Hong Kong, China

What can I say? The flight was long? Very long? Well it was. I have never felt so incredibly desperate on a plane i must say! It took 38 hours to get to Bangkok including the layovers in New York, Vancouver and Hong Kong. Thankfully, our layover in Hong Kong was long enough to spend some time there and completely feel overwhelmed by China. Obviously, our adventure began in San Juan on Wednesday the 21st of May. We were ready to go as we chugged down our food from Wendy's and flew to New York City. On that San Juan - New York flight the funniest thing happened with a flight attendant named Patricia. One of the attendants, standing right next to me, in fact, yells over the center aisle "Hey Patricia, go over to that overhead bin and pick up that shit" in a very thick (VERY THICK) ebonics accent. It was hilarious and definitely the first of many incidents worthy of a classic Beto cackle. After laughing a bit, we finally arrived in JFK airport(delayed) and met up with Erin. Once with princess Erin from Samawi we changed terminals so that we could make our New York - Vancouver flight. This began to get annoying at this point.

When we finally made the flight, it took us five and a half hours to reach Vancouver. Delirious and tired, we began to act stupid and sleep in the hallways of the terminal which we had arrived in. Here you can see me having an attack on a Canadian wheelchair. Mind you, it was 5AM San Juan time and 2AM Vancouver time. Cathay Pacific (the airline we flew all the way to Bangkok from New York) feeds you about 7 times per flight so on top of that we were stuffed.
When it was time to board the Hong Kong flight (at 3AM Vancouver time, 6AM San Juan time) we were exhausted. We had played 'Who wants to be a millionaire' about 73 times on the plane, watched a number of movies and tried to sleep as much as we could. This next flight of 13 hours was going to be hell. As we take off on the Boeing 747 that was going to get us across the Pacific Ocean, it finally hit us we were on our way to China.

At some point on the flight, I fell asleep. I'm not sure what time it was but I know I was knocked out. Eventually through the flight, I wake up feeling refreshed and energized only to see on the flight map that we were over Alaska. ALASKA!!! Fuck!! I really wanted to have slept at least 8 hours or something. Only 3 hours had passed and 10 to go!! So I fall asleep again. This time waking up about 2 hours later as we flew over melting icebergs off the coast of Russia (the Siberian part). It was very interesting but we were still 8 hours away!! AAAARRGH!! The third time I fall asleep on that goddamn uncomfortable chair I'm woken up by a flight attendant asking me if I wanted juice or something. I had hoped we would be closer now. We were over Osaka, Japan this time! I thought we would be fairly close since Japan and China are near eachother. Guess again!! 4:45 minutes to go!! This was truly hell.. I would probably do it again but I would need to be extremely well prepared knowing now how long this shit is!

Finally, we are ready to land in Hong Kong! Wow! The feeling was amazing. To know you are literally on the other side of the world from your home and that you are experiencing something completely differente culturally is incredible. As we disembarked our plane, we went straight to customs and immigration and then off to the metro which took us a while to find in the airport. We also left our backpacks at a locker so that we could walk freely through the city. Once all was set, we began our journey into the city of Hong Kong.

It was hot!! REALLY HOT!! We were sweating like asian whores in a sweatshop. No pun intended but I'm not kidding! Hong Kong was a huge metal sauna. After walking a bit, we found our way to the Peak Tram downtown so that we could get the world famous views from Victoria Peak down into the city. The view was amazing!



Once down from Victoria Peak, we took a taxi to Mong Kok. A shopping neighborhood that was still quite traditional albeit having shopping malls and all the comforts of the modern world. The driver was an asshole and didn't understand us or us him for that matter and we were both speaking English. I am not being culturally insensitive. ;D

Lunch was gross! Beto wanted to puke and I couldn't eat it all.. We wanted Pepper Steak with pork fried rice. That shit doesn't exist in China. We had something that looked good but didn't quite taste that good. To the point that Jorge had Indian fast food! Something made out of potatoes and some cream (every chinese restaurant seems to have the word cream in it for some reason; Fong's Cream, Han Cream, Star Cream). The cream looked like it came out of Patricia's bottom but anyway, that's another story for another day. They even had dead ducks or pigeons or something at the mall.. They had their heads attached!! So crazy!! I loved the dead bird on display!!
After we ate, we went to H&M for Beto to find something and we ended up shopping for different things. Jorge and Beto bought music and I bought two shirts that were super cheap and super cool! We saw the famous game rooms where Chinese/Korean/Japanese kids go to spend their afternoons after school picking out those weird bunnies and rabbits that they like so much i.e. pokemon's, pikachu's, whatevers..

As usual, late, we ran like crazy people to the airport and got there in the nick of time. We almost missed our flight searching for the lockers which were in Terminal 2 and then running to Terminal 1 where our flight departed from. Our gate was number 29! We had to literally run and I had to leave the boys behind to make sure I could hold the door if they began to close the gate! Anyway, we made it safe and sound to Bangkok (I slept throughout that whole flight) and I can tell you that I love it already! Our hostel is really cool, modern and industrial looking with free internet, a cool little bar and the whore/slut/bitch district is only a few blocks away!! I want to see Thai prostitutes in action!! It's world famous. Believe me people, I do not pay for sex but I definitely do want to see what all the fuss is about. We're off to see the hookers the wonderful hookers of Bangkok! Until tomorrow when I'll give you the BKK update!! Love to all!!