Hong Kong Night One

I didn't want to leave Thailand. I don't think any of us did really. Laura actually confessed to crying a little on the plane. It was just such a beautiful country where just about every person we met was kind and, perhaps best of all, everything was quite cheap - including some amazing food. (I know you've been wondering and you'll be pleased to know that not only did I meet my goal of Pad Thai every day - I exceeded it. Some days I ate it twice. I am now the size of a house.)

However, all good things must come to an end as they say and so at 6 a.m. this morning one of the guys from our hotel banged on the door of our ten dollar room and told us the taxi was there to take us to the airport. I did almost cry at that point, but that was much more to do with the exhaustion of only 6 hours of sleep after having none the night before.

In Bangkok we caught an Ethiopian Air flight to Hong Kong. This was my first time on Ethiopian Air. This could be because it only flies into Dulles in the US and from there it only flies to one place. So, the chances of me hopping on one of their flights in the past was fairly slim. I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed my airline food (Laura disagrees vehemently with this opinion), however, what was a bit of a struggle was the stench on the plane. The flight we got on had just arrived in Bangkok from Ethiopia so most of the people on the plane had been sitting there for about 14 hours. And as far as I could tell, they'd been sweating the entire time. At least that's what it smelled like. I mean, I'll give them the fact that the flight departed from Africa at 12:15 a.m. so that means they probably didn't shower just before and from what I hear, Africa is hot, but seriously, I've not been on a plane that smelled that bad in some time.

Arriving in Hong Kong we were pretty much clueless. I learned how to say a certain area of town I'd read was the tourist area and I ended up being shoved in front of Everett and Laura like 6 times as they tried to explain where we wanted to go. We eventually caught a train and then a bus to take us to the Holiday Inn in that section of town as I thought maybe that would be a decent enough area to find a room.

On the bus we met an American who was like a walking Lonely Planet guide to Hong Kong. He could not have been more helpful and as we were getting off he pointed us to a hostel around the corner from the Holiday Inn. Apparently in Hong Kong you're either staying in expensive spots or total dumps. I longingly looked at the Holiday Inn which Everett, before even walking inside, pronounced was WAY out of our price range - first time I've ever had to deal with that knowledge regarding a Holiday Inn- and made the executive decision we were going to the hostel.

I feel like I've probably complained about hostels a lot on this trip so I'm not going to go into detail here. In fact, I'll just list three things about it and then you can make your own decisions when you see the photos. 1) There are random stray cats wandering the halls and signs posted on the walls about permits from the city to have rat poison in a public place. 2) There is a sweat shop on our floor that we pass every time we walk from the "lobby" (see reason for quotes in number 3) to the room. 3) The lobby doubles as a Tae Kwon Do fighting area.

However, Hong Kong looks awesome thus far. We had dinner at a sushi spot (incidentally at a table next to a prostitute and her American man who we flew from Bangkok with) and drinks at an Irish pub (at my insistence). Now, Laura's pulling out her bed bug ridden sleeping bag and Everett's using the hostel's assigned toilet paper (we were given one roll at check in and told we pay extra if we want another- sorry, that is technically four, but I really couldn't help myself).