First few days in HK... Well even before the trip was weird. On the 14 hour flight there, (we flew up to Vancouver BC then took a direct flight to HK) my uncle wanted us to bring back a red suitcase for his wife so we did, and I put my backpack in their to save space. After the first 40min flight to Vancouver and the beginning of the next, I hadn't opened up my suitcase for anything because I was occupied with another magazine I got. When I went to open the suitcase, I found it was locked. It had one of those combination locks with 3 digits. So I'm thinking, my dad better know what the combination is... But unfortunately for me he didn't. So, there I am, sitting for the next 5 hours until I finally get the bloody right combination and I'm saved from boredom. (I watched a movie in between lock picking times so no, I am not that bored to try different lock combinations for 5 hours... @_@;) On the flight they played 3 movies Sweet Home Alabama (total chick flick), 9 Girls and a Ghost (teeny bopper flick, not bad =P) and another one that I can't think of now... But those dont matter cuz this is about HK. So in HK we stay at the Marco Polo Hong Kong Hotel located in Tsim Tsai Tsui on the Kowloon Penninsula. (like most of you actually know where that is anyway...) Nice hotel, but were going through lotsa renovations when we went. Next to it was a fairly large mall called Harbor City Mall or something. Lots of stores. One thing I like about HK is that a few big brands will never dominate the entire clothing industry. See here, everyone buys from Gap, Abercrombie, or where ever so we all look almost the same. In HK, everyone is trendy and has a different fashion statement which is cool. They all dress pretty nice too. For the first few days, we spent a lot of time trying to decide whether or not to go on our trip to Shanghai because we had heard about this disease already and that it originated from China. So after my parents made a few calls and trips to the travel agency, canceling, then re-scheduling the tour trip, we decided to go. n the meantime, I got to go to a few different places such as Central, on HK island, Mei Foo, where my grandma lives, Mongkwok, for only a little while, Kowloon Tong, has another shopping center, and Lam Tien (lol the most random place) to visit my grandpa's grave. For the most part my parents made me stay in the less crowded and trashy places so not much of Mongkwok and none of Wan Chai for me... =*** Which means that everywhere else I went was a little bit more expensive than what you expect to pay for clothing. Fast food restaurants are much better in HK too. Waayyyy cheaper and the food is better. No greasy, fatty, grilled burgers for me anymore. It's all about the oily, saucy, yummy chinese food in styrophone bowls for me. Using the "chinese spoon" for noodles and such. Hrmm... I loved how I was taller than practically everyone there... hehehe Typically I would walk into the MTR (cool subway that is a must ride in HK) and be a head taller than everyone else looking across the train. That's enuf about HK for now, I'll touch on it again later...
Shanghai... a lot different from HK actually. 3 hour plane trip, with some people wearing masks actually. Our tour guide, unfortunately wasn't a hot young girl and neither were any of the rest of people in the tour group, so I was pretty much sad. Shanghai is really really populated with bicycles everywhere. I remember when Roberta told me she had gone and there were lots of bicycles everywhere, that's not an exaggeration... People riding everywhere and leaving their bicycles w/o locking them on the sidewalk. I could have taken one, but I was afraid of contracting the disease =P Girls in Shanghai are pretty in general. Saw quite a few good looking ones. I got to practice my mandarin too =P Food is pretty damn good too. Less seafood, but the rest of the dishes make up for that. The Shanghai City Restuarant was a very nice establishment, but I couldn't imagine how much the dinner we had was how much. (paying for the tour pays for everything) I got to see old Shanghai and new Shanghai across the harbor from each other which was cool. Yup, we mostly did sight seeing so there isn't too much... OH WAIT, at one place where I went, this dock type area that's like the peer except w/o the stores, at night we had walked by and saw some people filming a movie!! It was a bit far so I couldn't tell who the actors/actresses were. They were filming this guy ride up to this girl on a bicycle at night and then just talking to her. The background is new Shanghai and the big 3 ball tower should be in the back too. So if anyone catches that in a movie... You heard it hear first! Ok moving on...
Su Zhou, There's a saying in girl that there are a lot of attractive girls here... COMPLETELY MADE UP. I dunno who the hell said that but it wasn't true at all... I mean I don't think I saw one. Well, when we visited this silk factory, they had a fashion show with 8 models. I would say more than half were pretty good. But that's crazy that someone would think that about this place. Supposedly according to the person at the silk factory, they lost some models because they married away to people or went to America... whatever. Food once again is not bad. It's a good idea to choose fairly big and expensive looking restaurants in this area. Because you never know about those small places how clean they are. You're better off in a nice place, than some random small joint that may have taken the next restaurants left overs and recooked it for you... sorry for the exaggeration. Yup... We saw a lot of parks and such and all were very pretty. Sight seeing is very good in China.
Last destination on our tour was HangZhou. There were actually a lot more pretty girls here... (crazy jason chan only pays attention to girls... =P) Initally before she got on the bus, I thought, finally, they found a fairly attractive chick to be our specialist tour guide. But she turned out just as bad as the rest. She had a hoarse voice too. Enough of that, to wrap it up, I saw a lot of great sights, parks, monuments and that such through this tour. I think it may have been that they changed the plan because people were afraid of going to places too crowded with that disease going on. In the end, I would say that Shanghai is probably to only place you should go, unless you're a really culturally strong Chinese that likes sight seeing. Shanghai is developing like crazy, so I would probably wait a few years to go back. My 2 cents on China.
Back in HK for round two. News report:: by now, the disease is taken much more seriously and 7 schools have closed temporarily becuase students and facaulty have been diagnosed with teh SARS disease. It killed another person in the area bringing the count to 10. Masks are seen almost everywhere now, although the majority of people still do not wear them. The only notable thing I did this second time, was go to a big shopping center called Sogo. They sell all different kinds of clothes there. The Japanese need to make one of those here... It was in Tsuen Wan or "Tong Luo Wan" for you cantonese speakers. Another interesting note, on the night I returned, I saw 2 Ferraris, a Lamborghini Diablo (much better looking in real life than in pictures), and like 10 porches. No idea what was happening, but lotsa nice cars... One thing that distressed me though, I saw 2 skylines when I first came, too slow to take out my camera both times. Then I randomly see one on this day and my camera is out of batteries... Just bad luck... Wow, that was long. Maybe, we can get a group of people next time to go to HK b/c its really a great vacation spot. Good fun, I think I'll leave it at that cuz I'm tired of writing this too... Probably more stuff but I'm just tired now. Later.
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