The Hong Kong Post (part 1)

It's been a figurative and now literal whirlwind here in Hong Kong. Literally, Typhoon Jebi is roaring somewhere nearby, and there are typhoon warning signs up all over Hong Kong. Right now we're at a level 3. I think there are 8 levels. I think (I HOPE) that we'll be able to leave here tomorrow morning without incident.

Figuratively speaking, we've packed quite a bit into the past 4.5 days here on the island. I'll try to sum it up and provide some visual aids as I go.

This was the Maglev train in Shanghai that took us to the airport. 430 km/hour!

We arrived here on Monday afternoon, and the entire group was struck with the tropical beauty of the islands around the airport. We had left the cosmopolitan sauna of Shanghai and the rest of mainland China where we hadn't really seen the sky in days or weeks, and suddenly it was blue skies, fluffy white clouds, and green, mountainous islands. We felt giddy with excitement.

The first evening we improvised dinner at a local Chinese place, and our guide Nevan did his best to order food we'd like, but we still ended up with a (splayed) baby pig, chicken (chopped up so the blood from the bones was still there and the HEAD on the plate), and an entire ugly fish which we had watched a guy catch for us out of the tank behind the table. I've eaten more meat in the past 5 weeks on this trip than I have in the entire year prior to going, and I think I reached my limit that night. I really wanted to write a post about food here, but I never really pulled all my disparate thoughts together well enough. One thought I'll put here is that the Chinese are much closer to the unprocessed versions of their food than we Americans are. Overall, I think this is good...if you don't like it before it's all diced up and processed, maybe you shouldn't eat it. Having said that, it's still gross to have a cute little baby pig laid out on your dinner table.

OK, enough on the food. After dinner a few of us walked down to the harbor and took in the lights of Kowloon across the way. It was a really beautiful night, and even though it was in the mid-80's, it was about 20 degrees cooler than Shanghai, so we felt very comfortable.

The view across the harbor to Kowloon.

Tuesday was a packed day. We spent the morning at Hong Kong University (in a windowless room in tropical paradise...not that I was bitter about that...) listening to 3 different lectures. The first was about the history curriculum in China and Hong Kong schools, and how HK tries to maintain some independence and identity as it stands as a separate, but not entirely separate, entity from China. The second lecture was the most interesting to me. The professor spoke about language in HK. Most people here speak Cantonese, but much business is conducted in Mandarin or English, and schools are taught in all sorts of languages. The final lecture was about HK's government. To be honest, I tuned this guy out after he started showing us flow charts with the names of people in HK's Executive Council in 2003.

In the afternoon we visited our final school. It was a Buddhist secondary school, and the principal called in about 15 students from summer vacation to come and give us a tour. The principal was a really dynamic and charismatic guy who told us that HK's student population is declining. He seemed to say it was because of SARs in 2003, but that seems weird to me. I didn't think SARs had quite that big of an impact, but what do I know...

Our final lecture took me back to my college days because it was at the port. We learned all about the exporting industry in HK, which is basically how they make a ton of money here. Go supply chains! Hong Kong is the 3rd largest port in the world. Shanghai and Singapore hold the #1 and #2 spots, respectively.

After dinner on Tuesday we took the Star Ferry across to Kowloon just to say we did it and to see the city lights from a new perspective. It was fun to get out on the water for a short trip, and we shared a boat with a bunch of kids coming from the Anime Convention in the city. They were all dressed up as Anime characters.

By far the best part of my time in HK was Wednesday. Penn State friend, Cindy, is living here in the city not too far from my hotel. We had the entire day free, so Cindy and I made plans to hang out. I don't think I've seen Cindy for about 5 years because she's been living overseas, so it was so great to have a whole day to catch up in person. We started off the day (after coffee, of course) with a long and rambling hike over a mountain and down to a reservoir. The scenery was incredible, and I was THRILLED to get out of the city. Even better, I got to spend a few hours talking about just about everything with Cindy. In college we used to leave campus and go for "scenic drives" through central Pennsylvania, and we'd listen to Guster, and we'd talk about all of our BIG ideas and BIG issues with the passion of 20 year old college students. It was fun to redo that now on a "scenic hike" in HONG KONG (!) and have the same sort of talk from our new perspectives in our 30's. I hope we can do it somewhere else beautiful in our 40's and 50's and onward!

Our scenic hike

More scenery and the reservior

We weren't sure if the reservoir was green because it was so natural and fresh, or because of some weird pollution. You never know in China.

There were all sorts of butterflies around!

Butterfly party

We ended our hike with a taxi ride into Stanley where the rich ex-pats live. We walked through the market so I could say I did that, and then we had dim sum for lunch. Our next destination was the beach!! We walked along the coast out of Stanley to a more secluded area and we spent a couple of hours just relaxing. I can now say I've been in the South China Sea! Aside from the sort of loud group nearby and the container ships floating by in the distance, we could have been anywhere in Southeast Asia. It was great!

The beach!

We took a double-decker bus back to the city. It took two tries because I didn't have the right change. Why can't buses give change? It has stumped me before, and I'm sure it will get me again. We cleaned up back at Cindy's place and then headed out to the 62nd floor of a nearby building to have drinks in a rotating bar! It was such a great way to see the city! After our two happy hour drinks, (they love their 2-for-1 happy hours here that seem to last all night) we went down the hill, and by go down the hill I mean we took the elevator down and ended up down the hill, and ate dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. Cindy and I used to frequent a Viet-Thai restaurant in State College where we'd make double and triple orders of spring rolls, so it was appropriate to have the real deal here in Asia. Yum.

The view from the rotating bar.

The night was winding down, but Cindy wanted to show me the party scene in the Lan Kwai Fong neighborhood, and then we rode the world's longest escalator in the SoHo area. I want to say more about the escalator and what I did today on my LAST day in Hong Kong and Asia, but I have to go to bed now so I can get up and go HOME tomorrow. So, this will have to be a part 1 post. More to come soon! Thanks for reading so much!