Hong Kong: food poisoning and I'm outta here

11-25/11-26/11-27
Today I made my 2nd attempt at the gym and succeeded.  Afterwards I went for some lunch at a Taiwaneese noodle shop.  So I consider myself quite the Baron of spice.  Afterall, I order Desi-spicy at the curry truck and willingly engage in hot pepper eating contest.  Despite my love for spice, today was feeling like a 'medium' day.  To order the soup, you make check marks on a piece of paper, choosing your meat, veggies, and spice level.  There were 3 levels higher than the 'medium' that I chose.  Basically the soup was inedible (don't read this as incredible).  It was ridiculous.  I forced myself to eat it, trying to concentrate and hold back the profuse sweating, but I was just unable--I basiclaly played with my food for 30 minutes and then left.  Later that night I succumbed to food poisoning.  It was probably the noodles, but it could have been that I drank water directly from the water fountain in the gym, but I think the water in Hong Kong is ok, and am going to blame the Taiwanese noodles.  I was laid up for the next day and a half.  I had to switch hostels so I could get a single room and be sick by myself (and have a bathroom to myself).

Still this didn't ruin Hong Kong for me.  Just as I was starting to get better, I found my buddy John (Ireland) from Shanghai on Gchat--I told him I was in Hong Kong now and he demanded I email his ex-girlfriend who lived there and was already prepared to tour me around.

Her name was Becky and she worked in Marketing for Oregon Scientific; she was enthusiastic about my demands that her company begin making jetpacks.   She took me to dinner in a more realistic part of Hong Kong where tables where set up in the streets.  It was quite somber and quaint--most people were eating hotpots, the sizzle of which could almost be mistaken for phantom sword play amongs the rooftops of buildings.  After dinner we walked over to the science museum and watched and Imax film on the ocean narrated by Jim Carey.  Terrible narration but I think the footage was cool, and I have new respect for the evolutionary coolness of the cuttlefish.  The next day Becky came in and took me for real dim sum and then chauferred me to the airport.  She was an incredible host.

11-23
Day 2 in Hong Kong.  I met Jo and Luke, grabbed a Starbucks and exchanged some money.  I like Hong Kong dollars--they have cool pictures and they list the bank who printed them, and the different banks use different art.  The Lion on the Heng Seng bank notes is the best!  We caught the tube to Hong Kong island and got a bus to an area called Stanley Market.  It was like a 45 minute ride, which took us outside the boundaries of the pavement and into beautiful wilderness.   Nobody told me how much nature was still left on Hong Kong island--it was awesome.  Stanley market was a small beach area with a famous market.  The market was just junk, but the beach was great.  After hanging out there for a while we went back to the land of pavement.

It was getting close to dark so we followed the signs to the sky tram--a cable car to the tops of the peaks, to see the great views of the city.  The cable car dumped us out in the belly of a shopping center--8 floors of shops with only an escalator for ascension to the top, where the views are.  Sadly the ascension took too long and by the time we got to the top it was dark.  It was still cool, but if we could have embodied the spirit that planned that building into a stuffed doll, we could have twisted its head off and torched the torso.  Still questing for Macau style egg tarts!

11-24
I got up determined to find a gym today and my quest was another one of those 50 percent success or failures, depending on how you look at it.  I found the gym--same company as was in Shanghai, but they had different rules here in Hong Kong, namely required a passport and don't provide locks, so I left in hopes of returning better prepared another day--like tomorrow.  I went back to check on Jo and Luke to see what they were up to.  Jo was ill, but Luke wanted to go to a fishing village so I tagged along with him.  We caught a ferry to the main Island, then a super ferry to the fishing village island.  I love the ferry system in Hong Kong.  You can use a preloaded card for them (same on subways) and the ferries are frequent, cheap, and comfortable.  The only knock on them really is that the voice that announces things talks Brittish and not Pirate.
We didn't realize how long it would take to get to the villiage--45 minute ferry, then another 45 minute bus, so by the time we got there we only had an hour until we needed to head back.  Luckily the village wasn't that big and we speed walked the thing.  On our way back I bought a translucent squid.  It looked like it was candy but it was squid.  It had that Crystal Pepsi thing going on, where the visual and tastes are a mismatch.  Flavor failure.

Got back in time, but so hungry, so we grabbed a Turkish wrap.  The guy working the restaraunt looked exactly like my friend George, but Turkish and not Mexican.  We went out for some Hong Kong nightlife that evening.  It was pretty similar to the Shanghai nightlife but fit to the hours of Korean nightlife.  Overall it was good fun with good people.  One guy, not in our group, but looked kinda like Billy Mays from a Popeye cartoon, got very shirtless and danced all night on the bar--I couldn't resist taking a picture of that.

Hong Kong: I'm looking for Mr. Woo

11-21-22
Last Day in Shanghai.  I packed and checked out of my room and then hung around the city eating dumplings until it was time to get my train.  I had a sleeper to Hong Kong and I'm tired of the small cramped bunks, so I got a first class one.  Sooo comfortable.  I went to be early since I hardly slept the previous nights.
We got to Hong Kong around 1--I never even noticed us crossing any water, but whatever.  Its Hong Kong--land of John Woo and Chow Yun Fat right?  Didn't really look like it.  I mean seriously, I was expecting to be greeted by an acrobatic gunfight.

I helped some lady from Canada get a taxi with her 4 GIANT suitcases that she brought for her and her Mother to travel China for 1 month.  I couldn't believe how much stuff they had , but she seemed really paniced and kept saying how much she hated China (she was actually Chinese born) because they make it so difficult to get around with 200 pounds of luggage.  Next I took the subway (also connected to the train station) to my Hostel, which is on Kowloon Island in a place called ChungKing Mansion.  Its not actually a mansion, but a 26 floor building that might be built with egg crates and old he-man toys.  The bottom floor is small stalls of shops selling anything from cameras, indian food, and prostitutes.  The people range from Indian, Chinese, African, and Backpacker.  There are maybe 100 different hostels in here, but they aren't really hostels--more so just hallways of closet sized rooms that are owned by different people.
I got to my hostel, Ashoka Hostel, which was run by a way to nice its creepy Indian family.  Upon arrival they told me my 'friends' were waiting for me.   It was my friends Jo and Luke from Xi'an.  We knew we would be in Hong Kong around the same time so I emailed them to say where I would be staying--they sure surprised me there;  it was so wonderful to find them.

We went out for overpriced Indian food togethor at a restaraunt that had a key code to get in and a security camera with a monitor in the main dining area that showed people walking down in the hall outside.  Is this style of Indian food illegal here or something?  It's like the Taj Speakeasy.  The food was still good.  After eating we took the train to Hong Kong island and walked up to Soho.  Soho is on a hill that touts the longest escalator in the world.  Its actually a series of escalators, but yea--there is a lot, and apparentally if you take the stairs instead you can get credits to your public transport card.  Soho was like a yuppie NYC neighborhood or 5pm in the Financial District in SF.  I didn't care for it.
We didn't know what to do for the rest of the evening until we saw a many storied shopping center.  "What building looks like that and doesn't have a movie theater on top", I wagerd.  Nobody took me up on it, as they agreed, so we ascended it and politely demanded tickets to the new Harry Potter movie, but it wasn't how.  How does a Harry Potter film get released in China before Hong Kong?  We went to Skyline instead and it was so terrible we left the theater with permanent mustaches on our chins.