Welcome to Hong Kong - A Crash Course in Traveling Alone

The first leg of my time in Asia has ended, and now I have left the group I was traveling with. For the first time in my life, I'm traveling completely alone for a week. (Sure I've flown alone before, but there was always somebody to pick me up at the other end, so this is a bit different.)

The first surprise happened when I got to the information desk after landing: no, your hotel doesn't have a free shuttle from the airport. Que 30+ minute taxi ride over the mountains, to arrive in some place and have the driver point out the window and say "your hotel is that way". o.O
(I arrived safely, so that's what matters I guess.)

The next morning I woke up to Silvermine Bay (on Lantau Island) right outside the hotel - litterally, the front of the hotel is on the beach (I don't have a beach view from my room, but that's alright). Since its January, (and it was chilly and breezy) it was hardly a day to get wet, but it was beautiful to look at.

I decided to see what the town was named after, and go up to Silvermine Cave and Silvermine Waterfall. Most of the locals I tried (including the hotel front desk) were strangely unhelpful when I tried to get directions (some of them were just outright rude), but eventually I got out of somebody that no, it wasn't a bus that wen't up there like I had been told earlier, it was a small hike. A couple wrong directions later, I ran into a two men - one from France, and one from England, who gave me excellent directions.

It really wasn't as far away as it had looked on the map (I was glad about that). The Silvermine Cave wasn't a natural cave, but the opening of the old mine that used to be there, and was blocked off only a few meters into it. The waterfall was very pretty though - tall and multi-fascited. I think the part I liked the best, though, was that I got to a place where there were hardly any other people around, and it was quiet and peaceful. It was so nice to no longer hear the constant horn honking of Vietnam! It was so refreshing not to be breathing in lungfuls of smog, too (I think Hanoi was the worst on the trip, despite how bad I had heard that Bangkok was suppost to be).

The next day, I moved off of Lantau and into the Kowloon area. Two ferries and a taxi later, I found myself at some inexpensive hotel, only to find that they had lost my reservations! They still gave me a room for a descent price, but you really do get what you pay for in these places. (Aka a small uncomfortable bed, electrical outlits that only work when they feel like it, walls that provide no sound barrier, a phone that doesn't seem like it wants to connect to any outside calls, and communal bathrooms down the hall.) Turned out to be roughing it a little more than I planned. (It makes me miss my large dorm room, with the small comfy bed, relative quiet (except when somebody cranks their music or drunks walk by outside at 3am), and the type of communal bathroom that actually supplies soap (somewhat) and toilet paper.) Oh well - at least it is only a 15 minute walk from the metro.

I had heard good things about the Hong Kong Space Museum, so I decided to check it out yesterday. I watched a planaterium style showing of a film about the small bodies of the solar system (aka lots about Pluto's reclassification, comets, meteors, meterorites, astroids, and dinosaurs going boom.) Then I walked through the museum itself. I think what surprised me the most was just how many little videos where in the exhibits - less than 10 feet between most of them! At first I watched quite a lot, but then I had to start being more picky about which ones I wanted to watch if I didn't want to be there until closing! There were also frequent little activity areas, from 'design an alien that could survive on this world' kind of computer games to buy a ticket to slip on a harness that stimulates a moon walk.

I also found a great inexpensive sushi restaurant!!!! Not only is the sushi really good (best I've had in awhile), but the atmosphere almost makes me forget that I'm not back in Japan. (Yes, part of me is trying to confincate for the fact that I'm not getting to Japan on this trip. But, at least I have a semester in Japan penciled in my plans for the next few years (most likely fall 2008), so that makes me feel better.)

Hong Kong has certainly been interesting so far, but I've been taking it pretty easy. I'm a lot more tired that I realized I'd be after the constant heavy schedule for the past few weeks. But, at least this is a good time to catch my breath, get some zzzzzzzzzs, and get caught up on my anime (yay for Bleach /finally/ getting out of the filler!) before starting my semester in China next week. All part of the adventure.

thxs shimawa