The city is alive, the city is expanding...

Current music: Ophelia by Ambulance Ltd.

Simply put, Hong Kong is extraordinary.

It's as much of a Western City that you can get in Asia, and seems oddly small, despite being one of the biggest cities in the world. I'm trying to process all of the different things we got around to doing, and we managed to fit so much into five days, while not being rushed to do anything. I would go back again in a heartbeat, but it hurts the wallet because everything has Western prices. Sometimes you've gotta suffer to have fun.

Last weekend I went back to Kenting to go camping with some friends from Tainan. I had a lot of fun, despite nearly being killed on the drive to the campsite. Once we took the train and taxi to Kenting, we had to rent scooters to go the rest of the way. I decided to get my own bike, because I assumed that I'd be leaving early. To get to the Baishan camp, we had to drive for about 20 minutes, up and down the Taiwan coast. Beautiful views, actually was a great drive on the way back, but the wind was the problem. Since I had no one on the back to balance the bike, like the rest of the crew did, my back wheel had a mind of its own and felt like pushing me toward oncoming traffic. Fun stuff. But no one died, and the actual camping bit was a very good time.

Elyssa did not go camping, as she wanted to be in Hong Kong a day early. When she lived in China, she went to Hong Kong often, and wanted to be at her favourite church for Easter Sunday. So we made a plan to meet at our hostel in Hong Kong the next day.

Current music: DNA by Starfucker

It takes about an hour and fifteen to fly from Kaohsiung to Hong Kong. I got dropped off at the Koahsiung airport on the way back to Tainan, and went through a very fast and easy security check. I landed in Hong Kong at around 8:00.

I've gotta say that the public transit system in Hong Kong is one of the easiest to navigate that I can imagine. It's been called the best subway in the world, and I believe it. It took around 25 minutes to get from the airport to town, and I had no trouble finding our hostel where Elyssa was waiting for me. It wasn't the nicest hostel in the world, but you don't stay in hostels because they are fancy. I was amazingly tired the first night, but still wanted to quest for beer and ended up finding salt and vinegar chips, which they don't have in Taiwan. So after a day of nonstop traveling, I was happy to crash.

Day 1 was spent exploring around Hong Kong. We first went to a tiny little breakfast place that Elyssa knew called the Flying Pan for a Western breakfast, and I got some delicious french toast and a ton of coffee. In order to get there, we had to go on the Travelator, supposedly the longest outdoor moving walkway in the world. Hong Kong is built on rather hilly terrain, so climbing up and down is necessary to get anywhere.

The city is situated right next to a big hill, and at the top of said hill, called Victoria's Peak, is a shopping area. You have to take a tram to get up to the top, which was super crowded, but only took about 5 minutes. The view from the top of the shopping centre was unreal, you could see the whole city, the harbor, pretty much the whole island itself.

Current music: Neon Truth by Various Cruelties

We hiked down from the top, which took awhile, mainly because we didn't know where we were going, besides down. When we got back to familiar territory, we went to a free zoo that they have in Victoria park, and saw lots of weird birds and monkeys and meerkats and lemurs. On the way home, Elyssa brought me to her favourite pub, the Hong Kong Brew House, which offers at least a hundred different types of beer from various countries. Unfortunately, no Canadian or even English beer. I think they have something against the Commonweath. But anyways. I tried many different beers and appropriately, my favourite ended up being the nerdiest beer ever: Monty Python's Holy Ail. In summary, a very fun day of exploring that made me feel right at home in Hong Kong.

I'm tired of typing, and this saga will take several posts, so stay tuned. Same bat-time, same bat-channel.

Thing I miss of the day: Driving a car. Damn near impossible here.

Out.