Day 1: Roaming free in the wild wild east

Not smart

My night ended at 3am this morning because I had, as the simpleton I am, cable tied my case shut in which were my shower supplies.  Thus I first had to find a way to break the cable tie. After a sweaty and frustrating hour I succeeded and took a shower, emailed my dad and passed out.

Day #1 of the BlaineAlex Hong Kong pillaging

I was woken up this morning by a Blaine and Lex at 07h45. Blaine has had 2 hours sleep the previous night since he just got off his one-way flight from South Africa. Each of us took a shower and Lex joined us again to give us a tour of his ENT department of the Prince of Wales Hospital.

Lex sponsored us our first meal in Hong Kong at the Prince of Wales cafeteria. We ordered an entirely rice-based meal with ‘dim sum’, a nice ricey pastry.

Lex and myself, your Dim Sum was the best Blaine

Blaine not knowing whether to order the  象形  or危

We then went to City One mall to get an octopus card, which allows you to make payments concerning any public transport whatsoever as well as at a lot of food shops, parking tickets etc, like the Gautrain but extended into all areas of life. Lex generously sponsored our first coffee at some Starbucksy place at Sha Tin mall, which is the equivalent of Menlyn mall with too many escalators and laptops and giant TV screens which are actually disguised staircases. This is where Lex went left us to explore. We went to the bathrooms immediately to lighten our loads.

Not lying about the TV stairs, those are LCD's

We went via the MTR underground subway in the Sha Tin mall to some station where there is a huge market to buy a South African plug adaptor. From here on we subwayed to Tsim Sha Tsui (known as TST by the hipsters / foreigners).

We made straight for the harbour, bypassing many a giant hotel. On the harbour lay the Avenue of Stars, where Blaine and I each became one with Jackie Chan and it has been rumoured that Bruce Lee made an appearance. We took the Star Ferry across Causeway Bay (a sea of water separating mainland Hong Kong / Kowloon with Hong Kong Island) to Hong Kong Island, where the skyline is.

Not lying about Jackie Chan

or Bruce Lee

Hong Kong Island Skyline

Somehow we ended up on an integrated walking highway overhanging the roads of the built up area of Hong Kong Island and managed to walk into a horde of people queuing for the iPad mini and other new Apple products. Next thing we somehow stumbled upon (truth) the world’s longest set of escalators leading up Hong Kong’s highest point. We passed the hipster restaurant area and up and up and up we went. The escalators stopped 100m short of the peak. We left the summit to be conquered another day (to spot the sun rising rather). Half way down we went to “ ‘n Blommetjie te pluk” (see Afrikaans language). Somehow during our descent we also stumbled upon another marked but this one was on a 43° inclination. I remembered that I forgot my nail clippers as I saw a pair for sale yet I turned a frail old man down for an 8HKD (Ten rand) nail clipper (Thinking I’m in USA, damn heat, I tell you). We continued to roam around aimlessly (I was looking for a cheap bottle of water and Blaine something to eat) . Dehydrated and hypoglycaemic we found the perfect Chinese local restaurant and order noodle things, received free black tea and medlemon (that was our guess).

A semi-conscious 30min subway trip back to the apartment and we are now here. Blaine is already fast asleep (19h50). Missing my parents and friends back home, but I am currently chatting to my dad on Gtalk so makes me feel better. Thanks Momdad/Mappa

Notes:

• 90% of the Chinese girls have lovely figures
• 10% of their faces are lovely.
• Still haven’t seen an indigenous African person here.
• 100% of the subway people have the Galaxy Note 2 smartphone and just watch YouTube videos on them. We fear a nation's social skills may be being deprived of.