Our 16 hour flight to Hong Kong only took 14.5 hours, and it was a surprisingly short 14.5 hours. I watched two mediocre movies, took a two hour nap. Then Lisa and I decided we needed a drink.
We go to the back of the plane to find Eileen, one of the flight attendants. She's a slight, Asian woman, with a bit of an accent, probably in her early 50s. We tell her we want whiskey, and she offers us a choice of Jack or Dewars. Another flight attendant comes by, and opens up a bottle of each, pours each into a separate glass, and tells us to give each a taste. I don't like whiskey straight, and neither does Lisa, but we decide we'd like to try to party with our new friend Eileen. A tall white guy wearing a Hong Kong rugby jersey (he plays for the team... I ALWAYS meet rugby players) comes by and I offer him a sip of each. I mix up the glasses, and have no idea which is which. I say "fuck it, Eileen, give em both to me, with some ginger ale." Eileen looks worried and warns me that the last time she gave a lot of whiskey to someone at 35,000 feet had to be zip-tied and escorted off the plane by the police. I promised her I could control myself. The white guy starts talking to Eileen in fluent chinese. Lisa and I marvel at them, and are jealous we can't speak any. Eileen dumps the two glasses into one, and promptly charges us for both whiskeys, which wouldn't have happened if the other guy hadn't decided we needed a taste test. Fucking Eileen. Thought we were friends. I also realize at this point that I either make my drinks at home really strong, or those airplane bottles are really tiny, because the drink wasn't too strong, even though Eileen was right about that shit hitting hard at high altitude. Next thing I know, they're serving breakfast.
We get to the hostel easily. This was Lisa and Timeka's first hostel experience, and as such we decided to book a whole room to ourselves, so that even though we'd be sleeping in dorm beds in a very simple room, we wouldn't have to deal with college kids. Better for me, too, because I'm just getting too old to have to deal with backpackers. We carry our luggage up a flight of stairs- not a problem for me because I packed really light, but much more of a problem for Timeka, whose hard-sided luggage is jam-packed with space saver bags and packed to the hilt. We check in, but it turns out that we're in the building across the street. Back down the stairs. Other building has an elevator. We open the door. It's occupied. I go back to the check-in. Someone screwed up. They give us two private rooms (one is an upgrade with a private shower and toilet). The other.... Also occupied. Screw up #2. Back to the other building. Turns out the people who were supposed to check out never did, and kinda disappeared. I hope they're not dead, but we're all annoyed. We let Timeka have the private room, and Lisa and I have to spend the night in a two-person dorm room in the 1st building. We leave all our stuff with Timeka. The dorm room is a converted office space, no doubt. It was a little like what I would imagine INS prison would look like: two metal beds, a small ikea-like desk. And there was a water pipe above our heads, so every time someone flushed a toilet, we would be awoken by a loud WHOOSH of water overhead. But our rooms were clean and comfortable, and Hong Kong is expensive, and for $30 a night we really can't complain.
We wander around for dinner, and find a small market street nearby that has fruit vendors and seafood restaurants. We walk into one, jam-packed with plastic tables and chairs, and not a gaijin (foreigner) in sight. Perfect. We order 2 noodle dishes, a ginger fish and bean curd hot pot, and a vegetable. Entirely too much food. The waiter asks us if we know what the hot pot is; that it only contains "fish bodies," I guess as opposed to fish heads and entrails, and if that's ok. Uh, yeah, you can give the fish entrails to someone else. Lisa tries her best to make friends with the two Young men next to us. They really don't understand anything she was saying. She tries to cheers them with her beer. They finally catch on. We a so starving that Timeka can't stop eyeing their food. These poor guys. Lisa persists, and tries to ask them about tipping procedures. They get confused, and seem to think Lisa is trying to pay their bill.
We are a motley crew: a Mexican American, a Black girl, and a white girl with pink hair. We must stick out like a sore thumb, but Hong Kong seems very cosmopolitan, very refined, and no one seems to be looking or give a shit.
Except for the only other Black girl we saw. We get on the subway, and a young, dark skinned black girl happens to be next to us. She looks right at Timeka and says "hi" and they smile at each other. Lisa and I look at each other and suppress our giggles. Now we're looking all over for a Latina for Lisa to bond with.
We go back to the hostel, a long, uneventful, but pretty successful first day tucked under our belts. I am surrounded by a young pack of Brits, practicing some Chinese phrases, giggling too loudly for my liking, and making plans to go out for the evening. I am annoyed mostly because their accents sounded snobby and I felt like I was stuck in a scene in Harry Potter goes to Hong Kong. Even in Hong Kong, I am more racist towards Other White People. I am not upset by this at all.
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