But sadly, 10 days is all we had to give Taiwan on my first time there. It was a great time there, but only a sampling of the beginning.
We woke up fresh and early at 4 am to get ready for our flight. Breakfast and coffee wasn't ready at the hotel yet so we had snacks and tea in our room and packed everything up. We arrived at the airport without incident and checked in for our flights, said our goodbyes and scurried through the airport in search of our gate. On our way through, we stopped in the duty free to see the thousand dollar ($CAD) bottles of cognac and the fancy chocolates. Got to our gate and sat for 30 min until boarding began for our flight.
Melody doesn't like waking up early
China Airlines was a remarkably different experience from Cathay Pacific. Cathay had a very Western-Asian fusion feel to it. The announcements and flight packages were in english, the attendants spoke English by default and used Mandarin/Cantonese where required, there were English movies on the big fancy headrest TV sets. China Airlines felt distinctly older and just a little bit more uptight. Not that any of this was a big concern; people were professional and it was just a 1.5 hr flight for us. But the overall atmosphere of the two flights was extremely different.
Landing in Hong Kong, we quickly felt the rush of the city. People everywhere in the airport. Walking in every directions. Random tour guides trying to pick you up and take you around the city for a quick dollar. And in the midst of all the people, the PA system going non stop between Canto, Mandarin, and English.
Even though I couldn't understand it, hearing the familiar sounds of Cantonese brought feelings of recognition to me. I was home. The place I'd never been to before was ready for me to explore.
Our first experience of the roadways in Hong Kong was in the upper level, front seat position of the A29 bus. It tore out of the parking loop, heading full speed up the high ramp, on the left side of the road. Having lived in North America for almost all of my 21 years, driving on the right side of the road is something that I'm very accustomed to. Being on the left side of the highway, 4 metres above the ground because I'm in a double decker bus, is something that can certainly get your heart racing.
On the magical bus
Crossing the bridge!
Zoom zoom!
The ride itself gave us some nice views of the city as we left airport island, headed to Lantau island, and crossed the big bridge into Hong Kong. Some 30 minutes later, we arrived in Po Lam, on the west side of Kowloon, aka the New Territories.
At this point in time, I still believed the adage that many people had given me before I left for Asia
When you're in Hong Kong, you'll be able to get almost anywhere with just English
This is the biggest load I've ever heard. In Hong Kong, there are 3 main languages and 1 minor language. The first 3 are Cantonese, Mandarin, and English numbers (in addition to the words/phrases Yes, No, No Discount, etc). The minor language is English. I have found that very few locals can give you much help with navigation in Cantonese, with exception of about 50% of Hong Kong residents of my generation and the sales people in some of the fancier shops/restaurants/clubs of the tourist trap areas such as LKF (Don't try asking for bus route info from the old man who sits outside the temple up in the North West part of Kowloon. The part that is about 3 kilometers from China's border).
I have a very amateur knowledge of Cantonese and can tell you what kind of Dim Sum you're eating, but I sure couldn't name HKUST (香港科技大學) in Cantonese when I tried to ask the bus station attendant about which bus we could take to get to our long awaited destination. Which is why I probably looked like a big annoyed and impatient foreigner when I basically started speaking louder and slower "AITCH KAY UUUU ESSS TEEEE".
Miraculously, we eventually found the correct bus and managed to get to the university, unscathed.
Our next challenge in Amazing Race: TPE>HKG edition, was to move into res. We came prepared with extra passport photos and these helped us get our resident cards from the hall attendant ladies. When we began the small exchange of words ("sit here", "sign that", "fill this out"), I thought I was being helpful to try and use as much Canto as I could (which wasn't much, to be honest). It was at this point when I realized that the hall attendants and just about every staff person at the university knows very little English. This didn't seem to be too much of a concern, as I wanted language immersion while I was here. But when I discovered my drawer key didn't work (the magical drawer where I expected to safely stow my passport and extra cash), I realized I had a challenge on my hands.
Hall Attendant: Room OK?
Jordan: Uh... Saw-si mmm ho ah!
Hall Attendant: Uh... Ok Ok! scribbles on paper
I was glad that the essential part of the message was communicated, no matter how embarrassing I must have seemed to the poor man. I even managed to somehow get him to explain that it may get fixed in 3 days or so. And thus is the beginning of my Cantonese-Immersion-Awkward-HandGesture-HongKong-Edition lessons.
After dropping off our bags, we got some ramen for dinner at one of the restaurants. Following this, we were so tired that all we could do tuck in for a long awaited sleep.
Hong Kong!
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