Today was the big travelling to Hong Kong day, which was quite exciting! Took the 6:33am (yuck) Narita Express from Shinjuku, which was a really easy trip (much nicer than the airport limosuine I think!) and had an easy check-in, exit immigration, etc. Flight left uneventfully at 10ish and I was very excited to find that ANA, whom I've never flown with before, has seat-back, on demand entertainment, featuring Sex and the City! Woot! Unfortunately, I managed to knock the button on the seat 2/3s of the way through, sending it back to the beginning. At the time, I couldn't find the ff button (it was hidden!) and so I gave up on SATC and watched 'What Happens in Vegas' instead. It was cute enough. I also managed to write most of an article on BA, which seemed ironic, yet productive. The only complaint? The WORST food I've had on a flight, quite possibly ever. Easy and quick at just under 4 hours, though!
Arrival in HK was easy, I didn't have to say a single word to the immigration officer, not even a token 'business or pleasure?'. Strange. She did, however, talk to herself for the entire time I was standing in front of her. It was really, really weird!
Mentally squealed at all of the Beijing signs and then jumped on a bus to my hotel. It took about an hour and we got to see a fair amount of the city as we were driving in. It's nice--more tropical than I was expecting, though I guess it is about 4 hours south, and TONS of high rises! It made me realise just how flat Tokyo really is. (also seen today that made me realise i hadn't seen it for a few months: guys with no shirts and pda in the mall).
Got to my hotel and checked in (I think I'll have to do a seperate post on the hotel, but suffice it to say that it is very nice) and then called one of my friends from SFU who hasn't quite gotten back to Vancouver yet and also Karen, here to compete for Canada in the paralympics to make plans with both of them. That done, I went down to the Club L and had a quick snack before exploring the huge mall next to me for a bit and then meeting up with Vicky. Its funny how many Japanese things there are here! Seibu, Muji, shu uemura, italian tomato jr, yoshinoya,...and that's just in the mall next to me! There's also an H&M!
The shopping seems pretty good here, and cheap, but I'm having a ridiculous time trying to convert the currency in my head, either to yen or CDN. Luckily, my phone (in the hotel) seems to be able to do that (as well as send texts and check the weather).
Vicky took me shopping in the nearby neighborhood and also basically fed me for 3 hours straight! We got some street food that is apparently very traditional in HK--bascially a block of fermented/rotted tofu, some really tasty sort-of-waffle type snacks that are somewhat hard to describe, watermelon juice with lemon jelly, and for dinner a sort of cousin of ramen that included balls of meat (or fish). Whew!
I'm fading fast here, so first impressions? I like it, it seems like a cross between Ueno and Kabuki-cho and a bit of something all its own! I'm sure I'll have more to say on the subject after some more exploration tomorrow.
Click the picture for more pictures.
1 comment:
EEKKK!! blogs! thank goodness you're back to doing this :)
you're life is awesome. i'm jealous. i also wanna visit :)
I hope everything continues to be amazing. let me know how everything goes. sorry i keep missing you on skype, i walk away and leave the computer on and i miss you. boo. talk soon i hope.
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