Hong Kong and Macau

I'd always planned to visit Fai and Eddie from the moment I purchased a ticket to Beijing. I bought a special visa, which allowed multiple entries over a year. For some reason, despite being a part of China, Hong Kong still counts as leaving China. As my trip kept getting longer, Fai and Eddie would keep sending me occasional emails, wondering when the hell I'd get there. About eleven months after entering Asia, I finally arrived.

As was becoming common in China, my bus arrived earlier than planned. I was used to the opposite and couldn't decide which I preferred less. I awoke at dark in a strange bus station someplace in Shenzhen, a 15 million population city just North of Hong Kong. I quickly deduced I was at the border, but I had to wait two hours for it to open.

As they lifted the gates, the Chinese started running and ducking under the partially opened doors. The German I met on the bus and I simply walked leisurely through customs, making fun of the ridiculous impatience of the Chinese. As I crossed the bridge, I couldn't help but notice the giant razor wire fence separating one Chinese city from another.

To call Hong Kong a Chinese city would be a bit unfair. Hong Kong quickly showed itself to be very different. They even rolled their eyes with the westerners as the Chinese mobbed the currency exchange before it had even opened. Hong Kongers waited in line patiently; they didn't spit; on escalators, if they were merely standing, they did it to the right to allow other to walk up, as opposed to the staggered chaos in China. Traffic followed laws and people followed rules. It was crazy!

I called Fai from his workplace at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where I had to wait for an hour while he got up and showered and all that. As I said, my bus came very early.

I was just finishing my breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, and a sweet corn soup with a hot dog in it, when a man, older, balder, but still unmistakably Fai emerged through the door. I couldn't believe it had been seven years since I'd seen my long lost brother. Fai was the exchange student who wouldn't go home. He first came in 1997, but was back just months later to enroll in UW-Stout in Menomenie, just an hour from the Twin Cities and three hours from home. He was a regular presence on weekends, summers and holidays. He also enrolled for a summer term in Germany while I was there for a month in 2000. We were party buddies for a whole summer before he ran off to England in 2003. Despite only completing an undergrad, Fai managed to hang around until 2004, with a major in computers science and a list of minors to fill a page. I had not seen him since.

We hung out in his office while he finished his work for the day, then headed to the harbor to enjoy a beer and catch up. It was a wet, rainy humid Hong Kong summer day and we spent most of it either eating or walking through endless air conditioned shopping centers.

I was invited to stay with him and his delightful mother in his middle class apartment on the 16th floor of one of the thousands of residential towers all over Kowloon, the penisula that makes up the middle of Hong Kong. We had a feast of tasty Cantonese favorites at their local restaurant, many of which I'd already tried, but loved.

Fai had to work the next day, so I put on my tourist gear and headed to Lantou Island, home of Hong Kong's famous giant Buddha. Despite being one of the densest cities in the world, Hong Kong is mostly green jungle outside of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and parts of the New Territories. It has somewhere near 1,000 miles of hiking trails with many hidden beaches on its outer islands. Lantou seemed mostly green outside of the International Airport and Disneyland.

I met Eddie, our colorful, long-haired exchange student from 2001, for dinner at a touristy, but delicious street restaurant in the heart of Kowloon. I was not surprised when he arrived late, but I was shocked by his appearance in a Ferrari. I know that we've had wealthy students over the years, most anonymously living our middle-class life without complaint. Eddie was one, but I don't think he took to our standards of living quite so comfortably as some others. He had mentioned his family's riches gained from large-scale construction and how his father lost it all playing baccarat. I didn't really believe him and for this, I was wrong.

We had a great conversation over a beer and a feast of crab, pigeon and mussels. He gave me a quick life update, talking about his hot job as an oil trader. He also mused about the happy simplicity he found in his year living with our family. I was touched.

Fai arrived and we headed to a nearby nightclub to meet some friends. As we walked into the KTV room, Fai's mouth dropped open. Inside was a Sikh and two attractive women. The Sikh shook hands with me and introduced himself in perfect English, "Hi, I'm Paul." He shook Fai's hand with no introduction; he needed none. Apparently, Paul was a famous Hong Kong television star and a pioneer for minorities in show business (as in non-Cantonese). Other TV stars came and went as did young groupies or models. Most started off friendly, then ignored Fai and I once they realized we weren't rich or famous. We got drunk off Chivas Regal, playing a drinking game involving dice and my terrible Mandarin (I didn't speak any Cantonese). Some karaoke ensued, eventually the night dwindled to Eddie, his brother, Fai, Paul and I. Paul was a real cool guy; not stuck up at all. I think he found it relieving to talk to somebody who did not care or know who he was, somebody who just saw him as a nice guy.

Thankfully, Fai had the next day off and spent most of it just relaxing and recovering from our late night. It started with Dim sum, a Cantonese style of eating involving a series of tiny dishes, mostly dumplings. We visited a few places around the city, including the mid-levels escalator on Hong Kong island, at a kilometer of length, stands as the longest in the world. Sadly the never ending rain limited our desire to do much. Besides, we needed our energy for the next day when we headed to Macau.

Macau, much like Hong Kong was a foreign colony of, in this case, Portugal, that was given back to China only recently. It is the Vegas of the East, and with the inpouring of money over the last few years, this is becoming more and more true. It was but a mere hour ferry from Hong Kong and we caught a free casino shuttle to take us for free to the area of the old city we wished to see.

Of course, we had to stop inside, just to look. Our first casino was the Venitian, which was apparently, just like the Vegas version, only bigger. The whole 2nd floor was a shopping mall, but cleverly disguised as an oudoor, daytime Venetian street, with its own river and punted gondolas. The groud floor was the largest gaming area in the world. I quickly lost HK20 (which was strangely the only currency that was used, whereas I found it difficult to spend the Macau money I'd picked up) on a slot machine and quit. Fai however was more successful, winning HK100 (about $13).

I tired of gaming, so we hit up some old colonial houses and stopped for a mediocre Portugese lunch. On the way, I saw the City of Dreams a famous casino I saw featured on some engineering television show. We had to see it. We walked around inside, not gambling, but just watching people play while drinking free coke. One man was feeding HK500 bills continuously into a machine, sticking a toothpick into the roll button for fasting gambling. The credit just went more and more down until it hit zero, then he'd pop another bill in the game. One spin, he won HK1500, but didn't even react; he just stared blankly as his money disappeared. We came across one man at a roullette table, and based on his chip stack, he was doing well. We watched as he carefully dispearsed a stack of chips on various numbers, lines, and corners, each time keeping a few plays and shifting a few others with each new roll. He won something every time, his collection of chips getting unmanagably large, a much desired problem. After watching him win three times in a row, I just had to try it myself. I changed in an HK100 and randomly placed my chips around the numbers. The ball twirled around the spinning plate. My heart went crazy realizing that with one hit, I'd make a lot of money, but with one bad number, everything goes. Finally, the ball landed, but I couldn't see where because it was spinning too fast. The dealer put a crystal marker down, none of my chips sat under it.

So, I changed another hundred, reaching the HK250 gambling budget I alloted myself, and divided my last chips around the table. This time, the ball hit eight, where I'd put a small stack of chips. The dealer then pulled out a massive pile of chips and carefully stacked them in front of me. I'd made my money back. So, I pulled aside the original HK250 in my pocket and left the rest for gambling money. Using this system for years, I rarely lose money at casinos. I set a budget; when I lose, I quit, when I win, I put aside enough to break even and have fun with the winnings.

Fai joined for the next spin and we both won. The next spin as well. Our chips went up and down for the next 30 minutes until we both decided to move on. I walked away with HK300 extra; Fai had lost a bit. We caught the bus to MGM; of course we had to stop there as well. We wandered around and found a crowded table full of cheering players, always a good sign. It was craps. I knew nothing about craps except sevens weren't good, people feel let down when snake eyes emerged, and most seemed spend their winnings on a fresh pair of footware. Even though I was completely ignorant, I pretended poorly that I was confident in what I was doing, and placed a chip randomly on the number nine. Then boom! Nine was up. The dealer threw a bunch of chips at me and the dice were rolled again. Nine! Suddenly I was cheering with the crowd. Hell, I was getting thrown chips for completely unknown reasons. I was sad when seven came up. I gave the dice a go and tossed a seven in my second roll. People who were just moments before, hugging and hopping with me in the throws of mutual luck, glared at me in astounding anger, especially the one man who lost HK10,000 from my bad roll, so I quickly and silently collected my chips and left.

We finally left the gaming zone after spending thirty minutes finding a cashier, stopping to play random slots on the way, and realized it was already evening and there were a few things we wanted to see; Macau was an old colonial city after all. So, we strolled around looking at the architechture, which was honestly quite unremarkable. I'd already seen a bit of Portugese colonial buildings in Malacca and Macau did not seem much better. The most famous sight is the Church of Saint Paul, a stunning ruin with only the front wall remaining. We wandered in and out of little confectionary shops, all with free samples of cookies and beer jerky. It almost counted as a meal. We quickly bored of the city and went to another casino where I lost more of my winnings.

We had planned to catch the last ferry home; Fai had to work the next morning. Then he got a call from Eddie. He was coming and planned to take us out for dinner and treat us to a hotel room for the night. We were already quite tired, but I did want to spend more time with Eddie, so we hit the Sands Casino and watched apothetic gogo girls dance for an hour.

Eddie was late, but treated us to one hell of a dinner with mussels, fish, eel, chicken, and shark fin soupl It was my first time trying this expensive, controversial delicacy. Though it did not taste of much, the crunchy, chewy, stringy texture was extremly pleasing to eat.

Eddie booked a couple rooms at the iconic Grand Lisbona and judging from our previous outing, we feared the extravagence of the room. I would have been content just crashing at a youth hostel, but Eddie was being extremely generous. We got in the elecator and I tried not to look as he pressed a button for the top floor.

The room was so luxurious, I was embarrassed. Fai and I stood agape at the size and the view over the city. The bathroom was the most amazing part. It had a jaccuzzi and the greatest shower I've ever seen. It had a normal showerhead, afixed to an amazing adjustment apparatus, allowing the shower to stay fixed at any possible positon and angle. On top of this, there was a ceiling rain shower with setting to simulate various weather patterns, this combined with the steamy wind machine, help transport me into magical warm water storms of bliss.

Sadly, we could not enjoy the room much. After a shower, we all hit the casino again, where I gambled myself even for the day. We came home around 2AM. Since we needed to catch the first ferry home so Fai could work that morning, the alarm was set for 5AM. The bed was actually too comfortable. After nearly a year of old matresses, floors, tables with bamboo mats, I found it impossible to fall asleep on something actually soft. 'Twas a shame; it was a fantastic bed.

The next morning was rough. The shuttles weren't running so we walked the mile back to the ferry through the aready wet air, passing people wrapping up their epic nights in a city of sin. Fai and I spent the day, after his work, checking out a tiny pocket of old city in teh "New Territories." There were a few houses and pagodas hidden behind some massive high rises. It seemed unlikely they still existed. It was cool to see soem pre-eighteenth century history in Hong Kong, a rare glimpse into the lost pre-modern city.

One of the most famous ways to see the skyline is from Kowloon Harbor for the Symphony of Light, a monumental waste of valuable energy and natural resouces that takes place every night. Essentially, it is a cheesy display of the sky scrapers lighting in time to terrible music. It is not interesting or fun, but it is a great excuse to check out the impressive Hong Kong skyline at night, when it is quite lovely. It strange to call the pompous representation of everything I hate about this world, lovely, but if a skyline can be pretty, Hong Kong would be one.

Eddie took us all out to dinner at a hot pot place high up one of the skyscrapers. We had sashimi and an assortment of goodies for dipping (and no, we did not cook the precious sashimi). It was a hearty, delicious meal. We ended the night in the Soho district of Hong Kong island for a drink at one of the hopping bars, marvelling at the plastic display of urbanites on a Saturday night. Fai and I tired of this quickly and headed home early to leave Eddie to his flirting with over made-up, bitchy, cold women in ear-shatteringly loud conditions. He seemed to be having fun at least.

Fai saw me off in Shezhen the next morning. It was sad to leave and I wish I had more than six days to visit. We went back to the same great friendship so quickly. I quite enjoyed seeing him and his mother again. I was also a treat seeing Eddie as well. I think if I had visited Hong Kong alone, I doubt I would have liked it, but being shown around by locals, much less two great friends made visiting this fascinating city all worthwhile. Thanks.

Yangshuo

China is home to some legendary scenery and the Li River is among the most famous. It features even more limestone karsts and though South Asia is riddled with them, Yangshuo is considered the best.

At one time Guilin was the grand capital of Li River tourism. The masses flocked here to inner-city scenery parks with multi-colored lighted caves and staircase-scaled mountains. The western backpackers flocked to Yangshuo, a city south of the main sights that was smaller, and merely a day trip for the million of Chinese tourists. Things have changed and the Chinese have now discovered the town. It may have been the most crowded tourist city I've ever seen. Somehow though, it maintained its small charm. This is helped by the two intersecting rivers and its location within a bowl of mountains.

The real charm is its easy access to the countryside. I met a cool Irish guy, who joined me at the Buddha Water Cave on my first day. This advertised "all-natural" cave/spa featured gorgeous stalactites and stalagmites, some of which were obviously sculpted and painted metal. Deep in the cave was an incredibly fun mud pool. The buoyancy was great for floating and gliding across its surface. Deep in the cave was an incredibly fun mud pool. After a rinse, we were then led to a hot spring which was surprisingly nice on such a hot day. It was a touristy visit, but my skin and muscles felt great afterward.

We spent the rest of the day and all the next biking around the countryside. Somehow, the villages nearby never got the memo announcing that this was a tourist hotspot, because even a mere mile from town, people went along with their pastoral lifestyle as if nobody was there. This was the true charm of the area, being able to view authentic rural life within sublime scenery, not more than five minutes from a bustling tourist ghetto. We left the road getting lost on small trails between the rice fields, eventually stopping for a swim in the peaceful Yulong River, while the locals fished. This was what China was meant to be.

The next day I bused to Kanting to walk a 16km hike along the Li River, the biggest draw of the area. I met a nice Chinese student who joined me for the day. He helped me negotiate prices for the boat trips across the three crossings of the trail and taught me many new Chinese words. The hike was beautiful, but lacked the quaintness of the Yulon. The entire stretch of river was crowded by "bamboo boats" (actually made from PVC) filled with Chinese people who preferred soaking each other with water pistols over soaking up the gorgeous scenery. The hike was not popular; we met nobody along the way except peddlers trying to convince to abandon the hike and board their "bamboo" instead. It ended with the area's most famous sight, the mountain on the back of the 20 yuan bill.

That night at the hostel, a few beers led to a walk, which led to a few beers along the river, which led to a British guy, a Chinese woman and me skinny dipping for a couple of hours in the surprisingly fast, but thankfully shallow river. I was the first to do it, they all at first jumped in with their clothes, but I was leaving the next day and didn't want them to get wet; plus, I'd broken the nighttime skinny dipping barrier in Thailand numerous times with various groups of women from Spice (Oh yeah ;-) ). The British guy joined as a coup to get our Chinese companion naked. It worked and he used teaching her to swim as a play into her lack of pants. I of course was dating Michelle and did my best to help in a non-suggestive manner (he took a more hands on approach to his teaching style). I didn't have the heart to tell him that I knew she was engaged and already had another boyfriend of the side who had just left that day, though her already infidelity might have encouraged him further anyway. At some point, an obviously drunk local wandered down to the water, hearing our splashing, so we hid under a ledge. The British guy took it for the team and emerged when he called out. He spoke fluent Chinese, making him a better candidate than me or the naked Chinese woman. I'm sure a big scandal might have arisen from the revelation of all three of us: two naked white men in the water with a poor young, pretty, "innocent" Chinese girl.

So the Brit talked while the two of us laughed silently, doing our best to stay hidden. Then she started to fondle me. I kept doing my best to avoid her advances without making a sound, which I found difficult, for a number of reasons. The biggest was I couldn't see her hands until they were upon me. The Brit and the stranger talked for ages, while I kept politely pushing the woman away from me. Finally, after ages of discomfort, the man left and I bolted away from the girl. Never thought I'd find myself in a position to run from an attractive naked woman making moves on me. I felt bad for the Brit who was stuck in a three-way romance with a girl who didn't want him, but fancied another man who wasn't interested. After she left for a toilet, sometime on the way home, I encouraged him to make a move if he was interested. In the end, it didn't matter as the girl passed out and we both had to carry her to bed. It was one of the strangest nights of my trip.

We had all planned a mass climb of Moon Hill; many joined except the Chinese woman who was too embarrassed or hung over to leave her room. Moon Hill is not high, but it has great views and was a tough climb in the humidity. I've never sweat so much in whole life. At the top, I stripped my shirt and wrung it out. It could not have been more saturated even if I'd dumped it in a bucket of water. A shower was a welcome coda to the hike before hopping on a bus to Hong Kong.