Goodbye to Boracay

That is Boracay. It was tough to leave.

But I'm starting this post at 2:33am from Harold's Mansion Hostel in Dumaguete, Philippines. Meeting my friends Chris (former Dumaguete local and recent UW graduate) and Logan (who I'm traveling with for the next month) tomorrow afternoon, so I'll try to be snappy.

For now, just recapping today --- but let me say that I had an amazing, AMAZING time over the last 5 days in Boracay, which I should post about tomorrow (probably too tired for that today, and I'd like to do it justice). Met a group of killer, killer people and had a blast, in a way totally different than my awesome time in HK/Macau. Too good for words beaches, easy living, cliff diving, night swimming, dancing, excessive everything, etc, etc. Save it for tomorrow.

Leaving Boracay, though, probably wasn't AMAZING or anything. Definitely some word that I haven't come up with yet. Interesting? Unique? Painful? Hmmm. Here's how it started:

930am: Wake up. Eat breakfast.

1015am: Leave for Dumaguete.

130am, the next day (today): 15 hours later. Arrive in Dumaguete.

Giddy up! How did it take that long? Here's how:

-Tricycle to Boracay Port (20 min)
-Ferry to Caticlan Port/Bus Station (10 min)
-Bus to Iloilo City Bus Terminal (5 1/2 hours)
-Taxi to Iloilo City Port (30 min)
-Ferry to Bacolod (1 1/2 hours)
-Taxi to Bacolod Bus Terminal (15 min)
-Bus to Dumaguete (5 1/2 hours)
-Tricycle to Dumaguete hostel (5 min)

The only really, really painful part was the Bus to Duma, which left at 8pm and got in at like 1:30am. We were actually super fortunate to even catch it (the last bus of the day from Bacolod to Duma) since we got to Bacolod only thanks to Filipino lateness. The last ferry going to Bacolod "leaves" at 515pm, so when we got to the Ferry station at 540pm, we were happy to see that it wouldn't leave until 6pm. Good karma!

But, yama hama, those last 5 hours were pretty rough. I guess the bus itself was the toughest thing to endure. My French-Canadian buddy Francois I was traveling with (which was a total blessing by the way, having someone cool to bus hop with rather than go solo) complained about his ass hurting after 10 minutes and rightfully so. And literally every 20 minutes, we would fly over a pothole and the backwheels would fly off the ground and everyone on the bus (not just us unexperienced non-Filipinos) would lurch awake.

Here's what it looked it:


Also, we were accosted by begging kids for the first 5 minutes (pretty tough to watch this 5-year old tap Francois on the leg for a solid 2 minutes just to get 1 peso -- about $.02 US), it was air-con-less (shirt guaranteed to stick to you in 15 minutes or less) and the driver was totally out of his mind and honked approximately 46 billion times at anything from stray dogs to oncoming locomotives to drivers who weren't willing to sacrifice their lives to make it to Dumaguete in under 6 hours.

"This driver's pretty fucking something, man." Francois summed him up well.

And I forgot to mention that it smelled like BBQ sauce about every hour (still figuring that one out) and that there were roads being re-paved or re-constructed about every 30 minutes or so, bringing everything to a 10mph halt (like I-5 on Thanksgiving, minus pavement or seat cushions or just general comfort).

If that wasn't enough, probably the absolute, crazy, WHERE-ARE-WE? kicker came after about an hour at 9pm. We came to another halt in traffic, which looked harmlessly like any one of the construction slow-down spots...except this one was loaded with police, ambulances, etc. Then, as we start passing this accident, everyone starts to stand up, row by row, starting from the front. We are on the left side of the bus (the accident to our right), so we just sit there, hoping that nothing that crazy happened.

Well, after about 10 seconds of everyone standing, people started yelling "motorcyclo!" so we could figure it was a motorcycle crash. Then a few seconds later, everyone still standing and looking, the women a few rows in front of us start, wailing...."AYEEEE!!!" which to me sounded like laughter at first. It wasn't. More like cries of just, I don't know, horrificness.

At this point, anyone could figure that someone had died. I motioned to the dude in front of us and asked, making the universal gesture for death:

He responded with a nod, said "Dead" and then returned the gesture...but to make things worse, one of the ladies then started wailing louder and was just in shock and started motioning with her hand in pieces, first at her neck, then lower to her torso.

And it was at this point that we realized that the guy had returned my gesture not as a sign of death, but to say the motorcyclist was beheaded, I guess at the torso, though I'm still trying to figure out how they left the guy there to be seen by a full bus of onlookers. God. I took a picture of the aftermath just to recall the bedlam, that's her in the yellow in the lower right corner:

Then the lady in yellow shook it off with a four-points prayer, and a few seconds later, the conductor made a joke in Filipino. And it must have cheered her up because she smiled and laughed. I was a little shellshocked. And putting that in words, I realize how heavy it sounds now. But at the time, everyone was a little upset for a fleeting moment and then just moved back with their business. How it goes, sometimes.

But all and all, even the crazy bus trip was a good experience, at least to me. The middle 2 hours were relatively bump-free and I was happy just to check out the different Filipino neighborhoods we drove through.

Also, we got to watch 2012 (!!!) on our ferry from Iloilo to Bacolod, which was quite possibly the best movie I've ever seen (Danny Glover as the President!!!), and it was totally awesome (they definitely squeezed a lot of humor out of the end of the world) if you like watching monuments and people get owned for 2 hours.

But even though I enjoyed it, it was a little tough to watch a movie about the apocalypse-via-tidal-wave while on a boat... especially when it gets super stormy, there is lightning on the water all around you and the boat starts rocking profusely. My hands got semi-clammy (and not just because of Danny Glover).

Anyways, here are a couple more pictures of today...hopefully get back at the world tomorrow, barring a late sleep (which is a solid 80-percent chance of happening).

Chubby kid on a tricycle, aka a Filipino Rickshaw.


Speak softly and carry a big, dragon stick. And try to sell it to American tourists through the bus window at the bus station.


Mr. President.

More tomorrow, I hope. Thanks for stopping by, love y'all
-Jack

My Last Day in Macau

FYI (note after writing): This post is really, REALLY long. Maybe drink some coffee or a Red Bull and buckle up before you read it.

So, I've missed plenty of flights in my life (still upset about those punk women at Vueling Airlines who made me miss my first ever European flight from Paris-Barcelona, forcing me to sleep in Paris' Orly airport by myself for a night). And I've almost missed plenty and plenty more flights in my life --- but my last day in Macau was probably the most fun and certainly the most memorable time I've ever had trying to catch a flight. I'll start at the beginning:

12pm - Day 3 in Macau, just woken up (still catching up with sleep, thanks to poker two nights earlier) and ready for the last of Macau. Me and my hostel buddy Chetan (an Indian IT guy whose been living in Singapore and is likely moving to HK) head out walking for this famous Portugese restaurant, A Lorcha (translates to 'The Sailboat'). My Lonely Planet book was all about it and a couple of friends from the states had recommended it to me.

Thing is, my LP book is from 2006, which means stuff that they really, really recommend get really, really overblown in a matter of years. So instead of an authentic, cheap, local Portugese place I thought we'd get, we got the touristy, expensive, commercial version where there were only Cantonese people and 120 HKD dishes. And food looked pretty blah.

Naturally, Chetan wasn't down for this pricey fare, either, so we decided to bounce --- which was semi-awkward because a) they already brought us bread and b) the lady sitting next to our table was a little heavy and blocked my chair in, so I had to ask her to get up twice in a matter of five minutes. I felt really bad about this.

No matter, we peaced it. After 15 minutes, we settled on a kind of funky but local spot that looked Cantonese considering that the menus they gave away outside were all written in Cantonese with no english at all. Whatever, seemed cool.

We sat down and this place just what I had hoped for (pretty much the opposite of most of the other Macau/HK restaurants). Portugese, Macauese and Cantonese food, all fairly priced, all with pictures, free hot tea and a cool urban/local vibe (obviously none of the servers spoke english, which is literally all of Macau residents and 99.9 percent of visitors. I'll probably do a separate post about later).

I got the mutton chop in pepper sauce (aka goat, a first for me) because the guys in the booth next to us both had it and it looked good (well worth $5 USD), as well as the Chinese soup of the day (essentially broth with a few pork bones for $1 USD) and a bottle of coke. Chetan decided on the whitefish (pretty average) and a piece of toast with almond milk.

Then shit got hectic. It started to rain. Really hard. Which I'll definitely come back to in a few hours.

For the record, when I say rain, I mean POUR. Like cats, dogs, monkeys, elephants --- whatever. It was step-outside-for-two-seconds-and-you're-drenched stuff. We were definitely not walking back the hour to get back to our hostel in this monsoony nonsense. So we ordered a couple more glasses of almond milk and hung out for another hour or so watching awesome HK telenovellas hoping it'd stop. It didn't.

3pm now, stuff hadn't gotten any better, so Chetan suggested a cab (a thought which had literally never crossed my mind -- I always figure since I'm on a budget, I can walk anywhere). But a cab would be like a $1 USD each, two minutes well worth it (D2 reference). After about 20 minutes of trying to hail a cab, we finally got one. Again, the language barrier made it tough to communicate where we were going --- luckily I had a map to point to and the cabbie had his glasses with him --- but 10 minutes later, we were home at 4pm.

4pm. Perfect, I thought. Plenty of time. My flight for Manila was leaving at 1015pm, leaving ample time to pack, hang out, shower, etc before leaving to catch a couple casino shuttles to the airport. That gave me a solid 3-4 hours, more than enough --- but I'm never on time and always in a rush (especially for flights) so of course I would figure a way to make things interesting (which was a bad idea considering that my red-eye is the only flight Cebu Pacific Airlines has daily, meaning if I missed it, it would mean missing my connection to Boracay, meaning another day in Macau and a lot of heartache). Oh well.

I wondered if they'd cancel my flight given the weather, but my Filipino hostel owner informed me they'd only cancel in a typhoon. A typhoon! I thought. Ha. She also thought I'd have to get to the airport 2 hours before my departure time, so I didn't really trust her. But I think she may have psychic with all the typhoon talk...more on this shortly.

Chetal rounded up his stuff and took off for HK and a cool Swiss dude (from Basel, no less) Lukas moved in in his place and was staying the night in Macau en route to five weeks in China and Japan. We hung out in our hostel's tiny kitchen, had some tea and cigarettes and a lot in common --- he was just as into walking around cities and getting lost as I was, though we definitely agreed it was a good way to go a little crazy, as well.

Anyways, I decided to walk with Lukas to the Macau Tourist bureau (only five minutes away), figuring I had nothing but time. But what was supposed to be twenty minutes turned into two hours after we walked to the ruins of St. Paul, spent 20 minutes getting cookie and candy samples at a local joint (I got full), hit 7-Eleven and dropped by the money exchange to get rid of my Macau Patacas before I got to the Philippines (they only trade for HK Dollars). It was 6pm by the time we got back.

6pm. Okay, I thought. Plenty of time. I can shower and pack my things, get to my shuttles and get to the airport, no problem. So I decided to spend 30 minutes on the computer checking out Boracay (next stop) and chatting with the Filipino hostel owner, but still, plenty of time to get prepped. Then just as I was about to start packing, Lukas asked me if I wanted to go grab a beer and food at a Brazilian place around the corner with him and Tim (a cool Dutch dude, who had also just moved in and just finished 8 months split between New Zealand, Australia and China and was headed home to Holland in a day).

630pm. Sure, I thought. Plenty of time to grab a drink and pack. I'd have to take the bus instead of the free shuttles, but no big deal, I'll be done in an hour.

So we walked down to Caravela, a very cool and European-feeling Portugese place tucked in the same building complex as our hostel, about a 30 second walk away. We sat down on the covered patio, ordered a beer and settled in.

Then came the rain.

I don't know if God was just super angry that night or if Storm from X-Men was on leave vacationing in Macau for the week, but whatever it was, it was time for rain. It made the rain from earlier in the day look like drizzle.

In a matter of minutes, water was owning the ground. POUNDING the ground. Just obliterating it. We moved tables because even though we were in a covered patio, it was splashing so hard, we were getting wet. We were literally yelling to each other trying to talk over the rain.

After a few minutes, the ground was covered, blanketed in water. It looked like Nashville. There was a row of Cantonese restaurants right across across from us, literally 10 feet away, that Lukas and Tim refused to move to when Caravela closed at 8pm.

"It doesn't matter if you have to go into the rain for one hour or one second, you will get drenched," Tim said apologetically. He was right. We joked that perhaps they could float another beer over to us in the river that had formed in the walkway between us and them. I wasn't walking 30 seconds back to my hostel in this, let alone waiting for the bus or making my flight.

"You're fucked," Tim said, with a smile, sympathetically. I agreed. He was right.

Then things just kept getting better. Next came the lightning flashes, just blowing up the sky. Pure light. And then BOOM, thunder. A blast so insanely loud, we all jumped, a Portugese guy behind us dropped and broke his glass, and then CAR ALARMS JUST STARTED GOING OFF! I mean, like, really? ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?! CAR ALARMS?!? DID THEY GET STRUCK BY LIGHTNING?!? WHAAAATT??!?!?

I just started laughing. It was 815, I had two hours to get to the airport, hadn't packed or showered and figured that a) the bus was out and there was no way to even hail a cab with my bags in this monsoon and b) even if I did make it to the airport, they would cancel my flight. Murphy's Law, I said to Lukas and Tim (even though deep down maybe I figured stuff would probably work out, since it usually always does).

Finally, with Caravela long closed, we jumped across the makeshift river and sat down at the nearby Cantonese place. We ordered and predictably, in the next 15 minutes, the rain went from apocalyptic to hellacious to normal rain to light drizzles. Perfect. I now had hope. Finished my beer, jotted down the guys contact info and then took off running for the hostel.

845pm. No problem, I thought. Plenty of time to throw my shit in my bag, hail a cab and pray.

I got upstairs, threw my shit in my bag, triple checked to make sure I had all my junk and chatted with the hostel owner working at the time Cyril (a cool dude from Bangladesh), who told me about his plans to open a hotel there (I'm down to visit, I said) and quizzed me how to say "airport" in Cantonese so I could tell the cabbie. Every little bit helps.

Sprinted down three flights of stairs, ran to the main road and grabbed a cab in about 30 seconds. I tried telling him where to go in Cantonese (don't remember how to say it) but he looked at me puzzled. Luckily, I said airport and made a gesture with my hand to a plane --- he knew. And away we went. I motioned to ask if I could smoke a cigarette. He eagerly nodded, rolled down his window and smoked one of his own. Standard Chinaman.

Crossing the bridge, though the rain had stopped, there was multiple pockets of lightning shooting up all around the water, right over where the airport was. At this point, as we went over the bridge, I was pretty much expecting the cab to get struck with lightning, get hit by a rocket launcher or just spontaneously explode, just for the story's sake. But it didn't. And so, 20 minutes (and 60 Hong Kong Dollars) later, we made it, me and my Chinese shepard of a cabbie. If my life is "Children of Men," I guess this cabbie was my Clive Owen. Which makes me a pregnant African girl, but whatever, I made it.

I walked in the airport. Perfect, I thought. 915pm. Plenty of time to wait in line, get my boarding pass and make my flight. An hour. No problem.

And in the end, that's exactly what happened and I wouldn't have changed a thing. Because stuff usually finds a way to work itself out and beat Murphy's Law. It always does, even in Macau.

---

All and all, it was a pretty expensive hour, though, which was the only downside of my day. I had to pay 120 HKD to have my second bag checked (hate paying for stuff for no reason), and then they could only give me change in Macau Patacas (which I couldn't trade in the Philippines, meaning I had to buy a fat bag of Snickers at Duty Free for another 80)...add that to the 40 I spent on beer, 60 for the cab and my grand total comes to 300 HKD to get out Macau (which is still 40 bucks, so I can't be too upset). Mostly, I'm just angry at myself because I know I'm gonna devour a whole bag of candy in the next 24 hours. But as far as problems go, that's one of those good ones, I guess.

By 10pm, I pounded about six mini-Snickers, listened to some music and starting writing this DeMarcus Cousins' sized blog post. My flight didn't take off until 1045pm, but no matter. I was happy to wait, and for once today, not be in a rush.

It's 2:07am now and I'll be waiting in Manila's airport for the next three hours listening to some airport workers blast Closing Time (apparently Semisonic is big in the Philippines). Headed to Boracay (white beachs) at 530am. Will do some retroactive posting about my last days in HK and time in Macau when I get internet/sleep. As the Clive Owen references show, I'm running on fumes at this point and should probably stop writing for a while. So, hopefully will talk to you all soon. And if you ever feel like it, send me an email! iamjackross@gmail.com would love to hear from anyone that has a minute to drop a line. It will help keep me sane (or semi-sane) out on the open road. So please, please do!

On to the next one,
Love, Jack

HK - Day 2 (part 2)

4:00pm: Lunch at Po Lin Monestary. Touristy. Vegetarian. 5 dishes. Filling. I walked in alone to eat by myself and was hoping an asian Jonah Hill would be my host, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. "Do you want a magazine or something?"

Black bean and corn soup, bak choi and mushrooms, spring rolls and tofu with veggies, with infinite tea and rice. Most happy I've ever been eating veg, if every veg meal was this good, I could definitely see myself going vegetarian for at least one or two meals.

4:30pm: Ngong Ping 360 back to mainland. 25 minutes in a cable car in the air. Accompanied by a spanish couple and five HK'ers. One energetic elderly tan dude talking a mile a minute to his other old friend (who barely has the energy to stand or keep his eyes open, let alone talk). He doesn't stop talking for the last 15 minutes of the trip down. I'm starting to hate Cantonese.

They do Disneyland-type photos for this gondola. None of the Spanish or Cantonese noticed.

5:20pm: MTR (Subway) back to Central. Hoping to make a 6pm soccer game. Not looking good. Start a conversation with a big dude from Boston, went to Northeastern whose going to grad school for chemistry at Penn State for seven years. Ouch. Pretty awkward.

6:05pm: Arrive in Happy Valley (after asking two police officers, a sales lady and desk worker and walking through 1.5 miles of underground walkways), part of town where Hong Kong Football club. Lady tells me it is "to the left." Easy enough. I come out expecting to see it, only to find cars and freeways and taxis. No idea where to go.

Ask random HK kid, Peter (HK native and architecture student who went to U of O, who talks about how his football program is in shambles. I'm impressed). He's going there, too He has a secret subway shortcut and knows where he's going. But we still get lost and end up in the HK Jockey club. 20 minutes and a lot of sweating later, we make it.

6:30pm: Hong Kong Soccer Sevens. Old people tournament with 40-something year olds from UK, France, HK, Thailand, etc). One famous dude, Andy Cole, who used to play for Man U. Peter has three jerseys for him to sign, and he's definitely one of the less intense fans there.

Peter doin' work with Andy Cole, Football Superstar.

Pretty uneventful soccer (some of these dudes were old and/or tubby), most entertainment comes from the dozen or so HK soccer fans battling it out for autographs, pictures, memories, etc. Cole gets asked at least 50 times, signs 7000 things. Reminds me of beginning of Life Aquatic (old guy has about 15 albums for Bill Murray to sign -- "e questo") but no one will get those references, so moving on. "How many of these do you have?" And "Just forge the rest yourself." Love that movie.

Soccer in the city is cool though.

8:30pm: Supposed to meet Jed's buddy from LA Conor for a drink somewhere, but plans fall through. I'm on my own. Decide to wander around Happy Valley/Wan Chai area.

9:30pm: I'm lost.

10:00pm: Still lost. Decide to make most of it, get some street food --- 3 meatballs on stick and a couple of jumbo Tshingtao beers. 4 dollars American in all, good value.

10:30pm: Finally make it to the Ferry station in Wan Chai. Only took me 2 hours for what was probably a 30 minute walk, after I literally walked in a circle twice. Starting to doubt my sense of direction, but HK is all lights and buildings and not very walker friendly, so I won't write myself off yet.

11:30pm: Make it back to hostel tired. Talk to Ruben for a bit before packing in. Crash. Day 2 in the books.

DAY 3 and 4: Walking Tour of HK

The best way I know to get to know a city is by just showing up and getting lost. It's also a surefire way to lose your mind. Which brings me to my final two days in Hong Kong. Hopefully, I'll put that up later tonight or tomorrow.

And a quick current time update, it's dinner time here in Macau -- I'm headed to this Portugese place Caravela for food and then here for another night and then ship out for Boracay (White Beach in the Philippines) tomorrow evening...with a five-hour layover in Manila from 12am to 5am. Already hit the Wynn last night and checking out the Venetian tonight.

Double Update: Now it's 2am, I'm spend from sleeping like .5 hours after last nights session at the Wynn (a small loser), hardly anyone speaks English in the Venetian food court (or on like 99 percent of Macau, for that matter), I saw more late-night show type things and seen more enthralled Chinese than ever before in my life, I made friends from like my sixth new country and I don't know why I'm still typing right now. PS in case you were wondering, there IS a Fatburger in the Venetian Macau. I'm still confused how I didn't get a fat kingburger tonight.

Finally, pictures on the way --- something wrong with the site right now, but they'll be up asap.

HK - Day 2 (part 1)

Good morning, Hong Kong Island!

After really getting into the nitty-gritty yesterday and slaving away (and unnecessarily detailing my conversation with a conspiracy theorist German), I'm gonna take a more minimalist tact today to describe my second day in Hong Kong. Though let me say for the record, it's 10am again and I'm impressed with myself for blogging again. 2-day streak, Joe DiMaggio watch yo back. Here's my second day:

10am - Wake up. Blog.

11am - Decide my day. Day trip to Lan Tau island. Big Buddha is there. Po Lin Monestary. By 6pm, back to HK Island for HK Masters Soccer Tournament. At 8pm, meet Jed's friend Colin in Soho. Good plan.

12pm - Leave Garden Hostel. Walk 10 minutes. Forgot phone. Go back. Leave again. Ask HK 20-something businessman for cigarette. He laughs. Obliges. We walk away pleased with each other.

1240pm - Ferry from Kowloon to Central Station. 10 minutes. Meet 4 guys from San Francisco (one in Giants hat). Overhear they are going to Dumaguete, Philippines also. Make small talk. They are not interested.

1pm - Ferry from Central to Lan Tau (Mai Wo). 30 minutes. Write plans in notebook. Water is turbulent. My stomach is not pleased.

1:50pm - Bus from Mai Wo to Ngong Ping Village. 40 minutes. Green everywhere. Lush. Beautiful. Long drive, narrow roads. We almost hit cement truck. Twice. My first picture in HK from the bus. Not a good one.

2:30pm - Walk around Ngong Ping village. Touristy. Starbucks. 7-Eleven. Very cultural.

The girl likes her cotton candy a lot. It's bigger than her head.

Cool trolley system Ngong Ping 360. Maybe my way home. It's long.
3:00pm - Walk up to Big Buddha. He really is big. Amazing, even from afar.
He says what's up.


INTERMISSION: All the pictures I can put into one post, I'm off to explore Kowloon and go to the library with my friend from the hostel Bob. Be back with Part 2 later today.

HONG KONG - Day 1

Greetings! My name is Jack and I'm gonna try and keep a blog. Will it work? Probably not. But I hope so. My hope is to keep my family and friends in the loop about where I am in the world and what I'm doing with my life, and to make sure that I let everyone know that I'm not dead (as Ernesto was worried about).

In fact, I am very much alive and starting on Day 2 in Hong Kong. It's a little after 10am HK time -- I arrived to my "hostel" exactly 24 hours ago, but totally feel like I've been here for a week. That's what big, polluted, congested cities do, they make you forget there's a world outside of them.

My dad's text to me when I landed in HK said it all. "Skyscrappas...and everythang." It's from Livin for the City by Stevie Wonder. And it is literally what this city is. But let's start at the beginning.

Anyways, I got in yesterday at 6am and sat around at the HK airport for a few hours doing work for my marketing company. This German guy named Norbert sat down next to me and started a conversation. It took me about 20 seconds to realize he was out of his mind. I told him I was American and he said, "Unlucky for you." Me being an American then gave him a platform to explain to me how 9/11 actually happened. "There were no planes," he said, before explaining that they were actually American super weapons which had laser imaging projected onto them to make them look like planes and that the towers were actually taken down by laser beams which harnessed energy from a nearby hurricane.

Phew. I must have said 15 words to him over our 30 minute conversation. But as he was explaining his America-is-the-devil diatribe, I realized I was happy I met him. Novelty. As I finished my work, I took down his email and told him if I was ever in Frankfurt that I'd look him up. He said he might have a free bed. Awesome.

From there, I hoped on the A21 bus from HK Airport to Kowloon, setting out for the Garden Hostel, which had come recommended by Lonely Planet and was only 9 bucks. I'm down, plus the place supposedly has a garden and a gym. The ride in was bizarre; after 10 minutes, you cross these insane bridges that look like pieces of yarn strung out geometrically, surrounded by high-rise building after high-rise skyscrapper after high-rise slum. Skyscrappas.

Anyways, 30 minutes later I got off at my exit on Nathan Road, an insanely long and industrious road that is packed with people and electronics equipment and tailors. Very urban. Right as I step off, about a half-dozen dudes start offering me stuff. Rolexs, guest-houses, suits, hash -- they got it all! I politely decline and trek up to the 3rd story of the Mirador Mansion, where my hostel is.

The Mansion moniker was a misnomer. Essentially, the Garden Hostel (aka Kung Fu Hostel aka Time Travel Hostel) was located on the 3rd floor of a 15-floor slum in Kowloon. The rooms are pretty dodgy (as this Belgian guy Ruben described) and the surrounding area is filled with trash, stray cats and dogs, lots of broken tiles - standard slum fare. But it works. It's safe and the people are really laid back and friendly. This 60-something year old Malaysian guy Bob has been staying here for 12 months, learning HK like the back of his hand and was super helpful with travel advice. And he made me a PB and J. He's alright.

After hanging out til about 1pm, me and Ruben decided to take the ferry across the harbour to HK Island, which is essentially the main part of HK. Super easy to do, cool ferry in and only costed like 2 HKD (about 30 cents). We got there and took off walking for Victoria Park, one of the 2 parks in HK on the east outskirts of the city. Took about 30 min to walk there (mostly because roads are impossible for walking, with fences, barricades, building walkways, etc -- definitely not built for pedestrians). Pretty standard city-park stuff: 5 concrete soccer fields, couple basketball and tennis courts, some fountains, tea gardens, trees, a dude racing his motorized jet boat, etc. Not super big, we walked through in like 30 min. Nothing groundbreaking here.

By 3pm, we jumped on a tram to go back to the center of HK island. Went to the 43rd story of the China Bank Building. Solid view. Lots of Smog.

The next 2 hours we: walked to church, walked to HK Observatory (lots of trees and a bird sanctuary), walked to HK Park (less trees, a bigger bird sanctuary and an Olympic Forum), walked back to the central metro station and met HK native/Daily Cal photog Victoria Chow.

After wandering around as two clueless white guys in HK, it was nice to have someone who knew what's what. She took us to a pretty solid HK restaurant after Ruben requested authentic food, and it lived up to it. We each got Grilled Pork with Boiled Tomato over Fried rice (good flavors, lots of meat and food) and split a Fish Soup with Fish Balls and Noodles and Fish Broth, which was what you'd expect (fishy). We were both satisfied we ate like locals.

Then Vic took us to Soho, an ultra-trendy, western area built into the hills in HK. Lots of suits, well-dressed, beautiful people and chic looking places, from bars to clubs to restaurants with any food you want, all super-designer food. We grabbed a drink at The Keg, Ruben split to get some sleep to prepare for today's day-trip (didn't work, he's still asleep) and so me and Vic went to a Nepalese restaurant and hung out there for a while. Very swanky, nice Australians, good watermelon houka (my first). Really pleasant - she definitely knows her way around HK.

At about 10pm, I took off, trekked down back to the ferry and went back across the harbor to go home. At night, the skyline lights up in neons and greens and purples, it's a trip. You need to turn your head like 180-degrees to see the entire thing. Massive. Skyscrappas. And Everythang.

Made it home easy and crashed quickly.

Anyways, that was a lot of typing for me. Hopefully I'll learn to be more concise in the future. It's almost 11am and I'm either going to head out to day-trip in Lan Tau Island or go see a Buddha festival or soccer game. We'll see what the day holds. Until next time, love y'all. And respect if you made it all the way through that novel of a post. And will try to take some pictures today and upload tomorrow.

-Jack