No. 86

New Infrastructure Experience: I arrived in Hong Kong and instantly regretted this travel alone thing. I missed Sloan terribly and hated that I would spend the next two months missing Sloan terribly. The first few days on my own were rough. The hostel I was overpaying to stay in was a real dump. Paint peeling off the cardboard thin walls, windows leading to nowhere, and only one toilet for the whole floor. I was determined to see this through and stopped myself from going right back to the airport and instead put one foot in front of the other and made my way around the city. Those first few days I just took the subway one stop, got out and had a look around, and then made my way to the next stop. Soon my head wasn't spinning so much and my place on the map was more clear. I met an Irishman from Dublin named Justin in town for a few days and staying at the same dump as me. We spent a day traipsing around the city looking for his laundry list of electronics while I pumped him for information on Ireland. I really enjoyed the company and he really enjoyed my new found sense of direction.

After a few days I met up with my friend Luke. He's studying Mandarin in Taipei this summer and took a week to have some fun in Hong Kong first. We stayed with his friends Sarah and Andy in their fancy apartment and the three of us, Sarah, Luke and I (poor Andy had to work) made a big dent in the sightseeing checklist that Hong Kong has to offer. It's a fantastic city. Very metropolitan and modern and still very traditionally Chinese. We had a few days of sun and spent one swimming and sunning on a beach. Another day we went to see The Big Buddha which was, as advertised, quite big. Then there was "The Hong Kong Planning and Infrastructure Experience Gallery". Luke has made a habit of visiting these types of museums in every major Chinese city because they are quite outrageous. It's really just a massive marketing tool for the city (and its planners and architects) but it has that special communist ego that makes it somehow charming and fun. It's an entire museum dedicated to the belief that Hong Kong is THE greatest city in all the world. Don'tcha love that? Considering it was also free and had all kinds of toys to play with like the "Tourism Kaleidoscope Interactive Snap Shot Installation", we were enthralled. 30 minutes later we finally decided to let the next kid play. I think some of that ego may have rubbed off a bit.