Hong Kong Day 1-3/29/09

I got up at 7 am to watch us pull into Hong Kong.  It was a really hazy day and it was hard to see very far but you could see the skyscrapers in the clouds.  The skyline is incredible with more skyscrapers than any city I have seen and was really interesting to look at the tops of each of the buildings reading what corporations were written on them (Phillips, Olympus, Bank of American, ING, AIG, LG).  Our port was across from Hong Kong Island itself and on Kowloon and one of the most densely populated places in the world.  Before we were allowed to get off we had a diplomatic briefing and they made a clear distinction between Hong Kong and China.  Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region (S.A.R.) of China and was created to ease the transition of an open market capitalism economy of Hong Kong with that of China's Communist Government when the British handed over Hong Kong.  The slogan is "one country, two systems" as Hong Kong remains a capitalist economy and freedom of speech but does not have the various restrictions of mainland China such as news censorship and foreign exchange controls. 

That day we were on a quest for two things, a Japan Rail Pass and bagels.  One of our friends' mom had sent him the address of a deli in Hong Kong.  We had an address and the taxi drivers had no idea where it was.  Mack finally called the place and got them to tell the taxi driver where the place was.  When we finally found the place, they weren't even open yet…you would think they would have told us that on the phone.  It turns out the only bagels they had were frozen anyways so we went and walked around trying to find another place to eat.  We ended up eating at an Irish Pub and found out that the Rugby world championships were being held in Hong Kong that day.  I had a list of travel agencies that sold the rail pass so I tried calling them because it was Sunday and we wanted to make sure they were opened and it turned out they weren't.  Dan called one of his friends and he had found a place right next to the port that sold the passes so we headed there, checking with a few travel agencies along the way but no place had it.  We finally arrived at the place that did have them and we were told that they may not be able to get it that day, which was a problem as we were all heading to Beijing the next day.  They finally were able to get it worked out and said we would have to pay there but then go to another location to pick the passes up.  We paid our $300 for them, not knowing if we would ever see the rail passes at this "mystery location" they were sending it to and whether or not it existed.  I got mad because I think that as we had just spent $3,000 at their travel agency and we were unfamiliar with the city, that they should have sent someone over with the passes so 10 of us didn't have to go pick them up.  Anyways, that was going to happen and we needed the passes so we had to go to the other location.  We took the train there and they actually did have the passes.  From there we were planning on heading to the stadium to check out the rugby game.  When we were on the subway heading to the game, Dan go a phone call saying they had screwed up the passes and we needed to go back and change them out.  Mack and Dan decided it was dumb for all of us to go back so they would go back and meet us at the stadium.  We were told the stadium was at the last stop of the line we were on so we took it all the way out which took like 30 minutes.  When we arrived at the station there was no stadium to be found and I asked someone who said it was about 20 minutes by subway the other direction so we got back on the train.  By this time Mack and Dan who had went to exchange the passes had already beat us to the stadium.  Unfortunately there was no tickets available anymore for the games but right outside the stadium there was a big screen TV and lots of seating with food and drinks.  We watched the final championship game in which Fiji won  and then headed back to the ship to get ready for the night.  We decided to go eat first at a Chinese restaurant.  We ate and drank and were treated like Gods because of how much food and drinks we got.  They didn't have any liquor at the restaurant, only beer and wine so one of my friends paid the waiter to go down the street and get Johnnie Walker Black Label.  In the meantime they found this Chinese liquor which we all tried and was the most potent/disgusting drink we had all ever tried that we were almost to the point of tears.  After dinner/drinks we headed to the area where everyone was going that night called "Lan Kwai Fong."  Once there it a few streets with a ton of bars, mostly taken over by Semester at Sea students and other Westerners.   It was all pedestrian streets so everyone could drink in the street and it was one big party in Hong Kong.  Between each port we have what are called interport lecturers and students who speak to us about their country and help to provide some local insight.  The Hong Kong interport student was out that night and everyone made an effort to buy him a drink.  In the morning I was doing an SAS trip to his University and he was the one leading it so I talked to him for a while so I knew him the next day.  We took a taxi back to the ship later on that night since the street was on Hong Kong Island and we had to go back to Kowloon.