samosas in hong kong.

A typical street in Hong Kong.

Looking back on my time in China, I see a major transition from the other ports. I think India scared me a little. It was the first port where I felt like maybe I had messed up. There are a million and one ways you could spend your time in any given port. Yet, you choose one and go for it, with everything you have. Hindsight is always 20/20 and the grass is always going to be a least a little bit greener on the other side. In the end, though, you could sit there for hours analyzing each port and each minute you had there and how you chose to spend it, making yourself crazy. When you have an amazing opportunity like this, it is only natural to have the fear that one day you will look  back and think, "Maybe, I didn't do it right. If only I had done this instead of this." Yet, there is an unspoken art in learning to be happy with what you did and what you will do in the future. This is what I was coming to terms with in China.
I had felt constrained by the group in India. And, that is the last way you want to feel when you are traveling the world. Then, the very next port, Vietnam, I went on another Semester at Sea organized trip to Cambodia and, though I did not feel nearly as restricted, the larger group innately made me feel like I could not completely experience everything exactly as I would have wanted.
Thus, I was determined to experience China on my own. I was still secretly looking for that Eat, Pray, Love revelation, even if it didn't happen in India. And, it seemed like China was the perfect port to do it in because I had been there before. Nearly everyone I knew was determined to see the Great Wall. We initially ported in Hong Kong and had the option of getting back on the boat or traveling overland to meet the boat in Shanghai. Hong Kong is in the far south, Beijing is in the north, and Shanghai is somewhere in the middle to the east. So, while the Great Wall is pretty cool I didn't really see the need to travel an additional 2 and a half hours by plane to see it again.
Luckily, my friend, Emily, was not interested in going to the Great Wall either. We booked plane tickets straight from Hong Kong to Shanghai and agreed that we wanted this port to be our own so, while we would stay in the same hostels and, for the most part, eat together, neither of us would be offended if the other wanted to go off on our own.

Emily, in our hostel the first night.

The first day, I had a FDP to the offices a social activist group. It did not start until the afternoon, so that morning, a group of us set out to hike "The Most Beautiful Urban Hike in Asia," Dragon's Breath Peak. We thought we would be able to ask a couple of people along the way how to get there but, whether because of the language barrier or more likely because people in China just don't hike too much, no one had heard of it. Everyone had heard of Victoria’s Peak, though, a viewing point on the top of a hill in the center of town. From the top, you can see the entire city below. So, we eventually grew tired of asking and gave up on Dragon's Breath. We set out to hike to the top of Victoria's Peak. Yet, we failed at that as well. No one walks to the top of Victoria's Peak. You can walk down, but you can't walk up? Even if you ask where the exit to the walk down is its a secret. No one will tell. So, we gave in and took the tram ride up. And it was completely worthwhile, even if we did not get to hike at all. It is definitely one of the coolest viewing areas I have ever seen.
That night we went out on a street called Lan Kwai Fong. It was a lot of fun. I guess I would say it is kind of like Hong Kong's version of Bourbon Street. Bars line the street but they are so packed that people just spill out onto the streets and its like one big party.

Early the next morning, Emily and I went on a mission to find a hostel. The boat was leaving for Shanghai that night and we wanted to be sure we had somewhere to stay when it left port. We noticed online that there was an area of town with a proportionately high number of hostels. So we decided to go there, choose one and be on with the rest of our day.  

This was not as easy as we had hoped. We arrived at the first hostel, which was located in what is called a mansion. Mansions are essentially apartment buildings, with everything from hostels to restaurants to currency exchanges inside. We had arbitrarily picked a hostel from the list and took the elevator up. Just getting onto the elevator was an adventure. Because so much is packed into these mansions, that there is a line to get onto the elevator. 

We reached our floor, squeezed out of the elevator and knocked on the door that read             "R ception." A small, older Chinese woman came to the door. She inquired (maybe screamed would be a more apt word) as to whether or not we were the British girls she had talked to earlier that day. We said we weren’t and, without a blink, she began to close to the door. Could we make a reservation for tonight? “No! Reservations only make online!” We went to two more hostels and had the same exchange with the people we met there. We finally made our way back to the ground level of the mansion.

the view from our hostel room.

As we looked for somewhere to reevaluate our strategy, we noticed a bunch of small Indian food stalls on the main floor. We hadn’t left India that long ago but the food looked too good to pass up. And, let’s face it, when is a bad time to have Indian food, even when you are in Hong Kong. We stopped in one of the stalls for some curry, naan and samosas. The restaurant’s owner was from Punjab. He was so excited that we had been to India, even if we hadn’t been to Punjab, and that we were from the United States that he told everyone that came into the restaurant our story. We stayed there for a while after we ate, just chatting to all of the people who came in, all of whom were from India. How cool is it that I can talk to Indian people about India while I am traveling in Hong Kong?

Eventually, we resumed our search for a hostel. But, apparently we looked pretty lost because a guy name Marcos stopped us and asked if we needed help. He was from Spain but had just lived in Australia for three years and was now traveling the world for 3 months before he went back home. He was an expert hostel booker and told us there was no way we were even looking at a hostel unless we booked the reservation first. Since it was getting late, we wanted to find internet right away and make a reservation for at least the first night. Marcos helped us find internet and gave us a list of everything he had done and everything we should do while we were in Hong Kong. He was leaving that night but was a huge help. He probably spent a good 2 and a half hours of his time helping us get everything situated for the rest of our trip. He even told us about a hostel on the other side of town in a really nice area that he had heard of and, though it was booked for that night, helped us book beds for the next two nights that we were there.
If someone had approached me in a similar way in the United States, I would have been skeptical and creeped out. But, I guess when you are traveling, you learn that, at some points, you are going to have to rely on strangers. You could do a background check on everyone you meet. But, you probably won't and you will end up using your absolute best judgement and gut. And, ultimately, at least I learned, that people will surprise you.
 Marcos had helped us book a 2-person room at a guesthouse in a mansion just down the street for that night. We decided to go there right after we left Marcos and drop our stuff off. It was satisfactorily clean and safe and the woman who ran it invited us to "a party" on her roof "with beers and her new British friend." We politely declined and went out to find some dinner. Afterwards, we were exhausted so we went to the top of the Sheraton hotel to watch the light show that happens every night across the Hong Kong skyline. By the end of the day, we really had not accomplished that much but I was sure it had been a day that will hold its weight amongst others on this amazing trip.