Hello, my name is Laowai

I boarded my train from Shanghai to Hong Kong after a quick and painless trip through customs — still required, even though Hong Kong is officially a part of China these days. There are four different classes on trains in China: hard seat, soft seat, hard sleeper, and soft sleeper. I bought a hard sleeper ticket, which Vivien assured me would be fine, despite how awful the name makes it sound. I was pleasantly surprised when I got on to the train: the bed was only a few inches of foam but it was comfortable enough, and more importantly, it was spotlessly clean with a fresh set of sheets and a blanket.

I was in a cabin with six beds stacked three high, and I was the only non-Chinese person in the group. I communicated to the other people through an elaborate series of gestures and grunts, which actually worked pretty well. I showed them my passport, my Chinese visa, and postcards showing both Denver and Colorado which they seemed to find pretty interesting.

At dinnertime, my stomach started growling and I headed for the dining car. I walked in, and all the Chinese people stared at me. I stood there for what must have been five minutes, with the whole dining car watching me like I was the evening news, and then I walked back a car to collect my thoughts about what to do.

Side note: I'm quickly realizing that traveling alone is a whole different beast than traveling with friends. With other people, you can talk through a problem out loud. You say things like, "I wonder if we're supposed to just sit down... or...." and then somebody answers you with their insight and reasoning on the subject. This is not the case when you're alone. You sit there thinking, "okay... everyone is staring at me, and there aren't any open tables in the dining car. Hmmm... I guess... hmm... this is awkward... huh... I don't... umm... crap... oh god this is awkward."

Luckily, in the next car over was the answer: other hungry western people, a group of four friendly guys from Arizona who were traveling through Japan, China, and heading for Thailand. We sat down at the first table that opened up, got a series of dishes and cracked open about twenty lukewarm beers, which supposedly was all that was available. The guys talked about the frustrations of traveling in China compared to Japan. To a certain extent, I definitely agree that China makes for pretty rough traveling sometimes — some Chinese people are constantly spitting, smoking, slurping, burping, cutting in line, pushing, staring at you, and more. That certainly isn't true for most Chinese people, but it's enough of a percentage to get really annoying sometimes. The guys were going through a bit of culture shock after the ultra-courtesy in Japan, and got a chance to blow off some steam.

The next morning, I was awoken at 7:00am by a couple of little kids who kept yelling, "hello! morning! ha ha ha!" while their parents watched with glee as they harassed me. For 45 minutes, they kept trying to wake me up, and anytime I would so much as move they would talk about me. Chinese people, especially those from rural areas, are fascinated by foreigners, which they call Laowai. The whole morning, these little kids watched my every move:

Roll over in bed.
Blah blah blah Laowai blah blah. Ha ha ha!

Check my watch to see what time it is.
Laowai blah blah blah Laowai, blah. Ha ha ha!!

Read a book for a while.
Blah blah blah Laowai, blah blah! Ha ha!

Look over to see if the kids are still staring.
Hello Laowai! Morning! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

After my day as a zoo animal, I finally got to Hong Kong and started walking to meet one of Bill and Vivien's friends Sam, who was nice enough to let me stay with her at her place near Kowloon Bay. (Inside joke for Wayne's World fans: I was born in Kowloon Bay!) Sam is an English teacher at an adult education center in the center of Kowloon, where I met her and dropped off my pack. I spent the day walking around that side of Hong Kong, which is a swarming hive of people, restaurants, beggars, scooters, neon signs, and tourists. Kowloon boasts one of the best views in the world: looking across Victoria Harbour to Hong Kong Island.



I met up with Sam when she finished class at 10:00, and we got on the metro bound for her 47th floor apartment in a gigantic complex in the eastern outskirts of Kowloon. Her place has stunning views of about 30 other similar sized skyscrapers with mountains in the background.

After a hearty American breakfast this morning at a good western-style restaurant, Sam went off to work and I hit the other side of the city, Hong Kong Island. It reminds me a lot of New York City, but much busier and more chaotic. Much of the island is connected through a huge network of above-ground pedestrian bridges which weave through the second or third floor of a lot of the major buildings. You can walk for miles without ever going to street level, it's really odd.



I wandered over to Hollywood Road, an art and antiques district where I saw a lot of seriously impressive contemporary Chinese artwork in a slew of galleries along the street. The road is also home to the Man Mo Temple, the oldest in Hong Kong, as well as the world's longest series of outdoor escalators. In the same area were a bunch of open-air markets selling anything you can think of: mostly vegetables I've never seen before and parts of animals I've never considered eating. A quick video of the action:



The rest of my day was spent wandering through the ultra-luxury IFC shopping mall, which is housed just under the tallest building in Hong Kong, and hanging out along the harbor by the Hong Kong Exhibition Center. Every night, the big attraction along the harbor is this big city-wide light show that someone laboriously choreographed so that buildings light up and spotlights shine in Kowloon as music plays along the harbor on the other side. Here's the Exhibition Center in the foreground and the gorgeous IFC tower in the background:



Thanks to Sam's hospitality, I'll be in Hong Kong for a few more days. Then, I'll make my way north to Guilin and Yangshuo, home to the impossibly shaped mountains along the Li River.

--Ryan!

Photos updated: Hong Kong