I made it!

My journey began early on Saturday. The flight to San Francisco went really well, but then my flight to Hong Kong didn't leave until an hour and a half later than it was supposed to, which was annoying. Everyone was crowding the terminal to board for like 2 hours, haha. Then I got on my flight, which was United. All the other international flights I have been on have had slightly larger seats and a TV for each seat, but this one didn't. So not my favorite 14 hour flight ever. And literally, they began on our shared TV with the most boring shows ever: first some kind of Discovery Channel show on building houses, and then, I am not even joking, a show about wheat. It's as if they were trying to prolong the flight. Luckily they got into movies after that, which was slightly better. Also the food was not very much. They like to give you those ramen bowls on Chinese flights but they are the least filling thing ever.

Finally I arrived in Hong Kong. It was going to a foreign country but so familiar, it felt pretty normal and comforting to be back. I took an airport bus to my hostel, which was pretty fast and efficient. Luckily this guy on the bus helped me with my bag and finding the hostel, otherwise I would have struggled a lot more. It's in Fortress Hill, which is near an MTR station. It is more local, by which I mean that you don't see tons of foreigners, but it has all the restaurants and stores, as well as lots of bus stops and a tram stop. The hostel is in a residential building though so it's kind of random and hidden. I checked in to my dorm room and met up with my friend Claire from my HKU days, who is interning here for the summer. We ate at Hui Lau Shan, my favorite place ever- it has mango drinks and dessert that are totally amazing. I've tried eating mango stuff in the states but nothing compares, this is sooo good.

I woke up early this morning and headed to Wan Chai to get my Chinese visa. I usually didn't wake up early when I studied abroad, and if I did, I headed straight to HKU and there wasn't much around where I lived. But here, I stopped at a bakery and got a fresh pastry and watched everyone buy newspapers. Literally everyone was reading a paper on the MTR, that biz does well here. The visa app was pretty quick so after I headed to TST (Tsim Sha Tsui) to walk around and then went to Mongkok. I had never been out there that early and not a lot of stuff was open at 10 am. They were just setting up the Ladies Market, which is a long market street. But everything is open so late that it makes sense, really.

Well, Claire gets off work at 6 every night so I will be hanging out with her later. For now, I took a little break from walking around and the rain. Although now it is sunny so this weather is kind of crazy.