A free place to stay means Ryan comes to visit

Greetings and salutations from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (also known as Hong Kong). Many of you might find it odd or surprising that I'm currently in Hong Kong but I am in fact actually in Hong Kong. It all started a few months ago. My older sister (who is in law school) decided that she would take some classes in Hong Kong after she finished her internship in Bangkok (remember?). So she left for Hong Kong in early July and has been here ever since. Deciding to take advantage of this opportunity (the free place to stay...and of course the chance to see my sister again ;-)), I came to Hong Kong. It just so happened that this is a holiday weekend in Thailand. School is closed on Monday and Tuesday (for the beginning of Buddhist Lent) and so I have a four day weekend. I left Lampang Friday evening and took the overnight bus to BKK where I caught an early morning flight into Hong Kong. And that's where I am now. Got it?

Flying into Hong Kong was exciting. From what I've been told flying into HK is actually less exciting nowadays. The old HK airport was located in the heart of the city and so planes literally would have to land amongst the skyscrapers. Well, they've done away with the old airport and have constructed a new one. Actually, it has been open for quite some time already and has lost that new airport smell already. That's besides the point. Some years ago I watched a Discovery Channel documentary on the new HK airport. The project was massive and it involved creating a new island, transportation infrastructure etc. and was fairly impressive. So the excitement came from the fact that I was flying into the airport that I had previously seen on TV. I'm a sucker for those kind of things. Moving on. I met Taryn and we headed back to her place. She's been studying at the University of Hong Kong and so that's where we went. Apparently while I was watching the documentary about the airport I missed the part about the hills. Hong Kong, believe it or not, is very hilly. It's essentially an entire city built at the base of a hill and as the city has grown the buildings have slowly worked their way up the mountain. It's quite impressive really.

While this was a holiday weekend for me, it unfortunately wasn't for Taryn. She actually has finals on Monday and thus had to study a bit while I was here. Me + new city to explore means that I have plenty to keep myself busy while she studies. After dropping of my bag and checking out her digs, we headed back down the hill. There is an area of town, Lan Kwai Fong, which plays host to the modern and hip young crowd and they were having their July Fest complete with lots of beer, food, music and the inevitable inebriation that follows. One of the unique features of this event is the preferred container for consuming said alcohol. Beer bottles aren't allowed and cups just aren't any fun so they found some long tube-like cups (maybe 18 inches long) tied a lanyard to the top and wear their beers around their neck. It was hilarious! Not only did you have young and rambunctious Western men (and women) walking around with these around their necks (they of course thought they were the coolest thing since sliced bread), but you also had the old Chinese men and the tiny Chinese women walking around with these things around their necks. So, while Taryn studied in a little coffee shop, I partook in the annual July Fest consuming the local brew, Lan Kwai Fong Beer. After a long day of traveling and not really eating or sleeping much in the past 36 hours, I found myself ready to move on rather quickly and escaped the noise and the crowds for the quiet back streets and Hollywood Road. I managed to work of any buzz I had very quickly (it was those darn hills) and was off exploring for a few hours. I met up with Taryn a bit later after simply plying the streets for a while. We were met by another Duke Law student studying in Hong Kong for the month and we made our way towards The Peak. Hong Kong is an island and at the center of that island is the highest point affectionately called The Peak (its actual name is Victoria's Peak). There is a tram that has been in operation for the past century hauling people up and down this mountain and so that was where we headed but apparently everyone and their uncle (and aunt too) had the same idea. So we took the bus. We jumped on the first one we saw that said 15 (the line that goes to The Peak) and we were off. We found ourselves basking in our good luck - we hadn't waited long (haha suckers waiting for the the tram) and this was a double decker bus with an open second story roof and we were on top. We were flying through the streets of Hong Kong on top of a bus with these incredible skyscrapers looming over our heads. It was perfect...that is until the bus stopped and we were nowhere near The Peak. In our excitement we had gotten on to the bus that that went back and forth between the pier and the Peak Tram. We had read The Peak on the bus and stopped after 'Peak' and unfortunately missed the word 'Tram'. We were now further from The Peak than we had started. Shucks. Luckily, the actual bus stopped where we were and in no time we were back on track. The tram essentially goes straight up the mountain. This bus couldn't do that so we started to wind our way up the mountain slowly but surely. This was an incredible ride. As we climbed, the fantastic heights of the these buildings were made abundantly clear as we continued to loom above us until we had just about reached The Peak. It all is a fantastic feat of human engineering and creation. Imagine a skyscraper built perched on the side of a cliff and you might have come close to imagining a simple build here. It's insane. We gradually rose up into the mountains and above the buildings however even once we reached the top it still seemed like the tallest building in Hong Kong was still above us (I'm currently looking into the stats on that...check back in a few days). Anyway, we went to the viewing platform and checked out the view (by the time we got there it was dark and I could swear I heard several people snickering and saying 'suckers' under their breath). Dinner was simple and was eaten at a little restaurant on the top of The Peak. A quick cab ride brought us back down the mountain and we called it a day.