The Beginning:
Last Sunday I was naughty and skipped church. Rather than heading to church, I headed to the airport. There were 6 of us going on this trip: Cindy and her daughter Rachel, Crystal, and the other Kristal, Raquel, and me. Crystal got their first and was well ahead of us in the check in line and had breezed on through with her full-on Chinese visa in hand. The rest of us were together and planned to use the 144 hour free visa, because $250 for a visa I would probably only use once is a bit steep! Plus, I did the 144 Hour Visa just fine in Shanghai with the girls.
Alas, it was not to be so this time. When the 5 of us got to the counter, we were informed that because our flight had a layover in Hong Kong, we could not use the 144 our visa. The Japanese lady was super sweet and tried so hard to be helpful, and she spent the two hours before our flight answering all our questions: No we could not use the free visa because the layover made it a "round trip" from HK to Beijing to HK. No we could not get a visa in time. Yes, we had to have other the visa or a ticket to a third destination to be allowed to board the flight. No, she could not book us anything useful. No we could not use the rest of our ticket if we just used the Okinawa to HK leg, we forfeited the rest of the ticket if we "missed" any of the flights. Yes she could re-book the tickets, but ONLY for the exact same destinations.
It was excruciating and we were on a time schedule!! If we had had more time, we might have found a better solution. As it was, Crystal went ahead and did the Beijing trip without us. Raquel cut her losses and went home. The rest of us rebooked for the 4pm flight instead of the original 11am flight and just got off in Hong Kong, thus voiding the rest of our flight itinerary and necessitating the purchase of one-way tickets home.... which is a real pain in the rear to buy tickets less than a week out!! Dan saved the day for me by using his frequent flier miles and finding me a decent flight home Saturday, but the other ladies had to decide how much they were willing to pay for convenience and ended up dropping about $350 for cummy flights that put them in Seoul for a night. I felt pretty guilty abandoning them to their fate, but also incredibly grateful I was not sharing it.
The next issue was that we had (Non-Refundable!) hotel reservations in Beijing, but not in Hong Kong for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights. I hopped on Hotels.com and looked up cheap rooms. I checked the reviews on some guest houses and we picked one called the Peace Guest House. It looked like a private hostel room and had positive reviews. Plus at $30 a night it was within our price range.
The Middle:
We made it to Hong Kong and worked our way to the Guest House, which turned out to be a lot less like the review descriptions!! It was in "Chung King Manor" which looked a bit like an indoor market with shops and food vendors and about 20 men all standing in the front asking if you need a room. Poor Kristal was sure she was being propositioned. We just said no, we have rooms, and pushed on though. We had to walk through this building to the elevator in the back, figure out where the "Peace Guest House" was, and ride the elevator up to the 5th floor. When we knocked on the appropriate door, we were informed from an unseen voice the next door over, that the place had moved to the 7th floor. The 4 of us were getting a little nervous, but proceeded to the 7th floor. There was indeed a door with the name of our place on it but no one wanted to answer. We rang the bell. We knocked. We dialed the number written on the info sheet. Nothing. Now we really were nervous! We waited and debated, but aside from going back to the costing men downstairs and hoping their room offers truly were legitimate room-only offers, we weren't sure what to do. Finally a man came bustling in to assist. We ended up in rooms on the 13th floor. You had to use your key card to open the room leading to the rooms, and a regular key to open your door. The rooms themselves were tiny. Which was expected, but reading about it was entirely different from actually seeing it! The room was the width of the bed and then the bathroom took up half the rest of the space. And the bathroom was tiny, water heater was on the wall and the shower sprayed the toilet. So you could straddle the toilet while showering, or you could be ambitions and poop, brush your teeth, and shower all at the same time. I was not ambitious.
We settled in and were tired enough that we slept, despite the scary situation. I had the best luck with the shower in the morning, managing to make my hot water last my entire shower (keep at lowest pressure and temp I could handle, turn off while washing hair). We met up to compare fear levels and nights and then headed out into the world.
We bought "Big Bus" passes so we could ride the big tour bus around the city for two days and hop on and off at it's stops. It was a lot of fun!! We rode one of the routes all the way through and then took the ferry across to the other side of the river, where we got on a different line. We accidentally got off a stop earlier than intended, so we got brave and figured out how to use the real city bus to get to our desired destination, which was Stanley Market. We were quite pleased with ourselves and had a marvelous time throwing money around the market and buying everything. We were having so much fun we didn't want to stop for the last Big Bus home. So we finished our shopping in a leisurely fashion and then meandered down to the beach because were a little bit lost. We found an area where all the busses collected and bravely took the city bus back into town. We rode on the top of the double decker bus and got the E Ticket ride! It was so fun! We were careening down the mountain on a little two way road and it was a bit hair raising.
Cindy's friend had recommended a fabulous Indian place to eat dinner and it was just a block or two from our hotel, so we went there for dinner. Her friend had said the food was "Damn Delicious" and she was absolutely correct! It was vegetarian and I ate stuff I didn't even know what it was but everything was amazing and yummy.
But the day was not done yet! Cindy wanted to go to the night market. So we headed out about 9pm to go there. More fun and spending were had and we stayed there till they started closing down at 11. After all that walking, the other ladies thought a foot massage would be appropriate. What? At 11:15 at night?! Yep. So off we went to one of the many places advertising massages. I got my first foot massage and did not really enjoy it. It was painful. But my feet did feel better at the end of the 45 minute torture-fest. We did not get back to the sketchy guest house till 1am. I was pooped!
Tuesday we got back on the Big Bus and rode it around some more. I quite liked the historical tidbits they there out for you. It was really interesting. We took the bus back to the Stanley Market, since there were a few items that had required ruminating over before the decision was made that yes, those were needed. So we shopped some more and ate the most divine Chinese food at a restaurant there. It was good stuff!
We hopped back on the Big Bus and took it to the river, where we took a "Sampan" ride. Apparently a sampan is a little boat. It was a short, fun trip around the water and we got to see some pretty cool boats and stuff. We took the Big Bus back into town. I am glad we did the Big Bus tour.
We had some time and the girls wanted to go back to the Ladies Market. So we did. I like the market! And we found just about all the stuff we were wanting to buy. We were back in the hotel by 8pm and I headed out to meet my friend April at the Metro. She was flying in and had planned to just sleep at the airport, but I got her a $30 room next to me and went to pick her up. She was as impressed with our lodgings as I was.
Wednesday morning we were up early to pack and be on our way to change hotels. We wanted to get to the new hotel and leave our bags there so we could go play all day at Disney. Rachel was sick though and it was sad. She puked most of the day and it was an unpleasant ordeal for her to have to travel the metro for 45 minutes to our new locale. We made it to our Holiday Inn Express about 10am and they were amazing and let us actually check in and have rooms! At 10am! I was so glad for Rachel's sake that she could relax in a room while she was sick. April, Kristal and I abandoned Cindy and Rachel and headed to DisneyLand. We met up with Lynnette, who had just flown in from Yokosuka. The 4 of us had a marvelous day! April had purchased the Disney tickets and had gotten some deal that included a bunch of perks and 2 meals, so we enjoyed those. We rode all the rides and really enjoyed everything there. It was a really fun day! We watched the night parade and it was pretty cool. We stayed till the park closed and kicked us out. We enjoyed a lovely night in the big, clean, safe Holiday Inn Express.
Thursday we had to be up and showered (and I was sharing this room with April and Lynnette!), and enjoying our free breakfast before 8, so we could head to the Temple. It was an ugly rainy day, which was unpleasant to hike around in. We took the wrong exit from the metro and ended up making it to the Temple at 8:55am. They held the session for us and it was kind of awesome that women took over both sides and there was only one man there (and he was a Temple worker!). After the Temple, we dashed across the street in the rain to the Mission Office and distribution center. The distribution center didn't officially open till 12:30, but he came out and opened it for us. Unfortunately it was small, and mostly in Chinese. And they did not carry any garment sizes I needed. But it was still fun to go.
We shopped for lunch at the grocery store in the big mall by the metro and then headed back to the hotel to change. I was super proud of myself then. We figured out which bus to take us to Stanley Market, since April and Lynnette had not been and both were coveting the glorious coat that Kristal had found there. We successfully found the bus and took it to the Market and had a delightful time shopping there. Both of them bought two of the glorious coats at a great price. We took our loot home and made it to the beginning of Conference in time to help with the last 30 minutes of the Service Project. The Devotional portion began at 7pm and was suppose to end at 8:30. Lynnette really wanted to go to the Ladies Market afterwards, but the keynote speaker was a bit long winded and we didn't leave till almost 9. And we were tired. So we opted to enjoy dinner at the Outback Steakhouse! We stayed till they closed down at 11.
Friday we had to be up and showered and breakfasted and at Conference by 9. This staying up till midnight and getting up early was killing me! I think I averaged 5-6 hours of sleep a night. But we made it to the Conference and it was fabulous. All the speakers were great and I took lots of notes and felt inspired. The presentations ended at 2:30 and there were pictures scheduled. But we were naughty and ran away. I didn't feel the need to be immortalized and Lynnette hates having her picture done, so we bailed a bit early and ran off to be adventurous. We hustled to the hotel and changed and then plotted how to get to the 10,000 Buddha's Monastery. We successfully navigated our way where we wanted to be and felt very brave. We walked for eternity up a steep mountain, admiring the 10,000 gold statues on the way. It was awesome because all the statues were different- and the poses were great.
After that we meandered into the giant store near it, in search of clean bathrooms. We discovered there was an Ikea in there and perused it. We also enjoyed dinner there. Then it was off to the Ladies Market. It was very crowded that night and the sellers were less inclined to negotiate. So there were fewer deals to be had. We still had fun and spent money. We got home and then had to pack up all our stuff.
The End
Saturday morning we were packed and at Conference by 8:30. We just brought our suitcases along and stored them in a room there. April could only stay till 10 and I had to run off at 11, but we still got to hear wonderful things. I had to run away directly after the second presenter and before the Conference ended. I met a lady traveling alone in the luggage room who also was running off for an early flight home, and I showed her how to get to the Metro and to the airport and made a new friend. I made it on time to my gate and the flight went well. I had a layover in Taipai and the airport was frustrating because you had to walk in a giant U Turn to go through security and then to your gate. I was stressed about being on time, but the flight ended up being delayed 30 minutes anyway so it was all good. I landed in Okinawa about 7:45 and Dan picked me up and I was home! I was so glad to be home! I was kind of over Hong Kong and the endless teaming masses of humanity that were always out.
What I forgot to mention:
We met a gal at the Conference who was living in Hong Kong. We were getting to know each other during lunch and talked about our exciting adventures. She looked at us and asked, "You stayed in the Chung King Manor?"
We said, yes, we had That's where our guest house was.
She said, "Oh. My husband says there are only a few dangerous places in Hong Kong and that is one of them."
Gulp!
