Semi-Charmed Life

Hong Kong and Back

The Return

Towards the end of my two week vacation in Taipei and Hong Kong, I was beginning to feel homesick and was more than ready to return home. It was my first real travel experience. I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it, but two weeks felt like a very long time to be away from home. I was yearning to be back in New York again.

After one disgustingly long and brutal flight, I was finally back home. One thing I've learned about traveling is that after a long flight, the best thing in the world after you get off that plane is knowing you have a ride home.

My brother was not free to pick me up the night I got back. I found out a few days prior to my departure so I had some time to try to look for a ride from somebody else, but I only asked one other person and after he said he was busy I decided that I'd just rather take the train back home. Of course, a person my age should have no problem with calling a cab back home but by the time I got back, I was out of that free-spending vacation mode and snapped right back into frugal mode. A cab ride to Brooklyn would not have been cheap.

Asking somebody for a lift from the airport is hard, especially on a Saturday night. Who the hell wants to drive all the way out to JFK on a Saturday night? You got it. Nobody.

Taking the train back home was good though. Hauling my heavy ass luggage through the trains felt like a new experience. It felt like my senses were heightened. I was more aware of the sights and smells of our subway system and how it contrasted with what I saw in Asia. The transit systems there are wonderfully modern and the trains and train stations almost seem warm and inviting compared to our near dungeon-like train system.

After I got home, I was immediately glad that I could shower in my own shower, shit in my own bathroom and sleep in my own bed.

The next day at work though, I was feeling like a zombie. A combination of jetlag and post-vacation blues was hitting me hard and I'm still feeling it right now. Being back at work felt surreal. Right now I'm feeling a bit empty and even a touch depressed. I was so worried today at work that I even googled it to see if it was normal and apparently it's not uncommon.

I've also gained quite a few pounds off this trip. Nearly everything I ate was either oily or fried. Chinese/Taiwanese food is not healthy. How the hell do people over there stay so thin?

It doesn't help that I have not done a lick of training or lifting in 3 weeks. I feel like such a slob. Tomorrow will be my first day back at the gym so hopefully that will snap me out of this shitty funk.

Hong Kong

I had two full days in Hong kong. My friends and I arrived in Hong Kong on a Wednesday afternoon and were scheduled to leave Saturday afternoon. It felt like such a short time relative to our stay in Taipei, which was over a week. At least one more full day would have been nice.

This was the hotel we stayed at. The area of TST it was located in was very touristy. Tons of hotels and expensive stores catered to foreigners. When the stores close and the crowds die down is when the working women come out. You can see them work their corners and sometimes they'll even run in packs of 2 or 3.

This was the first tourist trap we ran into. We didn't really have a guide in HK, so we did a lot of random exploring on our own. I think this spot might have been on Mody Road. There was a decent crowd around this joint. There were lots of pictures of them with famous HK celebrities on the wall. We figured the place looked legit so we ordered some curry fishballs, HK pancakes and some other food-on-a-stick items. The food was garbage! Expensive too. This picture was taken as a warning.

We discovered this awesome park in TST that was along Mody Road (or was it Nathan?)

The park had the most gorgeous swimming pool set up I have ever seen. This picture is just half of the swimming area. The place was an absolute urban paradise.

I was seriously impressed with this park. Like nothing I've ever seen.

I wish I could remember the name of the park. I tried to look it up on Google and I'm not sure if it's Kowloon Park. The pictures on the internet did not look like what I saw though.

Other than the park, we were really disappointed with our first night in Hong Kong. It was way more touristy than we wanted it to be. Thus far, the park was the only interesting thing we encountered. On our way back to the hotel, we made our way to the promenade and which was where I was able to take this picture. Amazing view!