OK, so it's 2 days late, but I've had to deal with the effects of 12 time zones worth of jet lag.

The trip didn't start out too well, as my flight to HK was filled with delays, totaling over 8 hours, with an unexpected stop at Beijing (supposed to be non-stop JFK-HKG) to refuel and add a new crew, as well as a delay in Beijing too.

To add insult to injury, our luggage didn't get there with us, and my mother spent nearly 30 minutes trying to sort that out. By the time all was said and done, it was 4:30am HK time on Monday morning, with my uncle having waited at the airport for what seems to be 10 hours, and he also slept in the arrivals hall for part of the time too!

So my uncle chatted with my mother, grandmother and myself, while some of us were in groggy mode after having been in the plane for nearly 25 hours, and we were in the airport until 7 in the morning to take a bus (which took 2 hours) to his place.

Consequently, nothing much was done either Monday nor Tuesday, which was when our luggage finally arrived, some 30 hours after we arrived. The luggage happened to be back at JFK, having never been placed into that flight in the first place, and apparently with British Airways tags instead of the Cathay Pacific ones in the first place!

Wednesday the 10th was the first day that I did explore the city a little, and catch up on e-mail via an internet cafe at Causeway Bay.

On the next day, me, my mother, my grandmother and my uncle went to the temple at Wong Tai Sin, with myself being a somewhat reluctant participant (long story and a bit too complicated for this post), then we went around Kowloon City.

On the 13th (Saturday), that was when we all went to China, albeit for only the day, and not via the most common path into China from HK. We visited my mother's childhood home in a small rural village near Shenzhen.

Two days after this, me and my uncle went to Macau on yet another day trip via ferry, and we ended up walking around Macau and passed through some of the more important sites there such as the Largo do Senado and the Ruins of St Paul.

On the 18th, me and my uncle explored the Kowloon City Walled Park during a side trip while my mother and grandmother did a shopping trip. He indicated that prior to the park being built, he used to live in one of the makeshift buildings in there, which at the time was technically ruled by China. He (and his wife) did move out of there in 1989 to one of the "new towns" in the east part of Kowloon/NT. He even was able to point which building (and the exact floor/flat) he used to live in on one of the framed pictures showing what the Walled City used to look like. That neighborhood used to be very "slummy," because of the makeshift buildings and all the unsavory stuff going on in the neighborhood. The buildings were demolished in the mid-1990s and the park replaced it back in 1996.

What I did explore by myself included the Noonday Gun (I even got to see it and hear it in action on the 17th, on the third try, as the first two tries that I did get there on the 12th and 14th, I ended up only seeing that covered on a tarp). Mind you, I couldn't find the passage to that on the 10th.

I also ended up going back to the Kowloon City Walled Park on the 19th to take some pictures of them. I did also see the Cross Harbor Tunnel for the first time, as I did manage to find a bus from Kowloon City to Hong Kong Island after walking about for 15 minutes.

I ended up taking the Star Ferry multiple times (at least 3x) and the old trams also at least three times. No air conditioning and old-fashioned, but cheap (HK$2 to HK$2.20) and great sightseeing at the same time!

Now, there was one embarrassing incident involving myself which happened, which will be covered in another thread in another forum here.

As for weather, it was constantly in the 20s Celsius, with humidity almost always over 50% every day I was there.

With weather reports for TVB in the early evening, they have this animated guy that walks out and looks at what tomorrow's weather will be and will base his reaction on it. This has been in existence since at least the early 1980s (I certainly remember it in existence back in 1985, my only other time in HK).

Also, with weather reports, they also report air quality, giving two sets of figures, away from the road and on the road. Unsurprisingly the on the road figures are higher (and worse) than the away from the road figures. Lower numbers indicate better air quality. I didn't recall a single day where the air quality was forecast (or measured) to be lower than 40-45, whereas quite often the reported (or measured) air quality for on the road was 100 or higher.

As for food, I've had my share of noodle soup and dim sum while going out to eat with my family, and various foods when having lunch by myself (sushi, Indonesian and a spaghetti meal). That spaghetti meal was of cuttlefish and sliced seaweed with spaghetti, Japanese style, washed down with blood orange juice.

Here are a few other ironic things that happened...
1. My uncle actually works at the airport, albeit with all sorts of odd hour shifts (even 11:00pm at night to 7:00am in the morning shifts)
2. My mother and grandmother thought they were being summoned by the cops, when it turns out they weren't; it was two people in back of them that were, for crossing the street on a red light!

I should say that smokers will have a hard time in HK... many places are non-smoking, and if caught, one could face a maximum fine of HK$5,000 (that's almost US$650). If one were caught crossing the street on a red light, I heard the potential fine could have been HK$1,500.

Now, at my relative's house, sleeping arrangements were cramped, as it became 7 people sleeping in 2 bedrooms, so my uncle usually slept on the couch, while my aunt (or one of their daughters) slept in a study room, while the other daughter (and the other daughter or the aunt) slept in one of the bedrooms, and with me, my mother and grandmother sleeping in the other bedroom, with me sleeping on a bed on the floor, with my mother and grandmother sleeping on the bunk bed in that bedroom. That sure does make a seriously cramped arrangement!

Even dining arrangements are quite cramped, with 6-7 people at the dinner table which can reasonably fit 4 people.

The day I traveled back home started quite emotionally, as it was my first time seeing my uncle in over 20 years, and it was hard to let go so soon after being away for that long. The flights back home were fairly uneventful, even tho there was a delay at JFK for the flight back to Boston.

We got back home finally in the early evening on Saturday the 20th (Boston time), just in time for a light dinner and a Red Sox game (for me).

I did get a few souvenirs in the forms of money (almost exclusively in HK twenties and hundreds, with a number of Macau bills and coins), as well as a few old Elizabeth era coins.

I do notice that even tho HK$50 notes exist, you'd hardly run into many of these, since ATMs don't give them out and you don't often get them in change.

I only withdrew money once from an ATM, and it turns out, exclusive of the fee, I did get a very good exchange rate from that, and that was the only time I've seen/handled the HK$500 denomination (I never saw, much less handled the HK$1000 denomination, as many, many places will not take these, especially with the fairly recent counterfeit scares; also a number of places exclusive of banks are able to break them).

McDonald's is quite abundant in HK, some of them open 24 hours, but not in malls. Non-food shops open quite late (10am or 11am), but stay open late until 10pm or 11pm. Needless to say, I've never been to a McDonald's at any time during my stay in HK.

As for other public transport, the MTR is fast and very efficient. The minibuses and buses complement them quite well.

The Octopus card gets a very good reception from me, as you can use it in a lot of places (including the Star Ferry and the old tram), eliminating the need for loose change in a lot of cases.

Well, I've talked enough about my trip.

I wanna see pics!!!

"Some kids piss their name in the snow. Chuck Norris can piss his name into concrete."