Travel to Live. Live to Travel

This may be the first year that I have ever celebrated my birthday without a self-absorbed birthday blow-out.

Just Hugh and me, and the pretty night lights of Hong Kong.

Tomorrow: Taiwan. Three countries/special administrative regions down–4 more and 4 more months to go.

(P.S. I turned 27, for the curious.)

The weather was kind to us and it was a clear, wonderful night. We took advantage of our wonderful hotel (thanks mom & dad) and stumbled out into the daylight around 3pm. We wandered around the very excellent Hong Kong Science museum (full of touchy-feely exhibits and such!) for a few hours and the next thing we knew it was night…so we walked to the Avenue of the Stars for the lightshow.

The irony, of course, is that you need smog/haze to see the beams of light. Since today was clear and free of pollution, the show was less than what it usually is, but it was still fun. I love the Hong Kong skyline. I think it’s just one of the best in the world.

The best skyline on earth. That little tugboat in the foreground agrees.

And of course, no whirlwind tourist tour of Hong Kong is finished without having Indian food at the infamous Chungking Mansions–a derelict block of apartments that’s fairly notorious. There’s all manner of shops and hostels on various floors, and also lots of great Indian restaurants. It’s changed in three years–no more touters allowed. In the past, the minute you walked in a swarm of men would descend upon you and shove flyers in your face. You picked a guy and he lead you to a corner, to be passed off to another dude, to be shown to another man who would take you down dark, dirty halls and up a cramped elevator. Scary as shit. They did it so no other guy who intercept you and take you to his restaurant. None of that anymore. We actually witnessed a security guard smack a young man for trying to shove a flyer at us.

Anyways, The Khyber Pass, the place I ate before years ago, has now spread into 3 other apartments and was packed. Delicious food as always.

Perfect night.

It’s been a pretty typhoonrific (new word) season in Asia and while we managed to dodge one typhoon, the tail end of another one has come to put a bit of a damper on our trip in Hong Kong.

Hopefully the rain stops so we can see more stuff, but so far we’ve wandered nightmarkets, antique and curio shops, rode the largest escalator in Asia (or whatever it is)…

We haven’t had the internet for awhile so I’ve had to write back-dated entries so if you are reading this off LJ, you might wanna go directly to this site.

Finally, some photos…

Hugh glances over our yum cha lunch

The smell of fish drying on the sidewalk hit us before we saw it...

Famous Macanese almond cakes. Taste great. Feel like eating talcum powder.

Ah yes, racially insensitive toothpaste. This used to say "Darkie" above the minstrel face (still does in Chinese)