I almost passed out today.

I almost passed out today.

It was hot and we went riding bikes all over the place. I wish I could upload some photos. Here is a poem that was written by a famous Chinese poet about the area I'm in:

The river is like a blue ribbon, winding through the
mountains like jade hairpins.

I think there is something lost in translation. but it is nice out here.

A lot happened since I posted last, and I dunno if I am going to get through it. but we will try in this hot ass internet cafe I'm in.

Hong Kong.

We took the tram up Victoria Peak, and at the top? a mall. Chinese people love to buy things. also, in hong kong they like to make these malls where you cant find your way out. so we were in there for a good 20 min before we found the way out. from there, dad suggested that we hike up higher. we spent the next 30 min walking up this hill, where there are all sorts of rich people houses until we got to the gate of the weather station. that was nice, we were way above the top of the tram and there was no one there. It was possible to see the south side of HK island, and it was nice.

The thing about traveling with my dad, or, a thing about my dad is that he loves talking to the experts. He loves taking tours and tour guides and all that. so he reads about this tour called Hong Kong, the land between. which is a tour of the northern part of the SAR where there is not really any people. I mean there are villages and stuff like that, but its not developed. we soon realized that our tour guide was using the tour to talk his populist agenda. He hated speaking the actual text that the HK tourism board made him say. for instance, at this one lookout point, he made a point of saying, "here is what I am supposed to say," which had something to do with how the view was impinged by the fog and clouds, and not by pollution. By the end, he had taken us to this fish farming village, where the whole village is floating out on this bay, and had some nice strong words for the new three phase, multimillion dollar housing project going up on the hill overlooking the little village. It turns out that they are taking the fishing village out, so they can put a marina for super yachts in that place.

From there, I thought it was only right to go on a shopping trip. the places that I had gone looking for the day before, I had done some research and found the little street where they were, I dragged my sis and dad out to patterson st. in Causeway Bay, and found some crazy shops. There are some hipster ass shit out there, but when I asked if any of it was Chinese, the answer was always, "no." its all Japanese, American and European.

One cool thing about the subways in HK, is that they are all open air somehow, and the train is continous from one end to the other. So instead of having A/C they just have this cool breeze blowing through the whole thing. This also means that the stations are not blazing hot and nasty like the NYCT.

After looking at some super expensive T shirts, Yaya and I decided that we wanted to go see if we could find some good ass bootleg shit. People were walking around all over with those fresh Polo shirts with the giant logos, but there were all sorts of fake versions. we went to the night market in Kowloon and never really found what we were looking for. But in anycase, the night market in Kowloon is like Canal St, but 10 huge alley ways of it.

The next morning we took the communter train to GuangZhou, which came into the smaller East train station. We took the subway back to the Bigger one, and it was really the first taste of how crazy China is. Unless you have been here, you have no idea about the scale they are working on. Its bigger, dirtier, more people, more people on top of those people, louder, and pushier then anything I have ever seen in the west. If you have ever experienced Chinese people pushing their way on to the D train, the B train, whatever, and think that they are rude, try doing that with a whole overnight train.

We took the night train out to Gui Lin, which is a big tourist town. we were in the six bunk section which has little sections of two sets of bunks which are stacked three high. apparently there is a section like european trains where there is four and a door to the compartment, but this was not that. Space was at a premium. Little seats were by the window on the aisle side, and if you were on a top bunk, that's about all you got. People walking around selling food, newspapers, beer, and to top it off, the whole time, state TV is playing. which was centered around the olympics. its pretty much all they are talking about right now. This program was about how to understand Greco-Roman wrestling.

In a tourist town, there are always people trying to sell you shit. trying to get over on you. Its a good thing my sis talks good enough Chinese. While we were at the hostel, waiting for a room to open, we went to buy some icecream next door. From these people, we learned that the hostel was overcharging by a grip and they had a hotel next door which they could rent to us for about a third. It was straight out of the Commie era. It had huge rooms, and a red carpet, a little dingy, but lots of space. It was way better then staying with all the stinky european backpackers.

That was a couple days ago, but now I have to go.
China is great. I have not gotten a bad stomach, I eating everything, and people are very nice. With the three of us, its possible to fly under the tourist radar just enough so we are not mobbed. In every place we go, there are stalls and shops to buy things, and the noodles are good.

Hope all is well where ever you are.
K.

Kowlooooon

You can see by the time stamp that it is 5:34. the problem is that it is opposite, and my stomach is pining for that snack it usually gets before I ride home from work.

I'm here in HK, but really Kowloon, its on the mainland, and used to be the seedier side of Hong Kong, but these days its a lot harder to find the seedier side in the city limits itself.

Unlike my experience with BA last summer, the flight from JFK-NAR, left on time, with my baggage. I got to sit upstairs, which, 2 hours in, I was wishing was a bar instead. I think one of the hardest parts of long flights is the lack of communication and talking with anyone. I spent hour 6 talking to a couple young people who had sneaked up stairs.

At NAR I went to the new gate, watched sumo in HD on a beautiful 50inch Panasonic. This is not the sumo of the 70s. while the sport is probably exactly the same, watching each match on slow motion reply in High Definition was pretty amazing. every salt crystal, every fat ripple, every skin condition, every butt zit, HD.

From there, another 474 to HK, and pretty standard. One thing I noticed, the boarding times are a lot faster, somehow those little Japanese hands can board everyone a lot faster.

Movies watched:
21, *** (interesting story about MIT kids counting cards in Vegas)
Street Kings, ***.5 (Keanu in a wannabe Training Day)
weird JTV show about local oddities in Japanese prefectures,***( never really understood what was going on.
1998 Masters tournament where Tiger lost, **

Dad and Yaya were there to pick me up, yaya was having a ball watching people come through customs on these two huge jumbotrons that were setup so people could see when their people were coming out. If I had only known they were there, I would have done a little dance, or something just to entertain all those people who had been there all that time.

we took the train, had a hell of a time trying to get out of the Kowloon station, and then walked to the boarding house. The boarding house is amazing, its straight out of In the Mood for Love, but unlike the movie, its full of Indians, Pakistanis, white students, Arabs, and Africans. The bathroom is like my and Luis' in CPH, no shower stall in the bathroom, and a triple occupancy is a twin bed on one side, and a double on the other.

We went out to get some noodles, a beer and I think the whole thing was 3 dollars.
we went to sleep around 2:30 pm and I am up already, tired, but I think I am going to go out and take some pics.

Kowloon is amazing, its grimy, all the lights are fluorescent, all the AC units, of which there are thousands, drip on to the sidewalk, and I love it.

Its getting light out, I'm going out to take pics.

K.