also later heard that it began to snow in Nanchang the day after we left.When we arrived in Kowloon our first task was to exchange RMB for HKD. This was an easy task considering Hong Kong has money exchanges on nearly every corner. Secondly we needed a cab to our hostel. The cabs in Hong Kong are pretty cool. They seem to have a bit of an English flair, except for the fact that they are made by Toyota. After ten minutes in the cab I was relieved to find that the fee was only about 15 HKD (marked with $ from now on). Then the driver reached down and pressed three different buttons on the meter, which raised the fee to $48. When I began to protest he simply pointed to my door, which had a rather lengthy list of charges for bags, number of passengers, blood type, family origin, ect. So, I handed him a brand new $50 bill and received $2 back.
When we checked into our room, I realized that I had made a quite devastating mistake. I hadn't handed the cab driver $50, but had actually given him a $500 note! So, my travels had officially begun...out $450.
Once in Hong Kong, I was completely overwhelmed. I don't think that I could see everything that there is to see in the city in a life time, much less in a few days. Gucci, Prada, Lamborghini, and Rolex were a few of the brands that I remember seeing in Hong Kong. It would be an amazing city to visit....if I had money. Everything was expensive, but the quality of life was much better as well. I was very surprised by the number of Indians and Africans in Hong Kong. I had expected about a 50-50 mix of British and Chinese, but seeing how India and parts of Africa have been under English control at some point, it made sense. Nearly every corner of Kowloon had a few Indian gentlemen who were very interested in selling Max a custom made suit. His size made him a tailor's dream, imagine all those extra feet of fabric.
When the day arrived for a day trip over to Macao, Max was still quite immobile from his bout with food poisoning. We ate at a Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant at the top of the observation tower at the back of Hong Kong Island a day before, and Max's food had apparently been tainted by something terrible. Judging from his sickness, I would say his burger probably had taken a spin in the toilet before they brought it out to the table.
So, Janice, Sven, Konstantine, and I headed to the ferry terminal minus Max. Sven and Konstantine are two German fellows that Max and I met at a pub. They were both very pleasant and both heading to Australia after their time in Hong Kong. I should make it clear that Konstantine was actually from Bavaria, which is a part of Germany, though Konstantine seemed quite angry whenever I said that he was from Germany or asked a question about Germany instead of Bavaria. Our trip on the turbo jet ferry to Macao was very pleasant and very smooth and Macao was really neat. It was full of Portuguese architecture and vividly painted buildings, and the signs were only in Portuguese and Chinese. I wish that we had more than a day to visit Macao, especially with all of the casinos available. Janice was very eager to get over and do some gambling, but we ended up running out of time. When we finally returned to our hostel, we found a moderately better Max, who pointed out that there was an interesting article in that day's Hong Kong paper. The article related the story of two of the turbo jet ferries, of the same type that we had ridden that day, who had collided in the fog the night before injuring dozens of people. It was nice to read that article AFTER our trip to Macao!
Some highlights from Hong Kong were the Iron Buddha, the Airport (for Max at least?), the star walk on Kowloon, any and all Western food (other than Bubba Gump), the observation deck behind Hong Kong Island, and renewing your visa, which is apparently an extremely long, expensive, and tedious experience.
