Kung Fu Fighting in Hong Kong

We made it to Hong Kong and wanted to leave as soon as we landed. That was the craziest city with more inhabitants than an insane asylum on crack. Millions of drones working and living in "skyscraper caverns" that decends on the streets after 5 PM. The scariest thing I have ever experienced in my life. Amy will now tell you about the fun stuff.

Ok so the trains were definitely impressive. I think the longest we waited at any hour was 4 minutes. Our first day we made the rookie mistake of taking the hotel shuttle so we did avoid the chaos of commute hours on the train. We then wandered around trying to locate our guest house which turned out to be somebody's apartment on the 5th floor of one of a zillion identical 40 story buildings in Causeway Bay which is like the HK mission district or something. We thought the room was quite awful until the hotel workers showed our room to some interested tourists who commented on how wonderful it was compared to "the other place." Oh well I guess it was clean and had free internet. The only problem was finding food, the lines were so long it wasn't worth most people's time to deal with "Englibabas"!

On our first full day in HK we decided to see the city, for about 30 seconds, then we hopped on the nearest ferry out of there. It turned out to go to Lantau island which was awesome. We waited the usual 60 seconds for a bus up to the Giant Buddha and Tourist Trap which was fun; we also took a short hike to admire the views. There was also a pretty cool "Wisdom Path" with 30 huge pillars with some kind of Buddhist prayer written on them in beautiful calligraphy which if we'd been able to read Chinese we would now be enlightened! But sorry, no enlightenment for us. Yet.

After waiting 2 more seconds for the next bus we headed out to Tai O, which was a nifty little fishing village with stainless steel shacks on stilts in the mud flats. Clearly the US dollar is worthless because the locals were way more interested in fishing and totally ignored all the tourists wandering around. Last we went over and found the one big town on the island (40 fifty story skyscrapers surrounded by 99% nature preserve with no people around anywhere due to it being work hours.) However in the dark shadows under the buildings we found the fanciest Pizza Hut ever, white cloth and silver and everything. Unfortunately we were too poor to eat there because we are too lazy to have jobs like proper HK residents. We discovered that we could also take the train back from this island due to the fact that the train goes absolutely everywhere, so we returned to the chaos (during commute hours, yeah) and crashed after a meal of pork buns. Mmm, pork buns. OK over to Sam for the next day on HK island.

We woke up at the usual 4AM HK time and wondered the streets when it was fairly empty. Only about 1M persons per square mile. I was able to find a small cafe in an alley that had "Americanaaa" menu. You could choose from 3 set items (egg sandwich, saimin, toast, coffee). The price for a meal was about $3.50 US but it was enough to feed a squirrel (We eat like them now since we are poor and dont want to go broke). Amy says that she doesnt care for any more food on HK island except for one pork bun a day. We then headed to South Island to a town called Shek O. This town has a vendetta against Lee, we found a sigh for his market called "Fuck Lee Market". This was one of the highlights of the trip. We also indulged on our first real meal at a "Thai Restaurant" in that town. $30US later and full tummies, we walked up to the cliff on the side of the beach and sat in the sun for a while. After Amy got her 8 minute of tanning, we headed back to downtown HK. We were both exhausted but decided that it was a great time to go and see "The Peak" which is the highest hill in HK. This is the "Beverly Hills" area of HK where only the extremely dirty and wealthy can live. To get to the top, you can walk your fat american ass or take a trolley that costs $10US to take you to the top. We felt lazy for once in our lives and paid to get sardined in a little trolley with about a thousand other angry tourists. Once we were up top, the view was magnificent! You get the best 360 views of the city from your seat inside Burger King. This definitely tops the Taco Bell in Pacifica for prime real estate owned by a shit hole eatery. We hiked down through some trails/roads and saw lamborghini's, Austin Healeys, and the likes in driveways of homes with "fish tanks" for outer walls. Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta!

Once we made halfway down the hill, we finally found the infamous "Mid Levels Escalators" which is a series of escalators that runs from downtown. These escalators sucks according to Amy but my fat ass sure appreciated them. Except, we were on our way down and not up. They only run upwards in the PM and we think they run downwards in the AM for those damn rich lazy Hongkongneese. We got tired, grumpy, and headed home to our cell block to bed but not after another $1US pork bun each for dinner. Mmmmmm pork buns.

On the last day we decided to really get out of town and took about a zillion trains and one bus out to Tai Po Kau nature preserve. The 2 hour hike was tough but enjoyable (except for the large crowds hiking at 1/2km per hour which we finally pushed down the cliff in order to get around them. Sorry people whoever you were.) The Bridal Pool at the end was distinctly lacking in any of the qualities of its name (most important being water and brides) but the hike was worth it just for the exercise. Still we decided to walk back on the road. We took the train back and thought we were beating the commute but it seems the HK workers get off early on Saturday and the crowds were much thicker than usual, read, mobs that trample you until you are dead if you try to go against them. Sam and I got separated (his fault) and it was a miracle we found each other only 10 minutes later.

The best part of the day came when the crowds died down in the evening and we finally braved the food on a stick. We got yellow fish gummy, mystery meat, and tentacle all dipped in the spiciest most delicious satay. Crying tears of joy and spiciness we turned in early so we could get up today and catch our flight to Bangkok.

Final thoughts on Hong Kong
- trains and roads are excellent despite the steepness of the island (the roads put Devil's Slide in Pacifica to shame both in steepness and in constant maintenance)
- the food is not so good when you are poor and don't speak Cantonese, but it is possible to survive on pork buns and bananas
- people don't form lines for food (biggest hungriest person wins) but do for line up neatly for buses and trains
- kung fu does not exist but there's lots of Tai Chi
- stay in your hotel between 5pm and 5am weekdays, all day weekends to avoid being smushed by the local pedestrian crowds
- don't stay downtown if you go there. In fact don't go there again ever!