: And the Journey Begins...

It started with the public transit in LA and has continued through to the epic subways and double decker buses in Hong Kong. This stuff happenned a couple days ago now, but we haven't gotten around to putting the memories down until now.

When I arrived here in Hong Kong, I was greeted by my backstroke training partner from Trojan Swim Club, Hoi Ping Lee or Phillip as we knew him in the US. He has two names, one for us silly Americans and the other, the one his parents gave him- obviously he's from Hong Kong. We had a quick cup of coffee and I videoed him so I would remember my first thing I did in Hong Kong. We then hopped on the subway and went straight in to the Kowloon district of Hong Kong. Unfortunately he had to take off for his accounting job he has going for him, and that was about all the time I had with my buddy from this last year of training.

Now it was time for me to do something with myself until Ryan got in later that night, so I looked at my list of things to do that I picked from Phillip's brain before he took off and I decided to check out a couple things: some hostels for the night to come and the Peak Tram for a view of the city. I took off for the closest Star Bucks and bummed a free 20 minutes on the wifi so I could see when Ryan got in from his flight and then I basically wasted the rest of the time on email and facebook- nothing new there. After that I made my way for the subways and tried my luck at finding the view of the city that Phillip told me about. All I knew was that I should get to this subway stop called Admiralty and then try to find some “mountian” to hike up. Phillip's English is funny sometimes, but it was spot on. There is a mountain that you can walk up or take a tram up for a hazy but scenic view of the Hong Kong skyline.

I got off the subway and unfortunately but entertainingly enough ran across my first street 'hawkers” of Hong Kong. This Indian fellow in a turban passed me in a covered walk way and said something to me that I couldn't quite understand. He seemed nice enough so I turned and asked him what he had just said. He then lauched into a fortune telling bit where he predicted my favorite color, told me love was in my life, that I was a generous person, that I was happy, and other stuff. I don't think too much is all that hard to predict for an American traveler with a huge backpack on his back. Either way at the end of his little act, he busted out the pad of paper from “people he had already talked to from America” and this paper had their names, where they were from and how much they'd given him for his fortune telling and his underpriviledged kids he works for in India. Supposedly these other Americans had given him $150 USD each! Since I was a generous person, as he predicted, I should probably give him some money- I guess his fortune telling skills are a bit challenged. I gave him 50 cents and went about my merry way.

From there I found my way to the Peak. I took a rail car up the side of the mountain because it was hot and I had about fourty pounds of crap I was toting along with me. Plus I'd been on a plane for about fifteen hours- so yes, I took the easy way out. Once you got up there, the city is amazing in the sense that I can hardly believe people built all those freakin' buildings! There are sky scrapers everywhere and they are filling in the harbor to make land for new buildings.

From SE Asia Pt 1

The subways are better than driving cars; you never have to wait more than a minute, literally. But the air quality is less than perfect as you can tell from the multitude of people wearing the breathing masks. When I was on top of this viewing platform set up on the top of the mountain I could make out most of the skyline, but there was quite a bit that was hidden in the haze. It definitely rivaled LA for title of nastiest air in the world. The video will show that and the beautiful skyline with ships zipping all over the harbor. It's a unique city for sure.

Then I went back to the main part of town and checked out some hostels. Actually it was more like the hostels checked me out. I might as well have had a huge sign on my back that read, “I'm an American looking for a place to stay,” because the second I set foot on the hostel area turf, I was hounded by three different people at a time trying to get their hostels filled. One guy walked me back up a long hall way lined with shops to an elevator when another guy pulled me along with him because it was obviously his turn for the next customer. The hostels in this area must work together to some degree. Either way, I found a couple good ones to see if Ryan agreed, and I then decided to go and meet Ryan at the airport.

You see, in going to the airport I was surprising Ryan because we had originally decided to meet at this famous hotel in Hong Kong at 8pm, but I thought a surprise greeting after he got off the plane was a good idea. I paid my 12 bucks to take the shuttle to the airport and waited at the only place Ryan could exit the customs and sat there looking for him. After an hour of watching everyone exit, I decided somehow, don't know exactly how, but we'd missed each other. I just hoped he was at the hotel waiting. Luckily it turned out he was and we had a good laugh about that one.

After that we dropped our stuff off at the hostel, got some food at a local food market, and crashed for the night.