Hong Kong
Sunday June 1, 2008
The Fab 5 flew to Hong Kong from Shanghai. Hong Kong spend over 100 years as a British Colony, the Brits gave it back to China in '97. They should have kept it. We stayed at the Holiday Inn on the Golden Mile. Basically a perfect location from which to base our exploration of HK. The subway was practically in the hotel basement. The ferry was a 10 minute walk. The harbor light show was about 6 minutes away. 7-11, ATM, and McDonalds within 2 blocks. All systems go....
After dinner at a seafood type place with some life size pirate replicas, we headed to the harbor to take in the sights. We snapped a few pics and found a pub with a patio on the water to watch the city lights. Unfortunately we missed most of the light show, since we did not know it existed and the majority of it was blocked by a large building from our vantage point.
Julia:
Jessica:
Jennifer:
Dr:
Monday, 2 June 2008
After McDonalds breakfast we boarded the ferry to travel to Hong Kong Island. The hotel is in the Kowloon District, which is a peninsula jutting off of mainland China. Our primary objective was to ride the trolley car to the city viewpoint on Victoria Peak. Unfortunately, like every other day in China, it was cloudy and hazy. So needless to say, the views were limited. Still impressive, but not near as cool as they could have been.
We wandered down the mountain on the footpath. The only other people we saw were jogging up the mountain with dogs. Eerie. The path down ended near a zoological / botanical garden. We were looking at some monkeys when it started to rain. We hightailed out of the park and headed for the ‘social district’. Here we found a bar that had American microbrews. A Pyramid Hefeweizen never, ever tasted so good. Words can not describe the euphoria of that first sip of quality hefe’ after 4 months with none. I don’t smoke crank, but I imagine it would be a similar sensation. The hefe was followed by a Full Sail Amber. Again, heaven in a bottle.
Julia:
Jessica:
Jennifer:
Dr:
Tuesday 5 June 2008
Today we hit a “Walking Tour” as recommended by the Lonely Planet guidebook. Dr. Muchard did a great job of navigating us around the city. From my viewpoint, it was refreshing to be able to follow a group around and not have to worry too much about where we were at. We hit markets, lots of markets: Flowers, gold fish, jade, electronics, sport goods, womens goods, and the local market. The local market was probably the most interesting. It provided a basic look at how people live and shop. Turns out that on this same day, in a different market, the government sampled some chickens and on Friday announced that they had found the bird flu, H5N1, the deadly one. We had looked at chickens in the market that day……..
After walking all day, we took the subway back to the hotel. If one word could provide advice to the USA, that word would be “Trains.”
Julia:
Jessica:
Jennifer:
Dr:
Wednesday 4 June 2008
The Texas Four rolled out of the Holiday Inn around 5:30 am to catch a plane back to the US of A. Apparently there was speculation back home that I would be joining them on the flight home. Said speculation was errant.
I caught a little more sleep, and then rolled to the coffee shop for breakfast and caffeine. Major activities for the day centered around figuring out where to go next. It is not quite as easy as throwing darts at a map, unfortunately. One has to figure costs, visas, and monsoons. Bottom line comes down to this- when presented with the opportunity to drink beer with a lifelong friend in a foreign country, you arrange to make it happen.
Managed to find a great internet cafe. Great online security- it basically uninstalls everything when you log off. Fast connection. Comfortable seats. Security is the biggest concern in internet cafes, you never know when one may have worms or a key tracker installed. I felt secure doing online banking at this joint. The good news is I found some money that I had forgot about so that bodes well for the travels.
Moved across the street from the Holiday Inn to the Cosmic Guesthouse. Smallest room yet. At least it was clean.
Julia:
Jessica:
Jennifer:
Dr:
Thursday 5 June 2008
Today was a shopping day. Picked up some new trail / running shoes. A requirement for jogging and exercise. Got some new socks also.
Got a Bluetooth headset for the computer to improve my Skype experience. If you have not used it, Skype kicks *ss. It is phone over the internet. I can call any number in the states from anywhere in the world for about $0.02 / min. And Skype to Skype calls are free. And they can include live video if both ends have webcams and good bandwidth. Nothing like a video call to brighten your day. And my Skype number will automatically forward to any cell phone number I am using. So basically, someone can call 713.895.1695 as a local number from the states, and Skype will forward it as a local call to whatever local SIM card I happen to be using. Pretty cool stuff.
Got some vitamins also. One of my books said vitamins are good for the brain. I’ll let you know if I feel smarter after a few weeks of supplements…….
Friday 6 June 2008-06-07
It rained. All day. All night. Booked a ticket out of Hong Kong through a local agent. They were about $100US cheaper than I could find a ticket online. And believe me; I spent some time online looking. (It was raining- not much else to do). Called a foreign travel agent in my next country of travel to book my onward journey. This ticket was $500 cheaper than I could get it online. That is a good thing. Note that most places require you to have proof of onward travel before they will let you in the country. Thailand, New Zealand, Australia, and several others are like this. Hong Kong was not that picky.
Found a slice of Hong Kong heaven. DelaneyÕs Irish Pub. Good food and FREE wireless access. Fast wireless to boot. Spent a good 5 or 6 hours there. Updated the web page, completed slideshows, etc. A glowing Apple logo is a chick magnet, entirely underutilized.
Saturday, 7 June 2008
Woke up and it was still raining. It rained all day- again. Probably for about 40 hours straight it rained. Finished work on the webpage, printed stuff for travel purposes, and did a little shopping for office supplies. The morning saw record rainfall over Hong Kong. 400 flights were delayed. 14 were cancelled. The only road to the airport flooded. There were around 89 landslides. 3,657 lightning strikes between 7am and 8 am, along with 6Ó of rain between 8 am and 9am. The city average rainfall was around 12 inches over around 12 hours. In Houston, this would be more intense than a 100 year storm. Needless to say, my $2 umbrella paid for itself.
Made the walk (in the rain) to the harbor to watch the Symphony of Lights one last time. Truly one of the most impressive things I've seen. A taming of the concrete jungle, so to speak. It could never happen in the US. People would sue because of light pollution and noise. The FAA would complain because the lasers might confuse pilots. And to boot, nobody would pay to install it since you can not directly make money from it.
Sunday. 8 June 2008
On plane. Newspaper says that Bird Flu H5N1 was just found in chickens at a Hong Kong market. It was not the market we went to a few days prior. Good time to be leaving. If you’re superstitious, look for something bad to happen to China on either 6-11 or 6-20. The May earthquake hit on 5-12. The Tibetans protested on 3-15. Significance? The digits of these days add up to '8'. Eight is traditionally a very lucky number for Chinese people. For that reason, the Olympics start at 8pm on 8-8-2008. And by the way, that earthquake was precisely 88 days before the Olympic start date.....
Lead Time Calculator
The Fab 5 flew to Hong Kong from Shanghai. Hong Kong spend over 100 years as a British Colony, the Brits gave it back to China in '97. They should have kept it. We stayed at the Holiday Inn on the Golden Mile. Basically a perfect location from which to base our exploration of HK. The subway was practically in the hotel basement. The ferry was a 10 minute walk. The harbor light show was about 6 minutes away. 7-11, ATM, and McDonalds within 2 blocks. All systems go....
After dinner at a seafood type place with some life size pirate replicas, we headed to the harbor to take in the sights. We snapped a few pics and found a pub with a patio on the water to watch the city lights. Unfortunately we missed most of the light show, since we did not know it existed and the majority of it was blocked by a large building from our vantage point.
Julia:
Jessica:
Jennifer:
Dr:
Monday, 2 June 2008
After McDonalds breakfast we boarded the ferry to travel to Hong Kong Island. The hotel is in the Kowloon District, which is a peninsula jutting off of mainland China. Our primary objective was to ride the trolley car to the city viewpoint on Victoria Peak. Unfortunately, like every other day in China, it was cloudy and hazy. So needless to say, the views were limited. Still impressive, but not near as cool as they could have been.
We wandered down the mountain on the footpath. The only other people we saw were jogging up the mountain with dogs. Eerie. The path down ended near a zoological / botanical garden. We were looking at some monkeys when it started to rain. We hightailed out of the park and headed for the ‘social district’. Here we found a bar that had American microbrews. A Pyramid Hefeweizen never, ever tasted so good. Words can not describe the euphoria of that first sip of quality hefe’ after 4 months with none. I don’t smoke crank, but I imagine it would be a similar sensation. The hefe was followed by a Full Sail Amber. Again, heaven in a bottle.
Julia:
Jessica:
Jennifer:
Dr:
Tuesday 5 June 2008
Today we hit a “Walking Tour” as recommended by the Lonely Planet guidebook. Dr. Muchard did a great job of navigating us around the city. From my viewpoint, it was refreshing to be able to follow a group around and not have to worry too much about where we were at. We hit markets, lots of markets: Flowers, gold fish, jade, electronics, sport goods, womens goods, and the local market. The local market was probably the most interesting. It provided a basic look at how people live and shop. Turns out that on this same day, in a different market, the government sampled some chickens and on Friday announced that they had found the bird flu, H5N1, the deadly one. We had looked at chickens in the market that day……..
After walking all day, we took the subway back to the hotel. If one word could provide advice to the USA, that word would be “Trains.”
Julia:
Jessica:
Jennifer:
Dr:
Wednesday 4 June 2008
The Texas Four rolled out of the Holiday Inn around 5:30 am to catch a plane back to the US of A. Apparently there was speculation back home that I would be joining them on the flight home. Said speculation was errant.
I caught a little more sleep, and then rolled to the coffee shop for breakfast and caffeine. Major activities for the day centered around figuring out where to go next. It is not quite as easy as throwing darts at a map, unfortunately. One has to figure costs, visas, and monsoons. Bottom line comes down to this- when presented with the opportunity to drink beer with a lifelong friend in a foreign country, you arrange to make it happen.
Managed to find a great internet cafe. Great online security- it basically uninstalls everything when you log off. Fast connection. Comfortable seats. Security is the biggest concern in internet cafes, you never know when one may have worms or a key tracker installed. I felt secure doing online banking at this joint. The good news is I found some money that I had forgot about so that bodes well for the travels.
Moved across the street from the Holiday Inn to the Cosmic Guesthouse. Smallest room yet. At least it was clean.
Julia:
Jessica:
Jennifer:
Dr:
Thursday 5 June 2008
Today was a shopping day. Picked up some new trail / running shoes. A requirement for jogging and exercise. Got some new socks also.
Got a Bluetooth headset for the computer to improve my Skype experience. If you have not used it, Skype kicks *ss. It is phone over the internet. I can call any number in the states from anywhere in the world for about $0.02 / min. And Skype to Skype calls are free. And they can include live video if both ends have webcams and good bandwidth. Nothing like a video call to brighten your day. And my Skype number will automatically forward to any cell phone number I am using. So basically, someone can call 713.895.1695 as a local number from the states, and Skype will forward it as a local call to whatever local SIM card I happen to be using. Pretty cool stuff.
Got some vitamins also. One of my books said vitamins are good for the brain. I’ll let you know if I feel smarter after a few weeks of supplements…….
Friday 6 June 2008-06-07
It rained. All day. All night. Booked a ticket out of Hong Kong through a local agent. They were about $100US cheaper than I could find a ticket online. And believe me; I spent some time online looking. (It was raining- not much else to do). Called a foreign travel agent in my next country of travel to book my onward journey. This ticket was $500 cheaper than I could get it online. That is a good thing. Note that most places require you to have proof of onward travel before they will let you in the country. Thailand, New Zealand, Australia, and several others are like this. Hong Kong was not that picky.
Found a slice of Hong Kong heaven. DelaneyÕs Irish Pub. Good food and FREE wireless access. Fast wireless to boot. Spent a good 5 or 6 hours there. Updated the web page, completed slideshows, etc. A glowing Apple logo is a chick magnet, entirely underutilized.
Saturday, 7 June 2008
Woke up and it was still raining. It rained all day- again. Probably for about 40 hours straight it rained. Finished work on the webpage, printed stuff for travel purposes, and did a little shopping for office supplies. The morning saw record rainfall over Hong Kong. 400 flights were delayed. 14 were cancelled. The only road to the airport flooded. There were around 89 landslides. 3,657 lightning strikes between 7am and 8 am, along with 6Ó of rain between 8 am and 9am. The city average rainfall was around 12 inches over around 12 hours. In Houston, this would be more intense than a 100 year storm. Needless to say, my $2 umbrella paid for itself.
Made the walk (in the rain) to the harbor to watch the Symphony of Lights one last time. Truly one of the most impressive things I've seen. A taming of the concrete jungle, so to speak. It could never happen in the US. People would sue because of light pollution and noise. The FAA would complain because the lasers might confuse pilots. And to boot, nobody would pay to install it since you can not directly make money from it.
Sunday. 8 June 2008
On plane. Newspaper says that Bird Flu H5N1 was just found in chickens at a Hong Kong market. It was not the market we went to a few days prior. Good time to be leaving. If you’re superstitious, look for something bad to happen to China on either 6-11 or 6-20. The May earthquake hit on 5-12. The Tibetans protested on 3-15. Significance? The digits of these days add up to '8'. Eight is traditionally a very lucky number for Chinese people. For that reason, the Olympics start at 8pm on 8-8-2008. And by the way, that earthquake was precisely 88 days before the Olympic start date.....
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