10th
Hong Kong - Shop 'Til Ya Drop
The flight to Hong Kong was uneventful. It wasn’t until the next night that we realized that we got out of Bangkok literally hours before both airports were shut down due to riots. We left at 10am, the airport was shut down late that afternoon. Reportedly, it took 2 days for people to get to Kuala Lumpur by train to finally get out of there. We were soooo lucky…again!
Mass transit is clean and cheap in HK, and we were at our guesthouse in a snap. “Fuk Lam” guesthouse (must have been a sheep brothel at some point) was a small dingy office space inside a downtown Kowloon high-rise. 4 or 5 rooms max - strange place. Our room was tiny, dark, loud, but cheap by HK standards.
Hong Kong is, by our impression, very similar to Manhattan. Same density, same vibe, same pace, same style - everyone wears black and white, or black and grey, or black and black.
With no guide book for HK, we were aimless at first. But we only had one agenda - find and procure cheap, knock-off designer goods. After some internet research, we narrowed our targets to 2 impossible-to-find shopping malls and a handful of street markets around Kowloon. We headed out that night in search of the Louis Vuitton grail, but were only able to find cheap locally-designed women’s wear hocked by fashion school grads - Wang was psyched!
I felt dead tired all the time. My eyes were burning like I hadn’t slept in days, which wasn’t the case. I thought it might be allergies. But then again, this is a major Asian city - pollution had to be a factor.
On the second day, we met up with Christie’s god-uncle, Edmond, for lunch at a huge floating chinese restaurant aply called Jumbo Floating Restaurant. Delicious! I was under strict instructions not to let Edmond pay - a plan that was executed perfectly, despite his counter-plan. Edmond had heard of Christie’s tummy issues, and made her drink a small bottle of Underberg (German anise aperitif) which tastes so bad you forget you were sick and the idea of having to drink any more of it prevents you from feeling sick again.
We spent the day with Edmond, walking around Hong Kong island, checking out exotic cars and eating strange dessert foods (more of that weird fruit, Durian). And we met up with a friend of his, Priscilla, and the 4 of us had a great sushi dinner and a lot of laughs. Afterward, Priscilla brought us to a street market where Christie was able to snag a class-a Louis Vuitton handbag copy (euphemism for good fake). Greg, sadly, was still empty-handed. The street markets were mainly filled with the same crap that the markets in Thailand and Vietnam were filled with - except much more expensive. Sooo glad I bought my fake Panerai watch in Hanoi.
On the 3rd day, we found a couple of fruitful malls - but still a lot more stuff for Christie. Oh well.
The flight back to LA was only 11 hours - not too bad. I was expecting a 16 hour torture session.
And that’s it. The first leg is over - Egypt, Jordan, Greece, Turkey, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. I couldn’t believe it. But I could: Living a totally new experience everyday for 99 days makes that length of time very measurable. I usually can’t remember anything about last Tuesday - can you? In this, I can let my journal entries lapse for 2 - 3 weeks, pick it up, and chronologically write out every detail of my days since. So strange.
We leave for Bogota this afternoon. 3 more precious weeks of revelry. And with Fred! We are so lucky, truly. Not because we did this - anyone can if they really want to - but because it has gone so well so far, and gone badly at times, but always gone in a good direction.
Wish us a little more luck!
