A Vacation from My Vacation

A Vacation from My Vacation

Ever since I submitted a paper for my Chinese Investment class last Thursday, I have been on an even greater vacation than before. I officially don’t have anything due again until April 22nd, and look forward to taking full advantage of my extra free time. A little run down of what I’ve been up to the last week:

Last Thursday was pretty relaxing (I feel like I’m saying that a lot) and at night I went to get some dinner with Alex and Cathy in Mongkok before meeting up with Niclas at the Red Bar, which is situated on the 5^th floor of the IFC Mall, right next to the monstrous IFC building. Such a wonderful view of the Kowloon side of the harbor, in addition to feeling completely miniscule sitting next to such an enormous building. From there, we headed over to LKF for a night of debauchery. However, this night was different because of the Rugby Sevens, a huge rugby tournament that is played each year in Hong Kong’s Happy Valley (yup the horse race course). So, needless to say, there were way too many older white gentlemen for my liking, but it turned out to be a pretty fun night anyway – Club 7 (read: 7-11) was rockin’ the whole night.

Saturday I went into Shenzhen with a friend and his Chinese roommate. I had been looking to buy a netbook, and my friend Matt needed to buy train/bus tickets for his trip to Vietnam this weekend. I can’t express how nice it was to have someone who spoke the language, especially as Matt was trying to negotiate the bus fares. Basically, it was like how I felt on vacation, where you arrive at the train station, and there are touts everywhere trying to get your business – Shenzhen was no different. Luckily, after visiting many of these so-called “travel agencies” we were able to get a good rate on a bus that they were sure would leave. The interesting part is that these agencies basically quote you a price based on what they think the train/bus company will charge them for buying in bulk, and sell you the promise of a ticket regardless of the actual price. It’s basically just a futures contract, which was pretty funny to realize.

After a quick meal of noodles, dumplings and baozi, we went back to the electronics market that I had been to last month. Lucky for me, there was an entire floor for laptops and netbooks, however, to my dismay, the prices here were no different from the ones I had seen on Thursday in Mong Kok. After we kept asking each post for their cheapest netbook, which were inevitably too expensive, I asked my Chinese friend to ask where the fake ones were. Seeing as I was only going to rely on this device for my travels in May, and mostly as a toy, I didn’t really think I needed it to look pretty, just to function.

Immediately, one salesperson said she would take us across the street where we could find the cheaper stuff. It was funny, because our Chinese friend Lingxiao told us that the women told him as though it was the stupidest question he could have asked, assuming he was from Shenzhen. This is interesting, because unlike most cities, which are homogenous to the surrounding area (Lingxiao is from Xi’an, in the north of China), Shenzhen is a city of migrants. It used to just be a fishing village, and then the population exploded in the 80’s after Deng Xiaoping opened up Shenzhen as a Special Economic Zone – transforming the village into a metropolis equaling, and rivaling Hong Kong.

We went across the street, and after the first store was unsuccessful, I was able to find one shop selling a Sony Vaio netbook for the price I was looking for, circa $200 US. I played around with it, and it looked legit. We haggled the price for a bit – I got a case and mouse thrown in – and then agreed to get the cash at the ATM downstairs. This was all done in a big rush because it was 5:40, and the shops close at 6. Two empty ATMs and 8 flights of stairs later, we were back at the shop at 5:59, just as the lights were turning off. I blame this as the reason I didn’t notice how fake it really was. The SONY stickers and whatnot are all just a tiny bit on a slant, indicating that they were peeled off something else and placed there. Oh well. All I can say for now is that it works pretty nicely, and if it lasts for a while, I’ll be a happy camper (Note: Mom, if it still works when I get back, I definitely think we can set this up for Grandma).

The last interesting part of the day was getting back across the border. Just as we were exiting China, I started talking to a big, burly American with a nice thick Midwestern accent next to me in line. Turns out that his story was pretty alarming. He works for a company that contracts with H-P to fix some machines and has been in HK since February. Last week, we had a seizure and has been in the hospital for a week since. Turns out, it was a brain tumor – he says this chuckling, I guess that’s the only way you can handle it, though the doctors said it was operable. Anyway, he felt too pent up in the hospital waiting for his emergency evacuation back to the US, and convinced them to give him a couple hours outside. This, paired with his boss who felt bad enough for him to let him run up $1000 on the corporate credit card, turned into a longer-than-expected day in Shenzhen. He was rolling a suitcase behind him that he had bought there to carry back all the stuff he had bought. So goes China.

Sunday and Monday were pretty uneventful except for some marathon Skype calls to my Chimers back in the US for our recruitment meetings, starting at 6:30am and ending at 3pm with a one hour break – yeah, it was intense. Also, on Monday, I went down to Wan Chai to apply for my new China visa, a multi-entry I’ll have you know! Unfortunately, because of the Rugby Sevens, everyone and their mother was out getting their visas, which made a normally 2 minute wait to enter the building into a one-hour affair. Good thing I’ve got my audiobooks, don’t know what I’d do without them.

Monday night, Kent, Cathy, Niclas and a new friend Brian went back to Mui Wo on Lantau Island to enjoy the last night of the Chinese Lantern Festival, some derivative of Chinese New Year. Little did we know until we arrived that the last day was actually the day before. Anyway, after arriving, we still enjoyed walking down by the side of the bay (this is where we were last weekend called Silvermine Beach) and saw some people dropping the flower-enclosed candles into the water to float down. This sounds a lot cooler than it was, because, as I’ve come to learn more and more about HK, the flowers were fake, and it was mostly just people getting excited about it – it reminded me a lot of the CUHK graduation with the big stuffed animals and fake flowers.  Either way, a somewhat dysfunctional idea was made much better by some of the freshest seafood I’ll ever have and beer that is cheaper than water.

(Cathy and Niclas on the ferry to Mui Wo)

(Lots of "candles" aka lights held up at the end)

(Apparently the real lantern festival is much cooler)

(Up close and personal)

(The fakeness really comes out when you stand next to them)

(I didn't realize Cathy was still taking a picture!)

(Dinner at the "Cooked Food Market")

While this has all been fun, most of my time, and the conversations I have with people nowadays, has been focused on travel plans.  With Easter “break” approaching fast, and finals even faster, everybody is planning their trips.  It is so exciting to talk to people about this stuff, that I realize that my travel bug will never leave me. Many people will be in mainland China around the same time as me, and others will be spending weeks in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and everywhere in between.  

For me though, I’ve been more excited about my trip to Cambodia, which I leave for on Sunday night. Adding to the excitement was that Niclas was able to plan himself a route to meet up with Floor and myself for our 5 days in Cambodia. I think three people is the optimal number of people to travel with, because its still small enough for one room, but you also have less pressure to talk on those long bus rides, and someone will always be sitting alone with a new person, adding to the adventures.

Also, I spent a good deal of time hammering out the details of my trip to China and India in May. I’ll be starting off in China, visiting Kunming (SW China), Chengdu and Xi’an with my good friend from WashU, Kathryn Sparks, and then doing a week plus in Beijing and Shanghai on my own. Then, I’ll fly from Shanghai to Mumbai, spend three days there, and then meet up with my friend Neehar in New Delhi for three days, and then head back to HK and to the US.  My excitement for this trip is only matched by my sadness that this will be the culmination of my semester abroad. Let’s not talk about that though.

I hope all the Jews around the world had a wonderful Seder and are having a happy Pesach, and that my gentile friends have a very Happy Easter this Sunday! My next post will be post-Cambodia, which will be sure to amaze.