Hong Kong - Pretty Awesome

After packing all of my belongings into one enormous "Samsonite" suitcase that I bought for 15 bucks at a market in Beijing, I put it in storage, said goodbye to all of my China friends who were headed home for Christmas, and I hopped on a 24 hour train to Hong Kong to begin my winter of travel.

As much as mainland China would like you to believe that Hong Kong is part of the PRC, it is definitely not. Nothing is the same at all. Hong Kong's language is different, the government is different, the people act and dress differently, the transportation and traffic patterns are efficient and they drive on the other side of the road. The city is clean, it doesn't smell like feces, the food is safe, and the prices are about 40 times what they are on the mainland. (I guess that's the price you pay for being a developed country.) I had to get my passport stamped out of China and into Hong Kong -- that counts as a different country to me.

After checking into a tiny hostel in a high rise in the middle of Kowloon with my friend Ling from Beijing, we explored the peninsular part of the city. We enjoyed the fresh, tasty food, which is nowhere near as oily as Beijing's and which is very similar to what we get back in the States. We immediately noticed the high Hong Kong prices and how much it hurt to pay the equivalent of 4 to 8 dollars for a restaurant meal. I had to pay almost 20 dollars for a haircut!!! (In Beijing, this could have cost me only 2 dollars.)

We sat on the edge of the harbor and watched the Hong Kong island skyline as the sun dipped below the huge mountains behind the city. -- Which reminds me to mention how vastly different the landscape and climate is here. When I left Beijing it was below freezing, and light snow was still covering most of the ground. The air was dry and polluted, and I had almost forgotten that we have mountains because they were hidden behind an ocean of smog. Hong Kong -- we stepped off the train and into humid, sunny, 80 degree weather. Beautiful!! Hong Kong is literally a cluster of monolithic skyscrapers plopped down on the coast of a tropical island. The harbor has hundreds of small mountainous islands covered in a thick belt of jungle. (80% of the city is actually forest.) However it IS winter.. so people feel the need to wear scarves with their t-shirts... China....

I only stayed one night in the city, but I think I got a pretty good feel for it in two days, and I'm definitely excited to come back for the week after Christmas. (Hong Kong celebrates Christmas like nothing you would EVER find on the mainland. Christmas carols were playing in every restaurant, mall, subway station, etc... Keep in mind this is a Buddhist country -- you think America has commercialized the holiday? Come here..)

After taking a double-decker London style bus across the mountain in the middle Hong Kong Island this afternoon, we descended the tight windy jungle road that lead to a beautiful tropical beach where we spent the afternoon eating mangosteens and watching the fishing boats. (Yes, this is about a mile from the center of one of Asia's biggest cities.) On our way back to Kowloon I continued my Cantonese lessons with Ling (the languages are pretty similar -- probably the difference between Portuguese and French). We got some Vietnamese food for dinner with Christmas music videos playing on a TV in the background, walked down goldfish street where thousands of types of decorative fish are sold, and I got my bags and took the subway to the airport where I am now waiting to board my flight to the Philippines.

I'll write more about HK when I get to spend some more time there in a few weeks. Until then, Merry Christmas everybody -- I'll be thinking about you all while I'm lying on the beaches of Siquijor sipping tropical drinks = )