Hong Kong Recap

*I'll put pictures up the same way that I did it for the Thailand trip (although much faster this time) but until then, here are a few to look at ;o)*

*It's a long one, so I apologize, but it's definitely shorter then it could be*

Oh gracious, the first day of the trip was so long. Steffanie told me to take the early early train to Taipei to catch my flight. I had a feeling that I could have waited, but I just trusted her. Bad idea. I ended up waiting in the airport for 6 hours. I got there 4 hours before I could even check in, so I was stuck in the waiting area near the check-in counters. I did decided to go explore what little area I could and took lots and lots of pictures to kill my time. It was a long wait, but I told myself that it was better to be way early then to be even a little bit late. Once I had spent 3 and a half to four hours in the waiting area, I was finally able to check-in. But I checked in two and a half hours before my flight. I went to find my gate and before running off to explore a different part of the airport. I went to gate C3, the one my plane would arrive at. Guess which gate C3 is? Remember when I went to Thailand I mentioned that I passes a Hello Kitty Gate? Yep, that's C3. I got to wait at the Hello Kitty Gate. I'm not quite sure why, but they had some weird French music playing at the gate. Hello Kitty is Japanese, so I really don't know why they would play French music. I took some pictures of the gate because it was empty and so I could take shots without getting people in the pictures, then I went exploring. I walked down to the other end of the hallway because I'd already explored the hallway I was in when I went to Thailand. There were some interesting rooms, mostly about the ecology and animals and sights in Taiwan. The funniest one was a "relaxation room" where they had fake trees, were playing nature music (bird calls and running water), and then they had massage chairs in the back. I walked around for an hour and a half about, and then headed back to my gate. There were lots of people there by now, but the people weren't the only addition, there was now a sign on the door- our flight would be delayed 15 minutes. Okay, so after waiting 6 hours, I had 15 more minutes to wait. So I waited, and watched as more people arrived at the gate and were in awe at were they got to wait. You have to go downstairs to actually board, and there's a different waiting room down there. There were only like 3 songs that got rotated in the waiting area and finally I couldn't take it and so I went downstairs to wait. Unfortunately the downstairs was not decorated in Hello Kitty, it was plain and grey. Our flight was delayed again, and we didn't actually leave until 45 minutes after we were supposed to. So it's kind of funny. I took a 2 1/2 hour train to get to Taipei, an hour bus ride to get to the airport, waited at the airport for 6 1/2 hours, and then the plane ride to Hong Kong was only 1 1/2 hours.

Anyway, I finally made it to Hong Kong. I got my luggage and followed the signs to the bus station. I bought a bus ticket and took a double decker bus to the Mong Kok MTR station. From there I started wandering around looking for my hostel. I knew the address, but the streets aren't well labeled and so I kept circling the same streets. I finally went into one building to ask for help. I pointed to the address of where I needed to go, and the guy pointed to the elevator. I had managed to walk into the building I needed. Go me! I had shown up later then I had told them I would, so I was a little worried that they might have given away my room or something, but they didn't, everything was fine. The lady didn't speak very much English, but she was very nice. I was shown to my room by a girl who did speak English, and I put my bags down and went to find some dinner and to do some shopping. I had to walk around a while before I found a street with a bunch of restaurants. The one I chose (because their prices looked reasonable) just so happened to be a Taiwanese-style restaurant. Go figure. But I chose to eat something that I'd never had before and I don't think it's a Taiwanese dish. I ate ostrich. It tasted okay. If it was given to me later, I would eat it, but I don't think that I'll ever order it again. I've had it once, I can say I've had it, and that's enough for me. There were lots of stores near the hostel, but just a couple streets down from the hostel there was a market type place where there was just booth after booth set up under a large tarp. That's where I decided to go shopping. It was hard though. I'm terrible at saying no, and they're terrible at letting you walk away. I wanted to just go in and look at different places, but once you stepping into a "shop" they made sure you didn't leave without buying something first. I came up with a strategy though. I would ask a price, if it was more then I wanted to pay, I would say no. When they asked me how much I wanted to spend (it's what they do) I would just low ball them so that they would kick me out of the shop for being so absurd in thinking that they would go that low. Bad strategy. When I low balled them, they gave in, and I ended up leaving the shop with a bag in my hand. I was frightened the couple of times that I left without buying anything. I swore that when I turned my back they were going to jump me because they were not very happy if you left their shop empty handed, and they didn't even try to hide how upset they were. So that was my first day, lots of waiting and traveling, and then some shopping.

Day 2: DISNEYLAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh man, that was an awesome place. The park opens at 10am, but I got there shortly after 9am so that I could buy my ticket. I bought the ticket and took some pictures at a fountain they had outside, took a couple shots of the entrance, and then I headed down a path that said that it lead to the Disneyland Resort Hotel and the Hollywood Hotel. Along the path there were speakers that were playing Disney music and it was a bright sunny day, and I was so giddy and excited as I walked along the path. When I got farther down, I found out that there was a ferry landing at the end and so I kept going down. Closer to the ferry, they had bushed that were shaped like different animals (is there a name for that?). I had fun taking pictures of and with those. I made it to the ferry and got a beautiful glimpse of the water and surrounding areas. I got to the dock at just the right time for me to start heading back. I got back to the park and realized that there wasn't a huge line. I checked the time, but it was still only 9:45am. Then I remembered that you're allowed in as far as Main Street at 9:30am. Oh well, no big, it just meant that I didn't have to wait in line, I got to go right in. I walked through the tunnel that leads into Main Street U.S.A. and I was in awe. They duplicated Main Street so well. They even had the Indian statue out on the side walk. There were a few differences in a couple of the stores, but I was seriously tickled and impressed. I looked into a few shops and then when I noticed other people starting to make a mass migration to the end of Main Street I followed. The Disneyland band was playing and when they stopped and the announcement was made that it was opening, there was a massive stampede.

My first stop was adventure land. It wasn't really on purpose, but it wasn't until I was already walking that I realized I didn't have a plan of what rides I needed to hit up first. Nor did I know the set up of the park. Oh man, Dad would have been so disappointed in me. Sorry Pops. I went on the raft that took me to Tarzan's Tree House first. Not that exciting, but a necessity if I was going to go on all the rides. Next stop was the Jungle Cruise. There were three different lines at the Jungle Cruise. One was for an English ride, one was for a Chinese ride, and one was for a ride in Cantonese. I was excited that they had all the options and I was sure that I was going to hear all the wise cracks. I was thinking that if I had to listen to it in a different language, that I would just do the script in my head. But now, it was in English, so I wouldn't have to remember all the jokes. Well, sad story. The skipper wasn't funny. She just pointed to the things we were looking at. I was trying so hard to listen to what she was saying (it's not easy to hear through the intercom plus she had an accent) that I couldn't go through the jokes in my head. It was fun though. Adventure land was pretty much over after that. They had a Lion King show that I got a fast pass for, but I had to come back at noon. Then there was a Leaky Tiki thing, but I just walked past that because I didn't feel like playing in the water. I moved onto to Fantasy land where I rode on Dumbo and the Winnie the Pooh ride before heading back to Adventure land for the Lion King show. I'm not usually one to spend my time sitting down watching shows when I go to places, but I'm really glad that I went to this. It was so good. They sung songs from the movie, they acted out parts of the movie, and they had some pretty awesome props.

Okay, to cut the length of this blog down, I'll tell you that Disneyland was freaking amazing. It's not half as big as the original Disneyland, but that just made it so that I could ride every ride and see every attraction. As I said earlier, I'm not one for taking in the shows, but I saw all of the shows and all of the parades (okay, I didn't watch High School Musical or some sports thing, but that's all). There was the regular Disney parade, and then there was a water parade. There was a 3-D show where Donald is transplanted into different Disney movies, there was the Lion King show, there was a show called "The Golden Mickeys" where different characters sung songs from their movies, and there was an interactive interview with Stitch. I almost didn't go to that show, but I'm glad I did. Stitch is up on a television screen up at the front and he talks to the audience. Then he chooses people to talk to. He tells the assistant which person to hand the microphone to and then he asks them questions and actually talks to them. The first person he spoke to was a little girl. When he asked where she was from, she said 'England and America' Stitch was confused. He told her to pick one, but she claimed she was from both. The next person he talked to was a guy named Steve, but Stitched asked if he could call him Mr. Mustache. Stitched asked why Mr. Mustache looked familiar, and then concluded that he had seen him in space prison, he then showed everyone a wanted poster with Steve's picture on it. It was hilarious. Next he asked to speak to the girl on the second row, second from the end. Yeah, the one with yellow hair. Oh crap, that was me. Stitched asked me my name, "Brooke" and then he got all quiet and shy. He told me I was very beautiful. Then he asked me that key question, the one that I got so used to hearing in Taiwan. "Brooke, do you have a boyfriend?" "No" "Really!?! Good, I will be your boyfriend" I told him that would be okay. The next part of the show was that Gantu came in and tried to capture Stitch and the audience had to tell Stitch which way to run to get away. As he got into his spaceship and was flying away, he called, "Bye Caroline, have fun back in England and America. Mr. Mustache, stay out of trouble. And Brooke, I love you!" Yeah, I'm pretty happy I went to that show, it was fun :o) Oh, and then there was the fireworks show above the castle. That was cool because they had different colored lights on the castle and they changed the colors and made that a part of the show too. And they didn't just have fireworks, they had fire too. I was bummed that my camera was out of battery, so I couldn't record it.

Other things about Disneyland. Space Mountain rocked, and the part that rocked the most was that they had a 'single rider' line so I got to go on it and only had to wait less then 5 minutes when the regular line was 30-50 minutes or something. Their teacups also rocked. They don't tighten them so I was able to go really fast. I wish Dad would have been there to make them spin even faster then I made them go. I also wish anyone else would have been there so that they could have turned it while I sat. Because, even though I was going fast, you don't feel it as much when you're the one turning the wheel because grabbing the wheel steadies you so you don't get dizzy and don't realize how fast you're going. It's A Small World was fun. Their line is mostly on the inside of the building, so that helped because it was a freaking hot day (thank goodness I had bought a hat the night before). I was so busy taking pictures as I went through the first time that I didn't really get to enjoy it so I told myself I had to go back through. Too bad the pictures didn't even turn out well. Their good enough to remind me though, so it's okay that their not perfect. I was so excited to see how the U.S. was portrayed on the ride because we don't get scene that in the U.S. I was a little disappointed. We got a cut out of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Statue of Liberty, along with Pocahontas and Woody. I was expecting a different cowboy and indian. But, it's better then the crappy totem pole and scary mounty that Canada gets, so I'm fine. Yeah, did you realize that I said that Pocahontas and Woody were on display? That's the other cool part about this It's a Small World ride, they put in Disney characters. There was the little cat from the Aristocats in Paris, Cinderella and Prince Charming (or is he Snow White's guy?) were in London, as were Wendy, Peter Pan, and Tinker Bell. Aladin, Jasmin, and Aboo (?) were in the Middle East, Pinocchio was in Italy I think, Timone, Simba, and Pumba were in the Jungle, Mogli was in the Jungle. The Little Mermaid, Flounder, Nemo, and Dori were under water. Lilo and Stitch were in Hawaii, and I think that's all of them. It was fun to look for the characters.

I spent ALL day at Disneyland. I got there at 9am, and the fireworks show started at 9pm. I never left Disneyland once I went in and I was up and busy the whole time. By the end of the day my back was killing me and I felt like an old woman, but I was still so excited and I had a blast. I could have done with out all the stupid umbrellas that people used to make shade. They got in the way during parades and shows, and I can't tell you how many times I got hit in the face by them because the little Asian women holding them were so much shorted then me. And, I could have done with out the pushy pushy nature of people when we were in line for ride. I rode the Astroblasters (Buzz Lightyear) ride around 5pm, so it was nearer to the end of the day, and I had a pushy family behind me that at one point in time actually went in front of me. I was just going to let it go so that they would stop hitting me, but then for some reason they fell behind again. The mom kept on giving me dirty looks after I had re passed them, the boy kept on pushing up ahead to look at the pictures on the walls, and the aunt or whoever else was there kept on hitting my backpack. I was about ready to pinch the kid and smack the mom, but it wasn't time to go home, so I decided to hold it in and not get kicked out of Disneyland. Not everyone was as bad as that family, but people in Hong Kong were a lot more pushy and would try to go ahead of you if you didn't hold your place firmly in line.

Day 3: Hiking. I didn't get to bed until midnight after getting back from Disneyland, and I was worried that my body wouldn't have time to recuperate for my next day's adventures. Yeah, my body didn't recover in time and so I was in pain most of my last day. It was sad. I know that it could have been way more enjoyable and I felt bad for not enjoying myself as much as I should have, but my back and legs were killing me by mid-afternoon that third day. My day started out well though. I first went to Victoria Peak, which is the tallest peak on Hong Kong. I had to take the MTR to Central Station, from there I had to walk on a sidewalk that was above suspended above the ground to get to the Tram Station so that I could ride the Peak Tram that takes me up to the top. Once at the top I went to the information desk and asked for a hiking map. I'd found out online about a couple of different trails to take, but didn't know where they started. I went hiking- wrong, I went walking- on the trails and had a blast looking at the jungle around me and admiring the huge buildings far below me. I took plenty of pictures on the trails too. The first one was the longer one that had great views of Victoria Harbor and other places. The second one was
a shorter one and was only supposed to take 5 minutes. Well, since it wasn't really a trail, it was just walking along a street, I decided to keep going up and see where it led. I went up pretty far and through taking different paths and turns, I think that I found my way to the tallest part of the tallest peak in Hong Kong. I was pretty excited for that. Unfortunately, by the time I made it up there, a thick fog had rolled in and so when I looked down, all I saw was whiteness. I went back down to the station area and decided to look around the mall they had there. I ended up picking up an Asian Pear (it was called something else and looked a little different, but it tasted the same) for lunch and I bought a huge bottle of water because I didn't see any drinking fountains and I was in desperate need of water. After the mall I headed back down the peak via the tram and went back to the hostel to pick up my bag.

When I was in the Taipei airport, I exchanged $250 dollars (U.S) and that's all that I had to cover the hostel, Disneyland, transportation, food, and shopping. When I calculated it out back home, it worked out that I would have about $70 U.S. for shopping and food. But then I realized that I had to subtract $12 U.S. for the exchange fee and then I got scared that I had spent too much the first night and at Disneyland. I was worried that I wasn't going to have enough money for a good meals, but that maybe I would have to just grab crackers to get me through. That morning I had planned it out. I looked at how much money I had left and how much it would cost to get to and do the things I wanted to do. It turns out that I was a lot better with my money then I thought I had been and that I really did have more then enough money to get me through the day. When I got back to Mong Kok station, I saw that the booths were already all set up and so I decided that I would walk through quickly and pick up one more thing. I figured that I had better spend my money while I'm here because if I have any left, it will just be worthless. It wouldn't be enough to exchange back, and I can't spend Hong Kong Dollars in Taiwan or the U.S. so I went to buy a tea pot. I did some good bargaining for the tea pot I got, and I really like it.

So after the shopping I picked up my bag and headed to Tung Chung via the MTR. Tung Chung is the stop that takes me to the Gondola where I can ride up to Ngong Ping Village. The cable car ride lasted 25 minutes and there were some amazing views. However, I must admit that I was expecting a little more out of it. There was a lot of views of the same thing. Most of the trip we were staring at the green green mountain. It's not that it wasn't beautiful, but when that's all you have to look at for 10 minutes, it gets a little old. This is the part of the day that was way less enjoyable then it should have been because I was in so much pain. My pants had given me a rash on my legs and so it burned so bad to be walking around, but that's what I'd been doing for three straight days. I sucked it up and just took things slower then I normally would have. There were some little touristy shops in the village that I checked out and then I headed out to look at the giant Buddah statue that Ngong Ping is famous for. There was a lot of stairs that led up to the statue. For some reason the stairs didn't hurt my legs or my back, so even though I was loaded down with my two bags, I made it up pretty quickly. It was funny to see the other people going up the stairs. Some were racing up it (a mom with her little girl), some people were panting, some were stopping every fifth stair to take a picture, etc. I walked around the statue for a fwe minutes, looked at the exhibit hall they had at the top, and took some pictures of the surrounding view. When I was done, I headed back down the stairs. I saw a big arch way and decided to see where that led me to. It led to a monastary and a temple. At the temple I ran into an English tour group that. I stuck around them for a while so that I could learn a little bit about the history of the temple. I didn't want to make it obvious that I was listening to them, so I'd stop and listen, then I'd run off and take more pictures, then if I crossed their path, I'd listen again. It was good, I learned a few new things about the temple and the monostary.

I was going to go straight from Tung Chung to the airport because their pretty close, and that's why I had picked up my bag and lugged it along. Because the airport was so close, I didn't have to leave Ngong Ping until 5:30pm which would give me enough time to be at the airport by 6:00pm and put me there just a little before check-in time. Well, I didn't make it until 5:30pm, I didn't know what else to look at and was in too much pain to just wander around. I headed back down the on the cable car and headed back to the MTR station. I tried to buy a ticket for the airport line, but the machine wouldn't let me. A security guard saw me trying to press the "airport" stop and told me that I couldn't go there without buying an "airport express" ticket. Then he told me I should just take the bus because we were so close. The bus stops were right outside. I walked outside and found the bus stops (I'd actually seen them already as I went to the cable cars, but didn't realize one of them went to the airport). There were a lot of stops there and I wasn't sure which one I needed. I found one that said it was going to the airport. The bus was already at the stop. I wished that it would leave so that I could take more time to look at that and other signs to make sure that's the one I wanted to take, but I just got one because it wasn't leaving.

It worked out, that bus did get me to the airport alright. I was there too early to check-in, so I took some pictures out side, then I went in and wandered around and took picutres on the inside. I was quite successful at killing time and went and checked-in when there was 2 1/2 hours before my flight. When going through immigration, I chose the slowest line ever, but I didn't bother to switch lines because I wasn't in a hurry. I knew I had time to kill and so it was either kill it in that line or kill it in a seat at the gate, it didn't really matter.

I went and found my gate and then I went to the food court area for dinner. I still have HKD 100 (around $12 U.S.) and so I had a good meal before my flight. I tried to eat slowly, but when I went back to the gate I still had an hour or so. I pulled out my journal and started writing (yes, this is the shortned version of my trip, the full length version is in paper back). I got to the gate more then an hour early, but I almost missed boarding. Here's why.... I heard them announce that they would start boarding those who needed extra assistance and first class and business class people. I didn't bother to get up because I was writing and didn't want to stop writing just to go wait in a long line to board. I listened for other announcements but didn't hear any. There were plenty of other people in the seats around me and they weren't moving either, so I knew I was okay. I started to wonder how many people were in first class and why it was taking so long. When I looked up, the "now boarding" sign had changed to "last call." I jumped up and walked over to the gate. I asked the stewardess if it was last call for everyone. She looked at my ticket and motioned for me to go through the gate. I'm still confused who all those other people were waiting in the seats at the gate who weren't on my flight. It's okay though, I made it on, and I wasn't even the last one on, there were plenty of people after me and we didn't even taxi to the runway for another 10 minutes or so.

The flight went smoothly for the most part. Before we had even taken off, a man in the row ahead of me started snoring. I wanted to call the stewardess over to tell him to knock it off or to turn on my music to drownd him out, but the stewardesses were already buckeled in and I wasn't allowed to turn on my electronics because we hadn't taken off yet. It was driving me CRAZY and I wasn't the only one it bothered. There was also a crying baby on the other side of me in the row ahead of me, but that was more managable then the snoring.

My flight landed alright, and I made it to the bus stop okay to take the bus back to Taipei Main Station. The hostle I was staying at in Taipei was only one stop from the MRT station and it's a dang good thing I booked that one. I absolutely forgot that the MRT stops running aroung 11pm or whatever. So by the time I got to the station at 12: something in the morning, the transit had closed down. I had a map of where the hostel was, and I knew that it wouldn't take more then 10 minutes to get there so I decided to walk rather then take a taxi (I might had pronounced the name wrong and ended up lost if I had taken a taxi). The only problem was, I didn't know which was to head out first. Luckily I lady saw me starting at the map and only taking a couple steps at a time before stopping (a sure sign someone has no idea where their going). She told me she wasn't from around Taipei, but that she could try to help me out. I showed her that I had a map, that I knew we were here (pointing to the Main Station) and that I needed to go here (pointing to an address a couple streets away) but that I just didn't know which way to head out, I didn't know which way was north or south or anything. She went and asked a taxi driver and helped me figure out which way to go. I headed out and found it without a problem. I was nervous as I was walking along, hoping that I wouldn't get lost, but I found it right away, without any misturns, without anyone jumping me, etc. I had warned the hostel that I would be arriving very late, and the owner of the hostel was waiting for me outside. We went in, I paid her the money, and she gave me the key and showed me to my room. I forgot that I had ordered a shared room and so I felt so bad for waking up my roommate. I decided to take all of my luggage into the bathroom where I showered and got ready for bed. I tried to have everything ready so that I could go in quietly and not disturb the girl. But the girl was awake already and turned on the light so I could see. She had also stolen my sheets and so she helped me make my bed. So finally, around 1:30am I was able to get into bed. It was another long day, and I had to be up early again in the morning.