I love HK

Hong Kong has been awesome, I’ve been running around doing a tonne of stuff. The weather is amazing as always, at least 17 C everyday. For me its like summer but for HK peeps this is winter and I see some people wearing down jackets and hats while I am prancing around in a t-shirt, no wonder I get odd looks. People here have been extremely nice to me. Everyone is so fashionable here. All the girls walk around in mad stiletto high boots, crazy fashion skirts, perfect makeup and mad styled hair. I think Angela, Fanny and me are the only girls in Hong Kong wearing jeans, running shoes and t-shirts. I’ve been to a few of the malls here, they are incredible! They are massive in size and look more like fashion museums then malls. Everything is mad clean and shiny and you will find only the most upscale names and brands there. Eaton’s centre is a joke compared to these malls. The streets of HK are incredibly clean, there is no graffiti either. Reason is the heavy HK $1500 fine that you can score for littering. HK is always busy and always lit up like Vegas, its crazy busy and its got mad energy. I’ve also gone to a bunch of side street markets, you can find tons of hand made quality stuff and argue the price til its next to nothing in Canadian dollars ( CDN $1 = HK $6). I’ve visited some crazy hip youngen malls and the Philipino mall (tons of maids here are from the Philipines). The supermarket here has all sorts of crazy stuff I’ve never seen before. The price range here is huge. You can spend 1000s on clothes and the crazy malls or next to nothing at the markets, all depends on your style and which part of town you are in. Same goes for food, I can spend HK $10 on lunch or HK$100 for the exact same dish, it all depends on wether you shop and eat local or shop and eat poshy. In the middle of this crazy night and street life right in the middle of downtown you can find large parks. You literally walk into one of these and all noise and lights disappear and you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere. it’s common to find people practicing tai chi in these parks and sometimes you run into monks. I’ve had a chance to eat at restaurants all over the place. Yesterday I had lunch at a traditional dim sum restaurant. You sit at your table and ladies wheel around all sorts of food while screaming out the name of it, you wave them down and they place the order on your plate and keep going, for each dish you have to wave down a different lady. Most of the time they only speak Cantonese so I have no idea what I am eating, all I know that its been all good so far. Lunch in HK is from 1 pm – 2 pm and I avoid being in dining hoods at all costs at that time, the crowds are crazy and its like heards of buffalo stampeding to get their eat on. I’m comftorable with HK now enough that often I venture out on my own. The subway system and ferries are easy to figure out and I more or less know where everything is now. Its really safe here and there’s a ton of cops everywhere I go. Today me and Lucy hiked up to the top of Victoria Peak. It was kinda cloudy so my photos didn’t turn out that good. Took about and hour and half to get up there. We took the tram (crazy ass street car) back down. I took the double decker bus home and sitting on the upper floor made me feel like we were going to slam into every wall and every other bus with the crazy turns the igor driver was making. The maid here rocks, she does all my cleaning, cooking and does my laundry. I don’t even get a chance to do anything cause the minute I get up she makes me food and does my bed, as soon as I finish eating she cleans up after me and as soon as I get home she polishes my shoes. I am getting spoiled rotten. Lucy’s Mom keeps wanting to take me to country clubs, I think I am a novelty item to her and her friends. Tomorrow I am going to Chinese church and the zoological and botanical gardens then I am off to a cottage at Discovery Bay (other side of HK). I leave for Mainland China on Monday morning by myself. I’ll be staying in Beijing and seing the surround areas as well as Northern China and Inner Mongolia. The CDN $400 that I spent on the trip got me the flight there and back, a 5 star hotel, all food and all tours included. What sucks is that the tour is in Cantonese, but its unsafe for me to go on my own and way cheaper this way. I’ve been hearing conflicting things about Mainland China. Some say that they don’t know how I am going to survive China on my own and tell me that I am going to get sold on the black market by the Chinese, others tell me that mainlanders are nice to foreigners as long as you mind your own. Meh, I guess I’ll find out on Monday. I’m there til Friday evening and Saturday morning I leave for Macau (Portuguese-Chinese Country) with Angela and 12 of her friends. Anyways, I’ll be sending this weeks photos along in a bit. Mainland China has heavy government regulations on internet use so you won’t be hearing from me for a while.
Peace out for now,
N.