Korea
Japan
Hong Kong
But there are so many other places I may wind up... (hopefully not jail or dead).
I am using this space as a blog, and as a way to dump the dailies I take from my camera (Panasonic GH1 and Samsung TL320). I want those who are interested to get a daily-updated, unfiltered view of my crazy Asian adventure.
Friends, welcome to HONG KONG, Hong Kong - Day 1
We were late again for our flight. People were yelling at us to go here and there. Blah blah blah same story as always. David packs like a girl, (i.e. he has TOO MUCH SHIT in his suitcase). I knew we weren’t going to pass weight inspection, and being so late for our flight, ah, that woulda caused all sorts of mess! My bag barely made the weigh-in as it stood, and I knew for sure his bag weighed so much more. But, as luck would have it,
BAM his suitcase wasn’t completely on the scale when they weighed it! HAHAHAHAH suckers…
So we made it. Just barely.
Our flight was from Narita, Japan, with a layover in Beijing, China, and finally arriving in Hong Kong around 4:30p local time. Here’s China from the sky:
I’m not sure what I had in mind about what China would look like from the sky, but I certainly didn’t expect this. It looks….so normal! Aside from the badass snaking river, I mean. I think I was expecting something like when Neo exits The Matrix into the real world - black and machines and smog and dirt, kinda like this!
But it didn’t look like that. Weird.
Beijing airport was hella strange. So big, so unfriendly, and so empty. This made me a bit worried about Hong Kong. Is it going to be big and empty and unfriendly, too? I seriously know nothing about Hong Kong at this point. Not a single thing.
In line while waiting to get through immigration, I struck up a conversation with some dude from the east coast who’s been living in Hong Kong for a year or so. He told me how there’s nothing to do there, the country is too small, life is boring, too many people, etc. etc. I mean, holy shit the dude didn’t like HK. He said I’d be bored after a week. A week!? What the hell kind of country am I moving to if I’m going to be bored after one week?!
Needless to say, I was getting shit in my pants.
Seriously, look at this place. It’s dead. This was a bad sign.
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Hong Kong: The Backstory (skip if you don’t care)
David and I have been searching for apartments in Hong Kong since January. We were scheduled to arrive in Hong Kong on April 1. As of March 30, two days before our arrival, we did not have an apartment. Most of our time in Tokyo was wasted, stressing over not having a place to live for the next few months. We were shitting ourselves.
It just….wasn’t that easy to find a decent place here. We didn’t know the area, had no contacts, had a tight budget, and wanted to live in either Central, Wan Chai, or Causeway Bay, because we heard that those are the most exciting places. Unfortunately, those are also the most expensive places.
On March 30, we decided to settle on sharing a studio in Sheung Wan (close to Central). That’s right, two guys sharing a tiny fucking studio in a big city. It was our worst-case scenario, but it is the only place we could find that was in a decent area, fully furnished, and didn’t destroy our bank accounts.
So the night of March 30, at 4:00am (so…Mar 31), David and I, drunk, printed and signed the lease agreement and credit authorization form, and faxed it to the apartment company. Then we passed out.
In the morning of the 31st David received an email from the apartment company saying that I had neglected to write down an amount for the credit authorization form, therefore invalidating the agreement. FUCK WE DIDNT HAVE A FUCKING HOUSE GAHHH!!
But!
15 minutes before that email was sent, David had received another email, this time, from someone whom we contacted on craigslist over a month ago, telling us that she had a friend with an open apartment in Causeway Bay. He emailed us notifying us that it was a two bedroom apartment, fully furnished, and the rent was cheap! No commission fees, government fees, nothing! Holy crap!! But no pictures. No pictures!?!? What the fuck no pictures!
But you know what? We didn’t care at that point. With less than 24 hours left before we were scheduled to arrive in Hong Kong, we said “fuck it” and agreed to rent it.
——-
Hong Kong airport was like any other airport. Some people, some shops, etc. Nothing struck me as all that special. It took us a while to get some money and find the train, but soon, we were off! Off to Causeway Bay to meet our landlord, and our new place of residence!
There were a ton of whiteys on the train. I kept forgetting that Hong Kong used to be a British colony and there are tons of caucasians here. And they all still look beat up in Hong Kong. I’ve discovered that no matter where you go in Asia, white people always look like crap (myself included). Damn you Asians and your flawless perfect skin! And eternal youth..
We were instructed by our landlord to just meet him outside of the train station, exit F. The train station seemed like any other one in Asia; kinda crowded. Nothing too remarkable here. We walked up the steps to get to the exit, not really sure what to expect of the outside world. It hit us like a ton of bricks. BAM.
LIGHTS.
PEOPLE.
LIFE.
and badass R34 Skylines.
You know, I was so stunned by what I saw, I didn’t even capture the moment, my first impressions. These pictures were taken well after we were settled in, while David and I went exploring around 1-3am, and there are still this many people out! You can’t imagine how it looks at 9pm. You will see in the coming posts how incredible Hong Kong shines. But for now, the rest of our first day.
———-
Move in!
———-
Our landlord picked us up from the train station. He had never seen a picture of us, but he walked right up to us just as we’d exited the train station, and about 5 seconds after the lights and life floored our senses, and he said, “David and Eddie?” Holy crap we were all “uuuuhhh????” It was our landlord!
He took us to our place, less than a 2-minute walk from the metro exit.
We entered some apartment complex off Yee Wo Street (like….one of the busiest streets I have ever seen in my life!) and took the elevator to the 9th floor. Our landlord handed us the keys and let us cross the threshold.
Shit dude, the anticipation was killing us! What did the place look like? What kind of mess were we about to get ourselves into? Renting an apartment overseas without seeing any pictures from someone we don’t know? We were crazy! Insane! Fools!
BAM our place!
Holy shit niiice man!
view from my window…kinda neat!
But wait wait wait…where the fuck’s our furniture!?!?
To be honest, we were so stunned the apartment wasn’t some rat-infested disease acquarium, I don’t even know if we asked about the furniture, but the landlord said it would all be coming soon. Ah who cares! We had beds, roof over our head, and a toilet, in Hong Kong, life is sweet.
After getting settled in, we headed out for Ikea (just down the street!) to buy some bedsheets.
Oh shit it was closed! What the fuck it’s already 11p??? Time flew man. We arrived in Causeway Bay around 5:30, I don’t know how 5 hours passed like it was nothing but uh….damnit! We had no bedsheets!
Oh well, right? We were in Hong Kong! WE DIDNT CARE!
Hungry, we set out to explore our area, to find food and cool things to photograph.
Our first meal in Hong Kong came courtesy of New Bangkok Thai restaurant. It was the only place we could find open that late, hah. It was so hard to find a food joint that was open at this time wtf! We were really surprised, we thought Hong Kong never slept!
Anyways, it was a really good first meal. Such good food. But we didn’t know if we could trust the water. David took the plunge and I reluctantly followed.
After delicious food time, David and I walked down some random side street and found a market!
and next to it, hella people were outside, sitting on lawn furniture, eating in the middle of the street!
what a cool area! Too bad we had just eaten, otherwise we would have stayed. A lot of those people were drinking and eating and laughing and were really openly friendly towards David and I! So unlike my experience in Japan, it was crazy! This street, this moment right here, made me feel confident that I would find friends in Hong Kong. My social anxieties were relaxing. Even though they were a little intoxicated, I could still feel their warmth, I could feel their happiness, their open spirit. Before coming here I was so worried that I would be living the same reclusive, stale life I had had in Tokyo, but my fears immediately dissolved on this street. At 2am on a Thursday night somewhere between Causeway Bay and Wan Chai, I felt welcome.
Before calling it a night, David and I did just a little bit more exploring around our area. We were stunned by the things we saw. Dilapidated buildings underneath constructed, modern architecture, rusted windows nestled between fresh paint, bamboo spines and twisted scaffolding, and dripping air conditioning units forming puddles on street, placed so perfectly so as to bounce light from distant towers into my gazing eye. I have never seen anything quite like this before.
It’s the Hong Kong alleys that drew our attention the most. So much character, so much personality here. I have taken so many incredible pictures of so many different alleys while I have been here. I want to do a series on alleys. I want to take pictures of them during the day and the night, and compare the two. I bet they’ll look completely different! Sigh….ever since coming here, I have become so inspired in the arts, photography, cinematography, writing, dance, music; I have such a huge list of projects I want to do, I doubt I’ll even get to realize even a handful of them :/
Whelp, that’s it for Hong Kong - Day 1. David and I slept on top of our towels that night. But it’s ok, cause Hong Kong isn’t that cold, and I felt warm inside.
