After getting into Hong Kong, we left the ferry station, into the attached building, which turned out to be a mall. That was convenient I guess, we found an ATM machine so that we could get some Hong Kong dollars, since they don’t even use the same money as mainland China does. We had two options to get to the place we were staying, take a taxi or take the metro. The only difficulty was we weren’t exactly sure where we were, and couldn’t find any sign of a metro station nearby. So we eventually conceded to taking a taxi. It took a few tries, but finally we found a driver who knew where we wanted to go. It wasn’t easily noticeable at first, but oh shit, these guys drive on the other side of the road! Clearly Britain had been here before. The driver happily took across the harbor to Kowloon (a section of HK) and the place we were staying. Chung King Mansion, was the name of the place. Sounds pretty swanky right? Hardly. It’s actually a huge converted “project” building that has more than a dozen “guesthouses” some licensed, some not. As soon as we got out of the taxi there were quite a few middle eastern and Indian guys trying to help us with our bags, and get us into their guesthouses. We declined and walked through the lines of restaurants, net bars, and people selling random crap, this place seemed pretty shady, and on first sight, scared me a little that we were even staying here. Finally we managed to find the only one, out of 12 or so elevators that went where we needed it to. Upon arriving on the 12th floor and getting our tiny and expensive room, I actually felt rather comfortable. Looking online the night before, I had read many good reviews, saying that this guesthouse was pretty respectable and not too expensive compared to some of the others in the building.

After finding some good Indian food we went out to explore the area a little bit. Every time we left our guesthouse, walking outside we’d be accosted by Indian guys trying to sell us fake Rolexes or get us into their tailor shop. It never failed, I must have been asked if I wanted a copy watch or tailor like 20 times each day. Down near the pier, I saw something that I would never expect to see anywhere that belonged to China. But apparently the people in Hong Kong enjoy a fair number of civil rights that even the Chinese aren’t privy to. I don’t want to mention exactly what these things are on my blog out of fear of being blacklisted by the great firewall of China, but perhaps the following picture will explain a bit.

Hong Kong is a much different feeling that China, even a big city in China like Beijing. It’s just different. In fact, I kind of felt like I was in New York City Chinatown, only the entire city was Chinatown. There is just so much English, so many foreigners (not tourists), it just doesn’t feel like China. After living in China for the last 6 months, it’s just a different feeling, I could definitely tell after being there for only a few hours. I’ve even come up with a list of things I noticed, just in comparison to mainland China.

Money: Hong Kong dollars vs. Chinese Yuan. They’re worth almost the same (1 HKD = 0.88 RMB), but compared to mainland China, things in HK are crazy expensive. Also the notes in HK are interesting, as they are printed by one of 4 different banks, all with slightly different designs, rather than one central mint.

Smoking: Smoking is banned practically everywhere in HK, as opposed to mainland China where you can smoke just about anywhere. Good for people who don’t smoke, bad for people who do.

Spitting: Everyone in China spits, it’s a totally normal thing. Do that in HK and you might have a $950 HKD fine on your hands.

English: Many people in HK speak English, all the signs are in English, there’s too much English. Helpful for tourists, but it doesn’t feel like China.

Food: Diverse area with many options for other ethnic foods, such as Indian, middle eastern, or western. Maybe it’s just my experiences there, but I thought most of the Chinese food I had was pretty bad compared to what I’m used to.

Other Good Things: big motorcycles (great on the windy island roads) and better than the 250cc limit China has on motorcycles, nice weather, good public transportation (very good metro system), ethnically diverse, open internet (no GFW), pretty girls, beautiful cars (everyone has a Benz or BMW, saw many Porsches and Lamborghinis), Disneyland

Bad Things: Speak Cantonese, Cantonese pinyin, always foggy

I think what I’m trying to say is, I liked Hong Kong, but the benefits don’t outweigh the drawbacks as far as ever wanting to live there. It is however nice to visit. Tyler and I spent a few nights shopping in the night markets, enjoying the food street food and cheap beers from the 7-11. In fact, I thought it drinking $15 bottles of beer from 7-11 outside at a restaurant was more fun than going to a bar and paying $55 for the same beer. A trip to Victoria Peak provided us with a great picturesque view of the harbor, where so many people take their “postcard” shots of Hong Kong.

After three days in Hong Kong, quite a bit of sight-seeing, shopping, and a visit to Disneyland I took Tyler to the airport for his return trip to the US. It was a little disappointing that he was going home, but at the same time I was pretty tired of traveling and just wanted to go back to Xi’an and relax. A day later, and a 5 hour flight delay in Shenzhen I was finally able to make my way back home.