One Continent Down, Four to Go

10/30/09: Hong Kong

Though we were a bit sad to leave Jo’burg and Africa behind, we were also excited – for one main reason: we were going to get to fly Cathay Pacific for the first time. And ok, we were also going to never stay in a tent again and have lots of new adventures and tackle a new continent and eat lots of non-African food and have real toilets, blah-di blah blah.

Anyway, Kevin thought the Cathay flight was going to be the best thing ever, while I was a bit skeptical. But I have to admit that once we got settled into our seats, I was pleasantly surprised.

Somebody, please, tell me why no one in the US seems to have thought of this before: put a cupholder on the OUTSIDE of the tray. Pure genius. Also, please note the coathanger thing that you can pull out and hang a coat from – I personally don’t see why you’d want your coat hanging into your lap but these are the same people who devised the outside cupholder, so who am I to judge? And you can’t see it, but when the tray folds out there’s an outlet in the back of the seat in front of you! Again – pure genius.

The flight to Hong Kong took about 12 hours, but we spent the majority of it watching movies on our personal screens (Kevin’s first selection was Taking of Pelham 123, mine was The Soloist). The Scrabble board didn’t even make an appearance. We were supposed to stay awake only a few hours and then sleep as much as we could in order to get a head start on overcoming jet lag, but the lure of Transformers 2 (Kevin) and Jennifer Gardner (me) – really, it was just too much.

We finally arrived in Hong Kong bright and early at 7:30 the next morning after having only slept a few hours on the plane. Luckily, there were so many things that we hadn’t seen in a long time (cars! tall buildings! people walking like the might actually get somewhere on time!) that we were distracted from our tiredness. We got to Vanni’s apartment in the afternoon and got settled in. She then took us out to show us around the city.

First we went to the bird market, where parrots shouted “Bye bye!” to us.

Vanni and I are birds too

Then we went and had soup and dumplings for dinner.

One of the nicest things about hanging out with locals is good, cheap food

Then we had dessert.

Mango ice with glutinous rice balls and assorted fruit – all for me!

Then we rode the longest indoor escalator in the world. At least we think it was the longest one. Vanni seemed a bit unsure on that point, but Kevin and I were happy to believe her.

 

Looking bored on the 89.4 second escalator ride

We finally collapsed, exhausted, into bed. I stayed awake for awhile, not able to fall asleep, and not able to figure out why. Was it the new bed? New city? Strange environment? Horror of horrors, was I actually missing sleeping in the tent?! Surely not… Then perhaps it was the lack of noise? In Africa I had fallen asleep while waves pounded, elephants trumpeted, buffaloes trampled, cicadas shrilled, neighbors snored… Maybe it was too quiet, I thought. But then I realized what it was – it was that unfamiliar sound – the sound of the air conditioner. And with that realization, I happily fell asleep.

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Picture of the Day: The King still lives.

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