From Hong Kong

After a very uncomfortable early-morning standing room-only train ride to Narita and an incredibly delayed flight, most of which was spent playing so much Super Mario Brothers on my personal video screen that my thumbs hurt, I arrived yesterday in Hong Kong sticky, tired, and with a horrible headache. I was also battling a cold, and the dry air on the plane had done nothing to help that. And to top it off, I had trouble with the computer (office computer) I brought and couldn't get any homepages to display correctly...

But what a difference 24 hours can make!! While the computer still isn't working correctly, my mood has improved considerably. Hong Kong is noisy, gritty, polluted, unsanitary, and full of life - I love it!! I've only seen a very small portion of the city, but it's so diverse, energetic, and vibrant!

If I only didn't have any meetings so I could take more time to explore...*sigh* I definitely haven't really seen many sights yet, but I have been doing my fair share of eating! Last night after we arrived my colleagues and I walked around the neighborhood surrounding the hotel in search of food. After walking through an extremely seedy area populated by women in short skirts and garters grabbing the arms of men walking by, we finally found a restaurant that looked fairly standard. The menu, though, was all in Chinese, which even my Japanese colleagues had trouble deciphering. But with the help of an extremely friendly waitress (whose English was limited to say the least) we wound up having a feast of vegetables, seafood, and Peking duck.

Today was mainly meetings, and for lunch my colleague said he would take us to one of his favorite restaurants in Hong Kong. Unfortunately the restaurant was no longer in business, so in the interest of time (we had only about 30 minutes until our next meeting) we went into the next restaurant we could find and ordered some noodles and vegetables. It was good, but we had to eat so quickly I didn't really have time to enjoy the food.

Then tonight I met up with a friend I used to work with who recently moved to Shenzhen, China (very close to Hong Kong). She said she wanted to take me to a famous restaurant that she saw in a magazine, and I gladly followed. As we approached the restaurant, I suddenly recognized my surroundings and thought, "This is close to where we had lunch..." We then turned a corner and my friend said, "Oh, there it is, over there!" pointing to the VERY SAME restaurant where I had eaten lunch!!! What a small world! Of all the restaurants in Hong Kong, it was the same one!

The second time around was soooooo much better! I had time to enjoy the food, which was all fabulous. We had roasted goose, sauteed vegetables, seafood soup, and black sesame soup and egg tarts for dessert. Of course, the conversation, laughter, and the feeling of excitement at meeting up with a familiar friend in a foreign place made for a great evening.

I'm afraid, however, all of my photos from Hong Kong will be of food. :-)