Four Days In HK...And Into A Long, Anticipated Vacation

It has finally come to this.

I've been planning this two-month summer vacation to kick off my final summer before work starts. I'll spend the first few days in HK to submit my application for my ID card. While that is being processed, I'll spend a month in Japan. After that, the application should be processed, and I'll spend the rest of the time in HK getting the ID card done and finally for some well-earned dicking around. It took me months to put together the application (with my parents producing the necessary documents), get the tickets, save up the funds, and to arrange the accommodations in Tokyo.

I was surprised that I had no trouble sleeping the night before, given the level of excitement that had been culminating over those past months. I woke up as usual, and my uncle came and picked me up to go. We had some classy Shanghai food in Richmond, and before I knew it, I'm past all those post-9/11 security checks and am sitting down at the waiting area in front of the gate.

I wanted to use my laptop and kill time on the internets, but the shitty battery doesn't even have enough lifespan to boot the damn thing. So it was back to the Stone Age and entertaining myself with less technologically advanced means - Mad and Maxim magazine. To give some sort of indication that I have at least a trace degree of sophistication to the other passengers, I bough Popular Science and Time magazine as well. I considered buying some of the "top-rack" magazines, but finally decided to hang on to my porn budget until I reach overseas, so I can collect them for...uh...cultural studies. Besides, the above mags were more than enough to kill the hour before boarding.

Just as I was about to unwrap and savour Maxim's annual 100 Hottest Girls edition, the announcement came for my ticket group to board the plane. Now my usual luck when it comes to co-passengers is that I end up with a guy who won't take a bath, stop eating, and/or shut up. But this time, not only was there no one beside me, but I also got the frontmost row in the plebian section. That way I don't have to deal with some asshole who suddenly tilts his/her seat all the way back while I'm eating or reading, thereby winding me in the gut with my book/dinner.

Unfortunately, like most things, this was too good to be true. I was awakened from my state of bliss by the stewardess, who introduced me to a gentleman whose in-seat video console wasn't working. This guy's arms were so God-mocked hairy that although his arms were courteously taking up only half the armrest, his arm hairs took up the other half. If his arm ever hogged the entire armrest, I would have no escape from his hair. I thought maybe I'll amuse myself during the long flight by shaving an "Asian tattoo" into his arms, or to shave them completely and make little Chia pets with his hairs while he's asleep. Hirsute limbs aside, the guy was well-behaved and practiced decent personal hygiene, so my grievances shall end here.

Same couldn't be said about this little shit a few rows behind me that wailed his/her way all the way across the Pacific. As I said before, a crying baby is to be expected on an airplane, but one who has the stamina to bawl for almost 13 hours must surely be the illegitimate spawn of Satan. One or these days, I've got to patent a soundproof, fully-breatheable (or maybe not...I'm tempted...) "Baby Hood™". Hell, I don't care if anyone steals my idea - someone's got to do us all a freakin' service. And while you're at it, make a "Pet Hood™" and a "Chinese Mother-If-You're-Still-Single-At-30-Years-Old Hood™" too.

The long trans-continental ordeal concluded, I made my way through Hong Kong International Airport. Even after almost five years, I still managed to find my way through the place to the rapid train that will take me from the airport to Central Hong Kong. The cool part about arriving during the nighttime is that most of the sights are still shrouded in darkness, so when the morning comes, you are greeted with a surprise when the place is laid out in the open, and you try to retrace where you passed the previous night.

I finally arrived at my aunt's place where I'll be staying for the next few days before leaving for Japan. It is a complex of six really tall 72-story apartment buildings. Well, not exactly 72 stories, since Chinese people are so superstitious that they skip over every number with a 4 in it (except all the numbers in the 40's besides 44, since skipping nine levels would be going too far), because the number is almost homonymous with the Chinese word for "death". Yeah, and you thought apartment buildings in every Western country are being silly for not having a 13th floor. I never bothered to understand Chinese or any other phoenetically-based superstitions. If words are a human contrivance, and that the phoenetics of words can directly influence the causality of events in the world, does that mean that humans, through their verbal pronunciation, can directly control everything that happens around them? Hell, no! To believe in such nonsense would really be an act of hubris on the part of humanity.

Enough digression, back to the apartment complex. There are many families from Japan and Korea, probably because the dads have been stationed here in HK for work. Regardless of nationality, most of the families I saw in the common area are follwed by a Filipino domestic servant carrying their luggage or kids. Here in HK, many Filipinos may take up jobs here as servants, but on Sundays when they all get the day off, Filipinos rule Central HK, camping out all over the streets to lounge off the day by eating, listening to music, and playing cards.

My aunt's apartment is really small, and the room in which I will be staying even smaller. It's almost as small as a walk-in closet. Nevertheless, this is a very nice apartment for HK. There is a bunk where my cousins used to sleep, but they have long since moved to Toronto.

After a long day of travel (and mentally accumulated ranting, as you may have noticed), I passed out like a log.