Hong Kong part one and Two birds with one stone

Lets shake the dust off folks, im back. Its almost been a month i know and most of that can be attributed to the fact that i want to eat after my 45 minute commute from work, and half of those days thats around 10. ugh. but, lets get to the meat of this right now... drum roll.....

Hong Kong.
Wow. what a city. mix the most up to date technology with a culture that is very asian and traditional. there were 60 story skyscrapewrs right next to 10 story sliver apartments with loads upon loads of laundry hanging out the windows. Posh shopping for gucci and bulgari right down the street from the peddler selling dried lizard skins, quarter chunks of swine, and live chickens. awesome. hang on...

Day one... Kiyoe and I arrived at about 330 in the afternoon on tuesday after a 5 hour flight on my second ever 747. WooHoo! the mountain backdrop to the airport is something ive only dreamed of, lush jungle with literally dozens of skyrise apartments dotting the mountain sides. It was foggy. we took a bus into kowloon and under the bay to hong kong island. I beleive that you can look this up as fact, but take my word for it, HK has one of the largest concentrations of skyscrapers in the world as well as THE HIGHEST concentration of people in the world (some places have over 10,000 per square kilometer). The buildings are towering. huge, and beautiful. not square boring buildings like you see in texas. these had amazing angles, elevator shafts on the edges of the buildings that lit up, lights evrywhere, and overall great design. (of course most of the buildings older than 20 years old are very rectangular and look old, i mean really old)

the hotel was fine for our needs (the City Garden view if anyone cares), so we threw our stuff down and went out on the town. My first view of the streets was almost as i had envisioned, neon signs, people, dirt, people, old cars, people and people. We first saw a market, with live chickens to be killed when the next customer requests, huge slabs of beef ribs (think rocky) and meat products that have yet to be identified (my photos have been sent off for analysis). We then decided to go to the harbor pier to 'enjoy' the night harbor cruise. if you ever go to hong kong do this, it was beautiful. At 8 everynight the city puts on a firework show from the tops of the buildings. amazing. i have photos that will be posted in the next week. think tall bright lit up buildings with fireballs shooting out of the top.

After the cruise we ventured to the main night spot in the city, Lan Kwai Fong. we were lucky enough to find a cheap chinese place that was Totemo oishii kata desu! For about 25 dollars we ate more food than i had eaten in the past five months. think about how u feel after a meal at 'on the border'. and we threw some away!

we strolled the area, had a few drinks then cashed in the chips for the night.

next day... we woke up early (still full from the night before so we skipped breakfast) and traveled to kowloon. we went to the womens market, which was closed until 5, so we went to a gyoza place. gyoza are the chinese dumplings in the states. ugh. the food was so good. again, very cheap. then we went across the street to a temple. temples in china are different from those in japan. they are more into banging gongs, decorating with bright colors and lighting incense. as we walked in we noticed huge two feet long lanterns hanging from the ceiling, again in bright pinks and yellows. there were huge statues of some gods which kiyoe doesnt believe to be budha. as we walked further it became apparent that photos were not allowed and so i couldnt get a good shot. o yeah, then we noticed the sign on the wall that said 'beware of falling ash' What? what ash? the bright lanterns were actually huge 10 day burning incense coils and the ash from them was falling randomly onto people. hmmm. dangerous. That was the most dangerous part of the trip. but it smelled great!

End of part one Hong Kong... stay tuned for the next post which will include: Best of both worlds, 'we are not eating here!', 'I thought that this was supposed to feel gOoD OOOWWWHHWW!!!!', man with the golden gun, and 'cheap for YOU!'

until then one more story...

My new roommate ben is really cool. we both complain about the filth in our apartment and look forward to cleaning soon, but until then we still have a huge double mattress in our living room, a remaining piece of the bed from an old tennant which we dont use. 'why dont you throw it out?' good question. Japan charges poepl tyo throw things out, and this lovely piece of crap would cost about 25 bucks to dispose of. as a matter of principle i will not pay to dispose of other poeples crap. (but i will take out the trash all the time for the current one). so i took out steves trash last nite and what was on the corner? A huge mattress and dresser.... with stamps affixed and ready for legal disposal. i got an idea. i ran back inside and knocked on bens door. 'Ben, if we take the perfectly good dresser, remove the stamps, and stick them to the mattress... we can.. "LETS DO IT!" i didnt get a chance to finish, he was onboard. So now we have a large wooden dresser as a welcoming gift for the new guy that comes in wednesday, as well a lot more free space in the living room. thanks ben for being on the same page. operation mattress removal complete!
p.s. the charge to remove a dresser is 1500 yen, and a mattress 2500. do the math. whoops. hey, its bettre than just throwing it in the river, which was also suggested.

thats it for now folks, i hope you enjoyed, and ill get back to fininsh HK in a few days.

Scotto san