Hong Kong

As you may have noticed, Thanksgiving was last week. While most of my family was together, stuffing their faces with turkey, I was in Hong Kong. Of course. Because why wouldn’t you spend Thanksgiving in Hong Kong?

Actually, spending my holiday there wasn’t exactly my idea. But there happened to be an international teaching conference held there that my school’s entire staff planned to attend (I say “planned” because in the end, not everyone was able to go, but we did have a good representation of 24 teachers who went).

Though the main purpose of the trip was the conference and we spent nearly every waking hour there, I was able to see a little bit of Hong Kong (it was my first time) while at the same time finding myself extremely disappointed with the culinary choices of my co-workers.

We left our town at 3 AM on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and by the time we checked in to our hotel in Hong Kong, it was about 7 PM. We were all exhausted. There happened to be a McDonalds located right next door to our hotel, so several of my colleagues chose to eat there. The more adventurous among us decided to walk a little farther for food. By “a little further”, I mean we walked nearly a mile. In the cold (because it was WINTER in Hong Kong!) and we got turned around a couple times in the dark. We eventually ended up at an Italian restaurant. Not what I had hoped to eat on my first night in Hong Kong (I really wanted dim sum), but it was decent food nonetheless, and after we walked all the way back to our hotel, we were able to collapse into bed, even MORE exhausted, but with full bellies.

(The view from the hotel room I shared with my co-worker and neighbor, Tiffany.)

The next morning, we were up bright an early for our 7 AM breakfast at the conference venue, an international school located about 4 blocks from our hotel. Again, we walked because we like to be healthy people. Or at least I assume that’s the reason.

Let me interject here that I have a love/hate relationship with teaching conferences. I love getting together with like-minded people serving in similar situations to the one I find myself in. These teachers GET me. I sit and listen to them talk, and it’s like hearing my very own thoughts coming out of someone else’s mouth. I learn SO. MUCH. STUFF. And I enjoy learning. My mind gets stretched and my practices get challenged. But the introvert in me dies a little. Because day in and day out, I’m surrounded by 900+ people that I’m expected to interact pleasantly with. That’s not easy for me to do for five days straight. I mean, I realize that I’m a teacher and that interacting well with people is basically part of my job description. But the people I interact with at school are MY people, and at the end of each work day, I at least get to go home and be alone. This does not happen at conferences. And then I spend 8 hours a day absorbing so much good information that I feel like my brain can hardly keep up and I don’t even know where to start with processing everything I’m taking in. The time is so beneficial, but it is also so very overwhelming in so many ways.

Thursday was the first day of the conference, and it was also Thanksgiving day. The night before, when we drove to our hotel, some of us spotted an Ikea not too far away. So after the conference, I wanted to go out for dim sum, but everyone else wanted to go to Ikea. I wasn’t brave enough to venture out alone with no cell phone service, so I went with the crowd. We figured out how to navigate the MTR (train), then got lost in a mall, then finally found Ikea. People were hungry, so we also ended up eating dinner there.

(My Thanksgiving dinner, courtesy of the Ikea cafeteria.)

Now that I knew how to navigate the city a little bit, I ditched my co-workers (who spent 3+ hours in Ikea) and headed back to the hotel lobby (where I had Wi-Fi) to FaceTime my family on their Thanksgiving morning.

(Thanksgiving family photo!)

The next day was jam packed with more conference stuff, and that evening, I wanted dim sum for dinner. We got connected with Josh, an American teaching in our neighboring country of Malaysia, and also with Shinta, the friend of a friend, an Indonesian girl originally from Central Java who has spent the past several years living and working in Hong Kong. So all the single teachers from my school (the whopping four of us) along with our new friend from the school in Malaysia ventured into the heart of the city to meet Shinta for dinner at a place she had made reservations at. We took the bus this time. The double decker bus. And of course we sat on top. It took us an hour to get downtown, but once we did, we met up with Shinta who took us to the restaurant. It wasn’t dim sum, but I was just excited to FINALLY have Chinese food. The place was called Hot Pot, and you cook your own food at your own table. The table has a burner in it, and you order a pot of broth along with plates of raw ingredients, which you put into the broth. Your eating utensils are two sets of chopsticks and a mini colander with a long handle. Now I am kicking myself for not taking a picture… Not all of us at the table had mastered the art of chopsticking, much to the amusement of the tables around us. But it was a hopping joint with a fun atmosphere, and we all enjoyed our dinner and fellowship!

After dinner, we walked around downtown Hong Kong where we found an H&M with Black Friday sales!! I have never seen such a thing outside of America, and I bought myself a scarf because my neck was cold…

(This particular H&M also offered “Asian Fit” jeans… No clue what that even means.)

As we walked, enjoying street food for dessert in the brisk night air, I asked Shinta if she knew of any good places to get dim sum, and she told me that unfortunately dim sum is traditionally an afternoon food, not a dinner food. She thought about it a bit though, and recalled a restaurant she knew that DID serve dim sum on their dinner menu, and we subsequently made plans to meet up again the following night to eat there. I WAS THRILLED. I spent the one hour bus ride back to our hotel attempting to keep the guy in the seat in front of me from falling off his seat as he fell asleep.

(The view from our hotel room by night. You can see several of the double decker busses in the street below.)

Saturday was the final day of the conference and the day I was FINALLY going to get some dim sum!! We invited some fellow (non-single) teachers to come with us to dinner after the conference ended. Some of us wanted to go to the Ladies’ Market (which is basically just a night market) to pick up some gifts for friends and family back home, so we headed there first. Seven of us went along. Unfortunately, it had been raining steadily since about 6 AM and showed no sign of letting up. Another unfortunate fact is that we had three umbrellas between the seven of us. We took the train to the part of town where the Ladies’ Market is located. We felt very accomplished in this, since we had to change trains twice, and we managed it like old pros. One of the busier stations we had to change trains at looked like this:

By this point of the trip, I basically wanted to tase everybody who bumped into me and tattoo “DON’T TOUCH ME OR ELSE” on my forehead. This was clearly not an ideal place for me to be. Thankfully, once we left the station, the streets were pretty desolate since it was still raining. We found our way to the market where we poked around some stalls and bought a few items.

(A panorama shot of the Ladies’ Market.)

Our dinner reservation was set for 7:30, and we had gotten the address of the restaurant from Shinta. Since we were not familiar with the city, we had no clue which train to take to that address, so we decided to catch two taxis from the market, hoping the restaurant wouldn’t be too far away. Shortly before 7, we started looking for a taxi, and we were able to hail one within 5 or so minutes. Three people got in that taxi, leaving four of us to hail another and follow. We waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. No taxis went by. So we moved to a different street. And waited. And waited. And it started to rain harder. And we realized that two of the umbrellas had gone in the first taxi, now leaving us with one umbrella for four of us. A few taxis drove by with their lights on but wouldn’t stop when we hailed them. So we asked a shop owner where we could catch a cab, and he directed us around the corner. We went there, but about 20 people were waiting for a cab there, rushing into the street en masse to stop each passing empty cab. We decided our chances were slim if we stayed among such cutthroat competition. So we tried yet another street. The wind started blowing. By now, it had been over 30 minutes since the first group left. We had no phone signal and no way to contact them. I finally got a cab to stop, but the driver couldn’t read the directions on my phone and refused to let us in. We got a second cab to stop, but when we told him where we wanted to go, he suddenly drove away, leaving us standing in the street in the wind and rain. Another 30 minutes passed. By now, it was after 8 PM, and we realized that we were hungry, cold, wet, and that we were running out of options. We grimly headed back to the train station and took the three trains back to our hotel. There was a 7-11 in the station closest to our hotel, and I was determined to find SOMETHING Chinese to eat for dinner. To my surprise, I also found some home-country favorites and decided to #treatmyself.

It was not the dim sum I had waited so long for. But my evening did involve a long, hot shower, Chinese noodles, dark chocolate, Doritos, and three luxurious hours ALONE in my hotel room (my roommate had been one of the three to get in the first cab) watching Chinese TV programs. When the three who actually made it to dinner got back to the hotel, we swapped war stories. They had gotten stuck in traffic, and it took them an hour to get to the restaurant, then even longer to get back to the hotel by bus. They had also considered that the four of us may have been kidnapped and created an entire contingency plan for if that been the case.

The next morning, we left for the airport at 6 AM. I was still bitter about the evening before and the severe lack of dim sum in my life. And also about having to wake up at 5:30 AM. We gathered in the hotel lobby, and one of my co-workers sauntered over to me and proudly declared, “Well, I did it!” I asked him what he did, and he replied with the hugest grin, “I made it through a week in Hong Kong without eating ANY Chinese food!” I excused myself to go to the bathroom. This is how I know I am really an adult. Because I wanted to throat punch him, but I made a good choice instead. It was WAY too early of a morning after such a disappointing night, but our bus driver had majorly pimped his ride, so that made things kind of better.

 

(I think it was kind of a nautical theme with a GLAM driving area. Notice the GIANT gemstone gear shift.)

We made it to the airport and checked in. The Hong Kong airport might be a new favorite of mine. I enjoyed it very much. So efficient and clean and nicely laid out. Anyways, there was a Starbucks kiosk right across from our gate, so I obviously headed there first because coffee makes me a better person. As I was walking back to the gate, I crossed paths with a Buddhist monk. Well, I mean, I would have crossed paths with him. He was headed towards the travellator, and our paths would have intersected. I didn’t feel right walking faster to cross in front of a monk, so instead, I stopped and bowed until he had passed. Because I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHY BUT IT FELT RIGHT IN THE MOMENT, OK?! I made it to the gate, and I must have been flushed or flustered or something, because my boss asked me, “Why does your face look like that?” and I told her about bowing to a monk and she said, “Well.” So THAT happened, and looking back at that moment, I think it is HILARIOUS. But for real… WHAT IS THE PROTOCOL FOR HOW TO TREAT MONKS?! I hope I never come across a monk before my morning coffee ever again. Because I CLEARLY don’t make good decisions when that happens.

It was still dark and overcast when we left (BTW, I feel like I never really saw Hong Kong in the light – all of our adventuring was done after dark). So overcast, in fact, that this was our view when we took off:

(Our flight was at 9 AM, and I STILL didn’t get to see Hong Kong in the daylight.)

By the time we flew over Vietnam, the sun finally came out, and I got to enjoy looking at the beach.

(Eastern Vietnam.)

To end the story on a happy note, I have to tell you about that dim sum. Shinta had gotten to the restaurant way before everyone else since she actually knew how long it would take her to get there and could plan accordingly. So she ordered food for 8 people. But since only 4 showed up, they had TONS of leftovers, and they brought them back to me!!! So I carried them in a bag ALL THE WAY from Hong Kong, through Jakarta, and on to Central Java. And when we got home Sunday night, I threw those dim sum in the oven and ate them! And they were DIVINE, even re-heated after a whole day of unrefrigerated travel. Also, they are the cutest little dim sum in the world!

So that is the end of my Hong Kong journey. I feel like I only got a tiny taste of it. I’d like to go back sometime as a proper tourist and spend some time actually exploring the city. Like maybe in the daylight. And maybe during the summer when it’s not so cold and rainy. Because I do love my tropics. And if I ever go back, I will make sure I get dim sum EVERY SINGLE DAY.