Mong Kook

Ok, I can't really count the number of times I've just looked around at a beach or looked up at a skyscraper just within this first week and a half and said to (and pinched) myself, "I'm in *&%$ Hong Kong." It's just too much.

In the city, it's crazy. No space goes un-advertised; I mean nothing (I saw ads for cell phones on steps the other day). Neon is everywhere. The amount of neon here would make Vegas cringe. And I haven't seen a building near the city yet that isn't at least seven stories high. My residence hall has nine floors, and it's the small one. The buildings are New-York-tall on both sides of the harbor and the view is pee-your-pants amazing at night from afar. There are about a million people out on the streets and in the shops and in the subways at all times of day and night.

Does everyone in the city like shopping??? Go ahead and think of a product you would buy for yourself. Anything. They have an entire market devoted to it. A few days ago, I spent about an hour and a half walking through an entire city block devoted on both sides to just sneakers. I got a nice Sony Ericsson cell phone for US$60 that can call to the US for 8 cents a minute, and I think I got ripped off!

I'm almost always the tallest person wherever I am, which means people tend to stare. If I'm with only Westerners, they do it discretely...only staring when we aren't looking. But if we're with other Chinese students, they just blatantly do it. Children don't care who we're with; they'll do it either way. But they get away with it because they're so darn cute. 

Last weekend we visited the south part of the island and another surrounding island, and the beaches were seriously as beautiful as the ones my family and I visited when we went on our cruise to the Virgin Islands. It was just a feeling I couldn't describe being in a vast metropolitan city one minute and being on a remote, serene beach 30 minutes later.

I love Hong Kong!

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