April 14, 2007

In Hong Kong...sweet. This city totally reminds us of a larger Singapore. I think that's good and bad. It's really really different than the China we saw on our bike trip! We're getting our fix of all things western...so that's awesome.

Our trip here was quite the adventure. We arrived at the Guilin airport just 45 minutes before our departure and they had already closed the gate and immigration!! We think they gave away our seats before they should have...but we were pissed. Luckily, another couple (who happened to be from Oregon!) were in the same situation as us....and they had lived in Hong Kong before..so they BIG TIME helped us out. We were going to stay in Guilin another day and leave the following night. That would have meant I couldn't do my masterclass in Hong Kong so we didn't want that. So the other couple and us booked a flight to Shenzen (on mainland China) and then they had a car pick us all up and drive us the 1 hour drive into Hong Kong. That meant we went through China customs and Hong Kong customs...oh my gosh! It was quite a night. We were dropped off at our hotel at 2am and could not believe the sequence of events that lead to us actually getting to where we were supposed to be! HA!

My class at the HKAPA (Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts) went really well. The school is large and grown as much as Mahidol in the past 10 years. Pretty cool. We also had time to check out an art museum and walked around several different areas of the islands. The horn yeacher at HKAPA took us out for some amazing Italian. Oh my gosh..we're soo deprived in Bangkok. The Western food here is way more 'on' than Thailand. We've been going to this killer bakery every morning for ahhh soooo good pastries and fresh mango juice..yeah...amazing! Yesterday we also went to this aweome dumpling place that by far was the best dumplings we'd ever had. And today we had dim sum that was to die for! We're doing alright here...ahha. We went to the top of Victoria's Peak which is like THE thing to do as a tourist here. Other than that..it's a lot of shopping and some beaches. But the weather isn't great. We have one more full day here and we are bored of walking around so we're totally going to Hong Kong Disneyland tomorrow! HAHAH! I love it..I can't wait! Maybe that'll change tomorrow but we're pretty excited about it...hahhaah..we're such dorks!

Well...internet is harder to find here than in the mountain villages of China..hard to believe but we went to 2 separate internet cafes that were in lonely planet that are no longer there! SOOO annoying..we finally found a small place in the Chungking Mansions, which is a big Indian/Pakistani hang with shops and food and rip offs. hehe..

I won't write again until we're back home in Thailand...I miss Cheddar!