Partying It Up-Hong Kong Style, Part 1

Until now I haven’t really found the energy or time to be able to sit down and type up my adventures from my trip to Hong Kong with Nathan and Sallee, but it is quarter to 7pm on Sunday evening and I am already done with my evaluations and lesson plans and we have no internet…sounds like the perfect time to me :D.
Last Sunday night I thought that I was all ready, I came home from Nathan and Sallee’s place a little late as I knew that I was all packed and so thought that I would be able to just fall into bed, but when I returned Natalie asked me if I had done my evaluations yet, luckily she asked me as I had not yet, I don’t think that Yuling would have been so happy with giving me the time off if I didn’t get them done before I left. So I quickly did those and was able to get to bed at a decent time.
I woke up Monday morning to my 6am alarm clock (ouch!—yeah I know Erin and Jamie that is not early compared to what you do every morning for work), for some reason I thought that I was already awake and didn’t really understand why my alarm was going off but then I remembered what all was going on and quickly jumped out of bed. I got dressed and ate some breakfast and sat down at my computer, waiting until Nathan and Sallee arrived. I went downstairs at about 6:40 when President Chen was supposed to be meeting us, I was a little concerned because Nathan and Sallee were not there yet, but as I was walking down the stairs they pulled up. They quickly locked their bikes and we headed back over to where they were staying so that we could grab their bags (they didn’t want to have to bike with their bags if they didn’t have to). We grabbed their bags and were able to leave the key to the house and the money with President Chen and then he dropped us off at the train station (it was interesting as he went a completely different way then I knew how to get there and so I was a little worried at if we were going to get there in time but then he pulled up and I was like wow how did that happen).
For some reason the train that Yuling had arranged for us was nearly 4 hours, but it was ok as it gave us a little time to talk, look at the scenery, and then to all take a nap- which we all needed, though a nap on the train doesn’t do tons for you. When we got to Taipei we first got some lunch, there were lots of different foods to try at this train station, we went to a Indian pita place- really, really yummy (that is actually where I eat on the way home too!). As soon as we were done eating we went outside to try and find the bus station, we had just walked up to it when these guys tried convincing us to get a taxi instead, we kept on telling them that no we were going to go with bus because it was cheaper. They were like, of course it’s cheaper, finally they went down to $500NT, we said yes at that..I kind of think that it is better that we went with a taxi on the way there because when I took the bus back on the way home it took longer than an hour, we would have been cutting it really close if we went by the bus. Our taxi driver was rather interesting- he had hair coming out of a mole on the bottom of his chin- probably like a foot long, I kind of wish that I had taken a picture.
We got to the airport and went straight to check-in, we were lucky and were able to get seats next to each other. After checking-in we went to exchange money, I have never really exchanged money before- I am pretty sure that when I went to Peru Erick did it for me, and so I was interested to see how it was done—they counted and checked the money with at least two different machines before they would give us the Hong Kong money. I was quite lost with the Hong Kong money for much of the trip, first of all it was not money that I am used to, 2nd- I have gotten used to not having change just everything being in dollars and so it was rather strange to go back to having change, and 3rd- I just had trouble doing the exchange in my head as quickly as I do Taiwan dollars to US dollars.
We had maybe a 40 minute wait once we got to the waiting area but it went very quickly and so I didn’t really get bored, I actually walked up and down the corridor 3-4 times so I felt that I was already getting my exercise for the day. There was a really funny sign on the emergency exit window in the waiting area, it said something like “avoid falling, don’t open windows unless in emergency” we thought that it was pretty funny and were laughing about it for awhile. They did have some newspapers on a cart as we were going onto the plane, I grabbed one, can’t remember what it was at the moment but I do remember that it was pretty boring- though Nathan was pretty interested in it. The plane ride was pretty uneventful, except that I was trying to watch a movie and it felt like every 5 minutes there was an announcement or two and that would freeze the movie (rather annoying!).
As soon as we got off the plane we grabbed our bags and then went to find where we could get cards called “octopus cards,” they are cards that you can put as much money on that you would like to and then they work on all transport services that are offered by the city (bus, train, ferry, etc.-you could even use them at some restaurants), Nathan and Sallee had read that it would be the safest/easiest way to travel, because you could just get whatever money was leftover back at the end. We found those and then got instructions about where the buses were and headed that way. I walked out the door and saw tons of double decker buses and got REALLY excited, I have never been on one and have always wanted to (though sadly none of them were open on the top like they always are in the movies ;D). I swiped my sweet new octopus card and climbed to the top (which believe me with a huge backpack, purse, and just myself it felt like climbing), I was lucky and got to sit at the 2nd to the front seat so I had a great view. Nathan likes to say that I took a million pictures on the way to our hotel, but I like to believe that I only took half a million (:D), there were tons of different things to see of course I had to document it.
When we got off our bus on Nathan Rd. we had to walk around for a little bit before we actually found where we were staying, as we walked in we all kind of crossed our fingers that it wouldn’t be a complete dump (we had heard some horror stories of how bad a place could be), the lobby was actually rather nice and had a guard on duty (ok now that I put that down on type that doesn’t sound as comforting as it should have been, why was there a reason to have a guard?). We all put our stuff away and just took a little bit to sit down and relax and then we decided to head off to find some food, we found this little shop that we tried- the food was good but I got filled up very quickly (especially after Nathan informed me what was on my plate was spam not ham—yuck!). In their lonely planet book they had read about this show that was supposed to be really cool that happens every night, I can’t remember how many buildings participate, but it is this huge light show with music playing along the whole waterfront and you watch the buildings across the water that have lights going that correspond with the music that is playing, it was pretty cool and I am glad that I got to watch it once but the pictures made it look a lot cooler than it really was, I think that Carpe Lake was a lot better (see my past post about it).
When the light show was over we walked a couple of blocks until we found the temple street night market- it was completely awesome, tons and tons of things to see and to buy (:D). As they say, it was like I had died and gone to shopping heaven. I didn’t buy very much the first night as I wanted to have a chance to look at other places and to compare; I knew that place was close and that we could go back if I needed to.
Once we were done with the night market we headed back to the hotel, I took a shower and then fell into my rock hard bed (not joking about the rock hard part).