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