HONG KONG!!!
Okay, so after months of delay, i finally decide to put up this page. I thought I could fit all of Hong Kong in one page, but it'll have to be two... enjoy.
Kunming - Thursday, August 22

That morning we were still in Kunming. We had breakfast... and I recall that we actually had a few minutes to chew and swallow our food. In the tapes i recorded, Ai was reflecting about how rude people were and cutting her in line, pretty funny. But it was sad saying goodbye to mainland China, renminbi, and crazy bargaining.
HONG KONG - Day 1 - Thurday August 22, 2002

So we arrived in Hong Kong after a pretty brief plane ride. It was almost like culture shock going from Kunming to Hong Kong. Suddenly everything was so modern (not like people in Kunming were living like cavemen), but saying things were more advanced is an understatement. The airport was really big, the guards looked quite intimidating with their guns, and the luggage carts were real high-tech, like they could read your mind. Just to refresh your memory, there was also a big Visa problem for Rocky's mom. I don't really remember what it was all about, but one bus had to stay for a couple hours for the issue to be resolved. Well, i was on the bus that got to leave the airport, so it was all good.
Scotty giving me a ride around the baggage claim area. It was fun and rather scary since there were guys with guns around every corner.
Ed looking like the perpetual tourist.
Ahhh.... freedom. Follow me and everything will be alright. I don't think i'll ever get used to being on the "wrong side" of the road.
There were no official tours for the day, it was all free time. So we took advantage of exploring the area around our hotel. Our hotel, the New World... something, was way cool. It was attached to a 4 story shopping mall which had a Mcdonald's (which i was looking forward to after some of the Yunnan food disasters), a food mart, and it was within walking distance of all the attractions of Kowloon peninsula.

But the first thing we did once got to the hotel was change our RMB to HK$, which was quite painful because everything seemed so expensive suddenly. But Patrick, our fun HK guide gave us an alright rate.
One of my random pictures... the escalator in the shopping mall connected to the hotel.
Escalator in the hotel from the lobby to the main concourse.
People who know me KNOW how anti-mcdonalds i am... (though lately, that dollar menu is quite appealing to a poor college student). But in China, McDonalds is like a gift from above. Not only is the food better, the service is waaaay better (don't know why they're so eager to please us), and the selection is better (there were icecream floats, chicken pies, and breakfast ALL DAY!!!). I have to admit... we ate at this McD about 4 times, which is more than all my McD visits in the US in the year before that.
mmmm... mcdonalds....
So after lunch at McDonalds, we went to the food-mart and bought some Nestle Crunch icecream bars. Then we decided to make my room homebase for... uhh... the group (you guys know who you are). In my lots of memories in my room... just don't want to confuse what happened on what days. I recall on the first day... that word game, we were stuck on "trapper keeper" (i finally found a solution at Sal's a month later), trying so hard to figure out where to go for dinner (remember trying to figure out if there was a planet hollywood?), eating Jose's fries (though i just ate a whole meal), being suffocated under the pile of pillows, being crushed between the two beds, and trying to ditch the chip for dinner.
LATER THAT NIGHT...
So we decided to eat at Hard-Rock Cafe for dinner. We ran into people from Kung-Fu Acadamy there celebrating some birthday. As good as Chinese food is, after two weeks of it, American food was really good. Me and Jiayin split a Chicken Club... split... but it was still huge. Oh yeah... and paying for the bill... man oh man... it ended up being 900+ dollars!!! well, HK dollars, but still way expensive compared to what we were used to in mainland China. Also, there was something called a "service charge" on the bill, which we assumed was the tip. It wasn't, so we actually left no tip... i felt really really bad when i learned this a day later. And the waitress was so nice and cute.
ROCK ON!!!
After dinner, we explored a little more and found an arcade. Lots of fun, for me at least, i found a DDR machine, the newest one! They have it in Connecticut now at Laser Quest, but it was cool to see it before it came out over here. I also found a Soul Calibur 2 machine, before it came to our local arcades, so i was quite excited.

After the arcade, we found a small video store where we bought Shaolin Soccer and Saving Private Ryan VCD's. Then we went to a nicer Suncoast type store, but things were real expensive so we didn't buy anything.
Later that night, we stopped by a small convenience store for refreshments... then we watched Shaolin soccer... only me and Jiayin had seen it i think, so it was fun sharing it with the rest of the group... cause it's such a cool movie.

Everyone was quite tired by the end of that, but we watched the first CD of Saving Private Ryan... me and scotty were wide awake, timmy, i had to keep making sure was awake, and Phil... does anyone ever really know if he's awake or not?
Hong Kong Tours - Friday August 23rd

The next day, after sleeping quite well, we had breakfast... i think... hmm... OH YEAH!! 4th floor... yummy yummy breakfast. They had really good pastries and there was an omelette chef as well as real orange juice, not warm Tang. I especially liked the attentive service of the waitering staff... but i guess it's expected of a 5 STAR HOTEL right?
Stop 1 - Victoria Peak

Up and up a hill we go, wrong side of the road, whoa. we go. We take two buses, but one is slow. So high up, the city's below.
Patrick.... Propaganda Patrick... made HK seem so fascinating, like the way he described race horses getting vacations.
Wierd how this is one of the last times our wushu group will be together as a whole after experiencing so much in 2 weeks.
That Haagan-daaz icecream looked soooo good but it was $35 for a cone. I'll settle for the McD $2 softserve later.
Scotty, Master Hu, and Me
It's quite cool to see massive HK skyline below us since we were above the city.
Stop 2 - some beach on the Victoria harbour

Yeah... i failed to mention earlier that it was a hot hot hot day... and humid too... and sunny... way too much "it's gettin' hot in here" coming out of scotty's mouth. hehe. man... especially coming from yunnam province though where it's perpetually spring, it was intense. The beach seemed like a nice place to cool off.
Some statue thing.
Master Hu, Sig, and Barbera... whoa, sometimes i forget there were other people on the trip.
Did i mention it was... hot? walking on the sand was like walking on burning coals. Lindsay and Jiayin take refuge in the shade... next stop, a dash to the water.
aghhhh! hot hot hot... ahhhhh... safe.
oh my god... what is the world coming to? Charles in water? might be just my feet, but it was a giant step.
If i were a famous artist, and could BS about my work, addressing self reflection or passage of time, and lack of permanence or something, somewhere, this would be a famous photograph.
Feet, clockwise from the bottom.... let me think.... me, jiayin, jose, lindsay, timmy, phil, and scotty. You can't tell here, but there was glittery nail polish on my toenails from a couple nights before... oh the things people would do when you're half asleep.
Jose escapes the burning sand in the most unusual way.
Official Stop 3

Our group had the option of going onto the famous floating restaurant boat.... but yeah, way too many boats already. I remember me, scotty, jiayin, jose, timmy, and uhhh... phil i think... staying in the bus, we were quite tired from the night before, and we had wet and sandy feet.

Official Stop 4

Some jewelry store. This stop was pretty lame, there was a small presentation on how master craftsmen design each piece of jewelry, but it was just another ploy to get stupid american tourists to waste more money.

Stop 6 - DIM SUM LUNCH!!!
I was considering taking the boat tour, but wasn't too impressed, i did get a nice picture though.
Lunch Time!
Me being such a big fan of food found this to be one of the most interesting stops that day. A DIM SUM LUNCH... for those of you unfamliar with it, it's little bitesize morsels of heaven, especially when sharing with your friends.
The rest of the people at our table, actually, there were more people... but my memory's failing me. Funny how pictures substitute for memories like that.

This was the last time our tourgroup will all eat together, there was breakfast the next morning, but people were filtering in and out.

After Lunch - We were free after lunch for the rest of the day. We hung out with the Hu's for a while, they bought a nice gold necklace for Jiayin. Oh yeah, it was still hot outside. I remember walking toward the hotel, cause we decided to take a little rest, and finish watching the movie. Crossing the streets to get to the hotel was an adventure because there was construction going on. Huge trucks practically skimmed us as we were walking along the non-existant sidewalks.

Memory...fading... oh yeah, we went to my room again, finished Saving Private Ryan... it was quite funny (not the movie, it was a sad sad movie), but we were all sprawled out on both beds, and my roomate, Russ, walked into the room like... uhhhh, what's going on. He didn't actaully say it, but that was the expression on his face. Then he just stood at the doorway for like, 10 minutes for us to finish the movie because he had to get something on the other side of the room. jeez. Timmy was stacking Russ's VCDs and hotel wineglasses, got pretty high, but then down they went... Phil got the stain out in no time though... and of course Timmy went to his room to replace the wineglass in my room.

Everyone was really tired from the packed day, so people everyone left to take naps... we would reconnect later to meet some HK movie producer. Scotty wanted to go swim in the hotel pool, if you don't know, i'm quite afraid of swimming, but i went anyways figuring i'd just put my feet in the water. But then they finally convinced me to take the plunge. I survived, so it was alright i guess. I think i even swam a lap. We didn't change after though, so i was quite wet when we went to meet the producer guy. Oh yeah... the horror of Lindsay walking around the hotel with her bakini and shorts. I couldn't convince her that it was probably inappropriate to walk around like that in the fancy hotel.
Weeeeeee!!! Phil, being the master of timing his shots got this awesome picture of Me and Scotty in the air.
Whooptidoo... mr. producer guy standing in back. I should have swung into the lobby with a grappling hook to catch his attention to get a part in his next movie. Cool picture of Scotty splashing water at me, and me not ruining the camera.
Dinner Time!
After the producer thing, we were waiting and waiting for Rich and Ai who wanted to come along with us, Ai had been sick for a while and was finally feeling better.

So we left the hotel in search of food. We walked and walked through the pedestrian subway trying to decide where to eat. We found a TGIF.. i could have gone for something i couldn't easily have at home, but it was the power of the masses. It was alright though cause we had our own private room. Rich was playing with his new toy, a Nikon digital camera. Lindsay was crying or something. Jiayin and Jose left cause Jiayin wasn't feeling well... too bad cause Timmy treated us to those yummy oreo icecream deserts.
Street scene of Kowloon Peninsula at night. Found it interesting how everything was in English.
This time, we made sure we left a tip. I totally forgot what we did after dinner.
Half the group left the next morning because of the flight issues... actually it was more like, half the group got to stay an extra day, which was great cause i was in that half. But it was a little sad that this was our last night in China with Jiayin, Jose, Rich, Lindsay and Ai who all left left the next morning. Well, not too sad. Saturday was awesome.