China Entry the Sixth: Hong Kong Day Two

It's raining. Not like monsoon-raining, but like "there was just a monsoon the other week and now it's raining like crazy" raining.

Anyway, so Ho arrives at 11am. Having had my Bucks, I'm feeling ready for the day. More specifically, I'm ready to head off for some dim sum, which is what we're doing. Have I mentioned that it's already day two and I've eaten more than I normally would in four or five days? The 7-11's have pork buns! We head off, we get lost several times but that's fine because I get to watch school children play and see a university.




We get to the recommended dim sum place. And it is delicious. We gorge on pot stickers and dumplings and spare ribs and rice and more and more dumplings. I am going to gain 15 pounds on this trip. I cannot stop eating (or apparently writing journal entries devoted to nothing but eating). I promise tihs trip becomes about more than dim sum pretty soon.

After dim sum, we head to Mong Kok, home of the most massive shopping area I've ever seen. I am totally freaked out by the volume of people. Totally overwhelming. People are packed into every available spot. Just...people...everywhere. I could never, ever make the adjustment to living like that. I am sure that if you spend your entire life living in such a densely populated area, you probably then feel very alone and exposed in less crowded places -- for example most US cities. I am sure that if you grow up in a densely populated area like Hong Kong, you don't even notice much of the stress of maneuvering through seas of people just to walk a block. I, however, grew up near farms. I can barely handle it and almost freak out several times.










After a break to refresh, by which I mean I took a break to refresh and Ho and Lisa just kept going at full speed BECAUSE THEY NEVER NEED TO REST, we met up with Bo for dinner at the famous Jumbo floating restaurant. Touristy? A bit. Did we care? No, because it was mega fun. Deal with it. And also, mmmmmm, delicious. Yes, I'm recounting the menu for you since this entire travel journal is about how Jocelyn ate China: crispy Peking duck skin, shark soup, fried crab puffs, lettuce wraps with duck, duck fried rice, shrimp with cashews and vegetables, dumplings and mango pudding. By the time we leave the restaurant, the city is dark and beautiful. Hong Kong at night is stunning.









After dinner, we head out to a party for one of Bo's friends at some ultra trendy night club where they have red wine and smokes distributed by an adorable looking half-Frenchie. They also have Nick, who is an ex-pat who actually grew up in Dublin, OH, which is where my uncle and aunt live and where I've spent a lot of time! AND he knew Ho's old boss from Beijing. Even 15 time zones away, the world is a small place.

Then we head out to take a ride on the world's longest escalator before we call it a night.

For the record, the world's longest escalator is actually the longest series of individual escalators in a row. But the night is pretty, and it's a delightful ride, if also totally mis-named.

It was a delicious day and night. We fall asleep immediately. Which is good, because the next day is very, very, long...