T Minus 3: Welcome to Hong Kong

It was a 14 hour flight from LA to Hong Kong; a 7,000-mile jaunt routed over Russia in a giant Cathay Pacific Boeing 777. That’s a new record for me, beating my previous - the Qantas segment from LA to Sydney - by an hour. I was able to sleep away the first 8 hours and last 2 hours, leaving 4 hours dedicated to movie watching and fidgeting. It wasn’t so bad.

The first glimpse of Hong Kong from my window seat was in-line with expectations. There were clusters of uniform-looking skyscrapers dotting parts of lush green islands with busy boat traffic racing in and out of ports. After deplaning, I quickly felt comfortable among other foreigners and easy-going Chinese who all knew English well.

The exchange rate is $0.13USD to 1.00 Hong Kong Dollar, so I stuck my ATM card into the machine and pulled out 2,000HKD in colorful bills. Only took me a day to spend. It's not exactly cheap here, especially when you’re on “buck’s party”.

Three Photographers on a Bird Nest (25 more around the corner)

I went for a run from the hotel - or tried anyway. The narrow walks and streets were so packed with pedestrians and vehicles that I finally gave up after a half dozen false starts to hike my way through the urban maze and a nice little park in the middle of it all. I don’t know how they packed so much stuff into what I estimated to be perhaps a 10 acre parcel of parkland. It was a brilliant patchwork of walks, jungle, covered pavilions, turtle ponds, fountains, bridges, courtyards, and a bird nest – yes a bird nest. I didn’t see it. I just saw about 25 cameras fitted with humungous wide-angle lenses, clustered together and titled up to the sky. I later came back with my Nikon fitted with its relatively small lens (and a little camera envy) to snap a few photos of the gang (not the nest). The cameras were being fired furiously and sounded like quiet little machine guns. One of the operators looked over at me, and I pointed back saying, “YOU guys are the interesting ones”.

Jes, Chris, and Andrew finally arrived. We immediately went out on the town with the mission of finding a man called Manish. Our hotel is on the mainland side of Hong Kong. Our search took us by subway under a water channel to the island side of Hong Kong. I stood out as the rare Caucasian until arriving on the island side, which was full of expats and western tourists.

Erik at the Hooka (Shisha)

We found our man and quickly settled into a routine of street cruising, bar hopping, socializing with each other and strangers, and sampling delicious liquid concoctions. The hookah (or shisha) in apple was lovely, as was the balcony on the 29th.

Andrew also at the Hooka (Shisha)

Andrew is a handsome rotating equipment engineer and very tall. In fact, when I lose the group in a crowd, I just look for Andrew. He lives in Perth, Australia. He's also single – for all you ladies out there. He’s got a good sense of humor. He looked around at us and remarkedthat he’s noticed most engineers are in good physical shape. Then he immediately realized and expressed that engineers needed to have something to attract the opposite sex, because it sure wasn’t going to be our personalities. The rest of us engineers liked this remark and joined in with laughter. (Engineers are fit AND funny.)

Chris

Chris is in “Information Management”. He’s an IT guy working in a fairly new industry for him (oil & gas) in Brisbane, Australia. He’s originally from Perth and spent a couple years teaching English in Japan. He’s one of those good-natured Australian gentlemen that remind me why I love his country so much. It’s a pleasure to have him on board.

Manish

Manish is my age; the ‘don’t ask’ age. He’s a ship captain, which took years of schooling and experience to obtain. He now works “in marine”. That’s how he put it. He has also worked on some of the largest oil and gas projects in Australia over the past dozen years. He’s Indian and gave us some tips when traveling there, such as to only drink bottled water and to only eat items that have been cooked and still hot. He said he has never been sick visiting India, but it is a common theme for most. Manish is just along for the buck's party and won't be joining us in India.

Jes and Company

Manish with Cousin Pallavi

We were later joined by Manish’s wonderful cousin who is also Indian and just so happens to live in Hong Kong.

On the Balcony of the 29th

View from the Balcony of the 29th (note bamboo scaffolding)

Wedding in India

T Minus 3: Welcome to Hong Kong

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