(10) Pinxiang to Hanoi: What Locals Will Do For $5

* Upon arriving in Pinxiang, which was only a few kilometers from the vietnamese border, martin, sabine, and myself befriended an israeli traveler named roy. yes, roy. so now the group was up to 4. we needed to get from pinxiang to "friendship pass". to do so, instead of walking, we decided to take the chinese easy rider form of transport - the death rickshaw. there were only 4 times where we almost died on this contraption. if memory serves, i'm pretty sure the guy wore those type of "red baron", dust-cropper, 1920's pilot goggles. if he had a red scarf on, waving in the wind, i would have felt much better about coming so close to death on the open roads between pinxiang & friendship pass.





(*) the border control was a zoo. and with that being true, then the "public train station" from the border to hanoi, vietnam was a nightmarish carnival. the taxi we jumped in at the border promised to take us to the "public train station" in a vietnamese border town named Lingzhu. well, what we got was a guaranteed box of shit. the taxi dropped us off in the equivalent of some guy's backyard. the guy's backyard had 12-15 guys sitting around, and 3 mini vans. after a good 30 minute negotiation with the head guy, who will now be referred to as "captain douchebag", the agreed price was $5 apiece for myself, sabine, martin & roy. sabine handed him the money first. we eventually all followed suit.

we were then all hearded into the mini van which could comfortably fit 12 including driver. however, 1230980234 of us were packed in there. ok, slight exaggeration. 1123423874 were squeezed in there. upon being squeezed, all of a sudden captain douchebag tears ass towards the van, sticks his head in & starts yelling & getting in the face of sabine screaming something in vietnamese that he failed to pay her $5.

great. here we go.

we continue to just sit there and telling him in english "we've paid" "check your pockets" "kiss my ass" and other assorted english phrases which were of absolutely no use. then captain douchebag's assistant, lieutenant dickhead, decided to get all up in our kool-aid without even knowing our flavors. here is a picture of the guy. if you see him, punch him in the nuts for me.



captain douchebag & lieutenant dickhead were then yelling in our face & taking our bags & throwing them off the van. at this point, things are getting somewhat out of hand, so i suck it up & throw $5 at the guy and tell him "here is $5 you a$$h*le". this hurt me because i knew he did not understand it. the guy, excuse me, captain douchebag, knew we already gave him the money as he refused to empty his pockets in front of us, yet he took our money anyways.

then the fiasco continued in terms of we took off from the "public bus station" and stopped outside of a hut where an elderly woman boarded the overstuffed van. this woman either had black licorice as teeth, or had the most disgusting rotting teeth i have ever seen in my life. then lieutenant dickhead gave me a suitcase to hang on to for the entire ride, which he was delivering to someone. i told him i would do so only for $1. he only smiled. if he spoke english, the remainder of that conversation would have been entertaining for myself. he had previously tried to mumble, while we were arguing over the $5, that it was "only $5". i tried to argue with him over the suitcase that it was "only $1". realizing however that my $5 meant a lot more to him & his family then it ever would to me, i cut the conversation & my own form of self-amusement short.

but, i still had to taste vengeance. so, i quietly brooded by taking my keys and carving into the samsonite luggage a choice english phrase or two.

2 hours later, and with a dead ipod, we arrived in hanoi. we were dropped off in front of a hostel. and when i say "dropped", quite literally, we had our luggage thrown out the van before it came to a complete stop, and we quickly had to make sure all of our bags were removed before the van took off. surprise, surprise, they "forgot" to unload my bag. i yelled at lieutenant dickhead, threw my hand back into the van's open side door, and ripped out my bag as the van had begun to take off. the driver slammed on the break, looked back, and gave a half ass smile / i'm sorry. i waved back with my middle finger. i tried to tell him, as the little kid outside the nanning train station had told me, that he was #1.

note to the reader: this was by far the worst thing that happened to me on the entire trip. and, if the worst thing that happened to me over about a month or so was that i got scammed out of $5 and yelled at the driver b/c i was overly tired, exhausted, and irritated, i give the trip an overall grade of A+.

we hadn't taken more than 3 seconds to realize we had just gotten off the van & were now in a distant foreign city with no shelter & no rest for the weary, when the guy from the hostel which we were dropped outside of, was already trying to sell us a room. i immediately turned around, and thinking this was just another guy trying to rip me off, i told him, "i'm sick of getting screwed by you guys, i'm going to get screwed by another group of people". in the end, this guy was a pseudo god send. so if you're reading this, manager of the hanoi blue star hostel, i take back that comment.

martin, sabine, and myself ended up getting a 3 bed room with air-conditioning for $4 a night through that same guy who i had kindly informed i did not want him to screw me. financially or otherwise. it was the equivalent of a 3 star hotel - free internet, western toilets, hot water showers, air-conditioning, and a cook-to-order kitchen and a bar stocked with beer. not bad. for once, the hustlers turned out to offer us a decent deal. hooray for hustlers.

(9) Guangzhou to Nanning: But I Just Want to Sleep

(*) day 3-4. overnight train to nanning. the entire, there is only one adjective proper to describe this and that is, fucking night, the air conditioning for my overnight sleeper on the train was blasting at 100% efficiency, in addition to the bright fluorescent light i could not shut off for the entirety of the evening. then, to become the cherry on top of that delightful sundae called "insomnia", there was blaring techno music (which i don't mind) with soaring female chinese vocals over the background (which i do mind). from around 8pm until 5 am, i was kept up in my sleeper car by the devastating combination of light, sound, and arctic winds out of thenorth. i've never felt so close to al pacino's character portrayal in his movie "insomnia". so we're on day 4 at this point, or at least evening # 4, and i've had one good night of uninterrupted decent sleep. this makes for a delightful infusion of delirium as i walk around the chaos that is china.

(*) the train arrived at nanning's train station a little before 5am. it was dark, and the sun had yet to rise. i went to the ticket line, to buy my next ticket for my train ride from nanning to the border of china and vietnam. here is a picture i took of the nanning train station at 5am.



(*) it was in this line where a meeting of destinies occurred. i, standing there and looking lost, was approached by two white people - a female and a male - looking equally lost. we sat for a few minutes and had awkward travelling introductions. we later learned we were both headed to hanoi, vietnam. furthermore, i learned they were german, and they figured i was american. together, we decided to make the trip to hanoi together. it was the beginning of a beautiful traveler friendship, substantiated out of necessity, kindness, and alcohol. how they put up with myself, and later my two other american at time alcoholic friends, sarge and mapquest, is still somewhat of a mystery. kind of like what exactly happened during the last few hours of hitler. i'm sorry, that was below the belt. the german people, represented by sabine and martin, i would learn are some of the kindest, gentlest, and overall, most patient people in the world.

(*) after buying the tickets from nanning to the border town (of which i think the germans still owe me $2, but that is neither here nor there), we went out to the front of the train station to kill a few hours before our 9am or so departure time. while out there, we struck up a conversation with a local kid from nanning. we stumbled through an offer of a cigarette (which he graciously accepted - worst comes to worst - offer an asian individual a cigarette to make friends), and a few other comments revolving around yao ming, how to say orange juice in chinese, and then what exactly a middle finger raised towards another individual means. he flicked me off. but not in the american type way. instead, he said he was good at basketball, and was #1. he expressed #1 by extending his middle finger towards me. i told him that in my book, china ought to be the #1 travel destination. and then stated to convey this to him via a physical manifestation through my middle finger. after the cigarette, it was time to leave. we exchanged pleasantries, and he said "good luck". it just goes to prove that despite cultural and language barriers, there is still the common denominator of faith and good wishes between all of human kind.

(*) we boarded the train. martin sat next to, what we would eventually discover, was a local chinese female studying chinese law. we did not eventually discover that she was female, only that she was studying law. while sitting across the row from her, our friend offered us a sealed packet. within this packet, supposedly, there was meat. and not the dried, smoked jerky type of meat. upon opening the package, i discovered the meat was not dry, but moist. and there was water contained within the paper package holding the meat. this created an interesting dilemma. do i refuse the female's generosity, and say, "look out your window! oh my god! there is a rice patty!", while i toss the meat out my window? or do i swallow my pride, my fear of moist foreign meat in a paper enclosed packet, and my disdain for being deathly sick while traveling, and eat the meat?

well, testing death, i ate the meat. it was slimy, but utterly delicious. martin ate about half of his serving, and sabine "saved it for later". i never saw that later. at that point, all i knew was i was going to die, martin was going to become extremely sick, and sabine was going to live a long and prosperous life. damn her.

the trick was on the rest of the world however. despite my eating of slimy warm meat out of a paper packet, i survived. and continue to thrive. here is a picture of the female who fed us this savory, adventurous meat.



(*) this train was headed from nanning to pinxiang. the train ride was straight out of a hollywood movie - the flora was greener than any imax projection screen could output. apocalypse now was about to set down in my reality, and it was, for lack of a non-cliched adjective, truly breathtaking.



here is a picture of the little girl who sat across from me while on the train. her father fell asleep, which allowed me the opportunity to take this picture. she continuously stared at me, and despite my best attempts at getting her to laugh by making ridiculous white person faces, i got no response. so i decided to snap a picture. without meaning to be creepy, i was truly amazed by this picture.

(7) Bat Country Continued...

----> chinese men need to stop lifting shirts above their waist and to their pectoral muscles.

(*) it was the beginning of day 2 in guangzhou. i woke up and decided to head to the nature park where the dr. sun yat sen tower & 5 rams statute stood. dr. sun yat sen is a very important figure in chinese history. go ahead and wikipedia him. my feet were still on fire, but i managed a lazy walk through the park. it was extremely odd in that in a city of such aural chaos, i finally found peace & quiet. the park was huge, and as i had begun to walk with a limp at this point, i didn't get to all the areas i wanted to. but here are some pictures of what i found in the park, including a picture of my friends with whom i played the chinese version of hackey sack.



a picture i took myself of myself eating bamboo. real bamboo. it was delicious.



5 ram statute. the traditional story goes that the 5 rams provided the people of guangzhou with seeds of food during a severe and horrible draught. it is from these seeds, that the delicious and world-reknown guangzhou cuisine was born.



stereotypical asian picture taken in front of a stone relief. the stereotype comes from me holding a peace sign. whenever there was an asian individual in a picture with me, they inevitably would hold up a peace sign. i'm still not entirely sure if they know what that means, or if they just do it b/c it is something western to do. or their fingers just instinctually raise to form a V.



ridiculous tree & its roots.



a view from inside the memorial tower to dr sun yat sen, looking out from the red door entrance.



the person who walked in on me lying on the floor as i took this picture of the upper portion of the memorial tower's spire, was slightly confused.



also within the park, but not pictured, was a vietnamese senior citizen dance recital, a literal siren in the middle of the woods whose voice was gorgeous but whose origin was unknown, a glee club, and a small park convenience store called "nice shop".

(*) i walked back from the gorgeous, but humid as hell, nature area to leave and jump on my train to nanning. i finally found food on the way back at a restaurant a block down from where i was staying. my first attempt at a large restaurant only lead to one beer & only confusion. i stepped in, and as they didn't have a menu for me to look at, i pointed at what the guy in front of me ordered. i pointed at the man, then put 1 finger in the air. she repeated something. i shook my head in a manner indicating yes. then i was served what the man in front of me had ordered - a beer.

(*) i then went to the next closest restaurant, a restaurant across the street from my hotel. i had tea, appetizers, noodles, and one beer for 20 yuan. $2.60. not bad. i paid my bill and left. immediately i was chased down in the middle of a road similar in traffic congestion to michigan avenue around 3pm. all i heard was "mister, mister". i turned around, and there was my waitress. after 15 seconds in the street, she decided we should move our conversation to the SIDE of the street. this was a better choice then conversing between each other with non-functional and non-understandable mutual languages. however, the side of the street was still not as good a choice as the sidewalk. but as we were moving in the correct direction, i didn't mind.

i was surrounded by the waitress, the manager, and the under utilized security guard. after they huddled up, they determined i paid correctly. i am guessing the waitress used the wrong ticket for the table. after a few "i'm sorry"s, i was allowed to leave. i half expected to hear "mistah, mistah" again, but instead i made my last walk into the mini mall 4th floor & packed my things.

(8) Holy Batshit Batman: Guangzhou main train station

(*) well, we've reached yet another level of batshit crazy - guano batshit crazy. sitting outside offered a touch of what's to come. this is only the train station specifically. i said goodbye to my lovely guangzhou family. i'm pretty sure the man took 2-3 shots out of a glass of cheap booze 10-15 minutes before i left when i just woke up. the bottle sat atop the fridge. perhaps i found the man's secret to his constant smile. i offered my non chinese thank you to the wife. or at least i think she was the wife.

(*) for the last time i left the room, walked down 2 flights, went through the emergency exit, into the mall's 4th floor elevator. i was caught between the closing elevator doors and laughed. as i turned around to see if floor 1 was pressed, i noticed the guy at the switch frantically pressing "door close". then i looked up and saw 2 guys trying to catch the elevator. the 2 guys won their battle against the man pressing "door close" and gained entrance. even then, the guy kept pressing door close - refusing to be discreet about his ruined plans.

(*) i exited the mall for the last time *tear* and headed back towards the train station. time to cross the 2 4 or 5 lane highways. 1/2 way across, i hear "hello! hello!" my polite travelers' response? "seriously, i'm fucking leaving.... oh hey!" it was the same guy who had hooked me up yesterday with the room. i told him that, in fact, he had helped me get a room yesterday, but i don't think he understand. i didn't feel slighted - i'm white - we all look the same - all with big white googly eyes. i shook his hand and said thanks. if he remembered me, it was a nice gesture. otherwise, he thinks white people are touchy feely.

(*) the guy pressing "door close" is a true american hero - he did what we've all continuously wanted to do. and continued to do so in plain sight of the evil victors.

(*) i noticed floor 2 was pressed. we get there, doors open, and the doors just as quickly close because of our great american hero. this time, he screwed someone INSIDE the elevator. this was the making of a true american legend. he not only tried to keep someone from getting ONTO the elevator, but he kept someone from getting OFF the elevator. i suggest you try to do that next time you are in your downtown elevator headed up to your office. only then will you realize the awesomeness that the chinese man pressing the "door close" button embodied.

(*) china must work on their complete obliviousness to the concept of "queing" because if not, i'm taller and bigger than most, and i will win with consequences placed upon the local asian population.

(*) with backpack on, "hello! hello!" and the man behind the voice whips out the three same fucking 3 star hotel pamphlets every other hustler is trying to get me to rent from. i reply kindly to him, "i'm getting the fuck out of here, but thanks anyway." you'll be happy to know i said "thanks" in chinese. i'm not sure if he could understand the other portion of my spiel.

(*) i sat on my bag for the last time in front of the guangzhou train station & stared at the screen. a small child was so excited to see me, she yelled, tugged her mother's arm, and then pointed at me. i did my last bit of chinese people watching while having the chinese locals point at me.

(*) my cop friend tried to tell me where to go. he was nice enough. i took a picture of him b/c he reminded me of my grandfather.



(*) homeless dude acted like he knew where i was going. tried to get me to follow him. he was of no help. he tried to score money from me. he refused my cigarette offer.

(*) got past security check #1 of "do you have any ticket whatsoever it really doesn't need to be a train ticket". i could have showed him my blockbuster card from downtown chicago, and he would have waved me on. a bit of fighting around families parked directed in and around the busiest ques. <----i don't know what that sentence was supposed to say or convey.

-----> interruption: i did this often during my journal rants. if at some point when i was attempting to reconstruct the day, a brilliant idea popped into my head, it was highlighted by an arrow.

-----> perhaps chinese do not have a concept of "personal space"

(*) then came the baggage "security check" after squeezing and fighting through 1 door. mothers were separated from children. children pushed out of the way by middle aged men - i'm not kidding - all in the name of throwing luggage onto a conveyor belt of the x-ray machine.

------> spitting and hocking ought to be olympic sports
------> so too should be chain smoking

(*) i'm pretty sure the equivalent of "customer service agents" in america are here in guangzhou, but, and this is brilliant - they carry fucking MEGAPHONES. and they talk into them continuously, even if they are communicating to an individual directly next to them. instead of a customer service agent in america calmly asking people to move to one side of a hallway in order to create a more efficient and crowd-control-friendly line, the chinese customer service agents yell this message through a FUCKING MEGAPHONE - with the megaphone no more than 8-16 inches from the individual's face. it. was. awesome. china has some things that are backwards. this megaphone customer service idea, is not.

------> garbage is merely flung at the wall in guangzhou train station, to be later wiped up.
------> sound of spit hitting floor in train station is equivalent to that of rain.

(*) children are left on floors with temper tantrum. that's right - survivial of the fittest - let god sort'm out post trampling death.

(*) i feel sad for the floor sweepers here. they never stand a chance against the mountainous amounts of trash.

------> just b/c 2 asian girls hold hands, does not mean they are lesbians.
------> when people stare at me, they should watch where they are going. otherwise, they're going to keep running into things.


(*) here's a sense of what inside the train station looked like:

(6) Waking Up Day 3: Mental Breakdown

(*) this entry is what i wrote when i woke up at about 6 am to a terrific rainy season thunderstorm, and had somewhat of an ideological breakdown. beware - the language is flowery.

(*) The excess of overall comfort in which america and the west live in and count upon and necessitate is either truly remarkable or nauseating.

(*) both places at which i've stayed thus far have resulted in myself waking up to the scene of multiple individuals sleeping in the "lobby" of my "hotel". the first i'm assuming were 2 of the hagglers who got me to rent the place. they slept on the hard floor.

after all travelers, in their usual filth and grime, had traversed over it and assumedly was not mopped.

today, i went to check my email and was met by the site of the family - mother, father and child - on cots. here is a place with maybe 10 beds - 2 in my room not being used, and the FAMILY sleeps on a cot.

i immediately, and somewhat instinctively, saw my family there, with grinch (my sister's retarded dog) curled up somewhere, and to the mother who had just woken, all i could mumble was an "excuse me"

(*) this tears at "Atlas Shrugged". Should i feel nothing towards these families - as i will eventually go back to my bed, indoor plumbing, refrigeration and the new 21st century? "Atlas" suggests i show no pity, but that is all i can do. i doubt these individuals have had as many opportunities borne out of institutions as myself. to say they have not tried as hard as i, also, is i'm *unreadable* a misnomer. i've always been guaranteed a roof over my head - these people i'm guessing have not.

(*) or maybe they have and strictly don't care of the size / quality of the roof over their head. in that case, i do not look at them with pity, but with inspiration - to be content with what one has. but the question i ask is, is it futility or actually being content? do they believe the western version of the american dream is so impossible as to be futile & they must give up their pursuits? if so, aren't they quitting? but does "atlas" require great achievements from every member of society? as beneficially ideologically as that sounds - (1) factually impossible (2) the standard of great becomes morphed into normal & expected. "great" dies.

(*) what frustrates me the most about society is its craving for hyper consumption in excess. this is true in both china and america. although ironically, what is most advertised in china seems to be based on western thought or marketing scheme. i wonder what a purely chinese excess hyper consumption would look like. Bruce Lee? Fu man chu? what sells to be "hip" today for chinese youth is an exact vomit-inducing replica of mtv. its not even an ode to the USA: young chinese ads pay great respect & homage to the god that is mtv.

(*) what i enjoy about chinese hyper consumption is the fact it is all forfeit & blackmarket counterfeit. sure, the chinese consumer wants what is hip, but at least they secure such style & socioeconomic status at a reasonable, discounted, bargain basement price. there is always some way around the advertising system in china. and what is more or less shocking, is the lack of government interference with these blatant black market sales. a blind man can visualize the amount of counterfeiting occurring within the belly of the chinese salesbeast. its not like they're all speak easy DVD stores. they might as well be labeled "blackmarket blockbuster dvd" or "blackmarket flix". i'm assuming on the government license application, the purpose each entrepreneur fills in is "sell bootlegged dvd".

(5): Guangzhou - We're Walking, We're Walking, We're Walking

(*) As i didn't necessarily wake up, as i didn't really ever fall asleep in my hong kong hotel, i continued my day interrupted with several short naps by exiting the chungking mansion and heading back towards the train station. train stations, post-asia, are some of my favorite places in the world. i still hadn't ate anything at this point while in asia, so i picked up a banana or a piece of bread. yeah, living the high life.

(*) after a few tense moments and some entertaining walking through the mostly barren streets of hong kong at 8 in the morning on a saturday, i finally arrived at the train station. thank god for pseudo english speakers at train stations. i was herded onto the correct train from kowloon over to guangzhou. there were 2 stops, and it took about 2 hours. i arrived at Guangzhou train station east. this would later prove to be the most painful fact of my entire asian trip. which, considering there were a few moments throughout the rest of the trip, the crew would find themselves in semi-precarious situations involving local shady asians of both the male & female persuasions, this isn't so bad in retrospect.

(*) at guangzhou train station east, as this was an entry point into china proper from hong kong, i went through customs. immediately upon exiting the train station, as would become customary, i was hustled for a tax ride. i told him, "i got it". these should be my famous last words etched onto my epitaph. this was the beginning of the end for my feet. and my body weight. i needed to get to guangzhou train station west by 5 pm, in order to get my connecting train from guangzhou to nanning, china, which is a border town with vietnam. it was currently about 11 am. huh. 6 hours to walk to another train station in this town. should be easy. right? f-bombing wrong.

(*) i think the old man is puking. (i wrote this in my journal, and have no idea what the hell it is in reference to - let's just pretend there was an old man puking on the side of the street).

(*) Set out, correctly, south. then headed west for a while. asked two people for directions: they told me to head east. i found the road, which was the original south in the Lonely Planet, and kept to it. i then headed west on Huanshi Dong Lu. while walking with my bag and backpack, in hot humid weather, this was the closest i'd come to the sweating and wetness i experienced at the Manu Chao concert. let's just say the clothes i wore today, i was unable to wear for the rest of the trip.

i ripped through the water from the evening before and finished the free water i was given on the train. a while later, i had no choice but to buy water. that lasted, well, maybe, 2 minutes. and that was one of the larger sized waters they had. walking past a college, i stopped for two loaves of french bread and water.

i threw down my bags on the sidewalk, stopped, and ate chinese style with no regard to how i looked to those individuals passing by me and staring. when i say chinese style, i'm merely making a shorthand of how local asian individuals will wait for a train outside a train station. while waiting for their trains, the entire family waits outside the train station by sitting on their luggage so they do not have to sit on the ground. looking at a family of 4-16 individuals doing this at once has always amused me. it looks like my family's dinner, but only with stranger food & out in the middle of an urban train station.

this "lunch" energized me, kinda, and so the trek continued. a camera store offered me an air conditioned haven where i could buy batteries for my camera. the batteries were 5 yuan, which is about $.60. The cashier told me i was on the right track. no excitement really at this point, just 3 hours of walking with 70 pounds of crap on my shoulders. this walk included a stretch alongside a highway upon a seemingly abandoned sidewalk.

(*) i finally reached the guangzhou train station west at approximately 4 pm. one hour before my train was supposed to leave. 5 hours of walking. continuously. with 70 pounds of crap on my shoulders. with shoes that were giving me blisters. it was at this point, my foot's blister was forcing me to walk with a limp so as to remove the pressure from my feet. but hell - i was about to catch a train, so there was really no reason to worry. i walked up to the guangzhou train station west - thinking i've conquered multiple foreign train stations before. what would make this one any different.

guangzhou train station west is the most batshite apeshit psychotic train station in the world.

i can make that statement comfortably, and am willing to defend this hypothesis until my death.

for those of you who already have a fondness for the queing abilities of asians, especially chinese, you will then love and appreciate this sentiment if you ever go to guangzhou train station west. there is no order. there are no rules. this is vietnam, in china.

the lines, out of a possible 50 or so cashier's windows, were all at least 30-40 people deep. and as my train was about to leave, i decided to utilize the color of my skin. as a white traveler in asia, i've learned that no one really says anything to you if you go and ask someone for help. even when you have to cut 30-40 other people. well, perhaps they do mutter things, but since i can't understand their language, it really doesn't matter. so i went up to the window where there was a guy behind it, the cashier, with a sign up to the window. presumably, it said something like "i'm out to lunch right now, don't bother me", but since i can't read chinese, it didn't exist. after some scherades, or however you spell it, and some simple grunts and fingers in the air and a calendar, i conveyed to the cashier that i wanted a ticket to nanning tonight. and then it happened.

the guy turned the computer towards me & pointed to what was simply a red character of some sort. it is never good to see red - whether it is on your 3rd grade paper you wrote for your teacher, or a train reservation screen. red is always bad news - whether it is on your 3rd grade paper you wrote for your teacher, or a train reservation screen. the same result will echo in your head. fuck.

in my case, the red character meant, "sold out". son of a bitch. not only was i unable to leave this god forsaken hiking town and rest my feet that at this point were on fire, but i would have to secure lodging for the evening with one of the hustlers outside. god. damn. it.

with both of my feet equally torn up, although the right one was winning the competition of most painful at this point, i had to exit the train station, with a ticket purchased for tomorrow night's trip to nanning, and face that which irritates me the most - the hagglers. the bargainers. the street hustlers. the people who get a percentage of the nightly rate they sign you up for at a local hotel or guesthouse. and being that i was in a beautiful mood, upon exiting, i felt actually really bad for these people with whom i was about to do economic battle.

the hostel directly across the street was closed for renovations. of course. afer getting out to the main plaza, i was hassled by approximately 6 people each with different english shouts ranging from "hey mista" to "4 stah cheep hotel". for the 4 star guy, i went up to him, took the booklet out of his hand, covered up the 4 stars and said, "cheap". that didn't work.

eventually i found a woman who settled for 80Y for the evening. $10.60 for a room? sure. hit me. it turns out i only had another mile or so to walk until i got to the hotel. first we (myself and the woman) crossed both sides of the 4 lane highway - for a total crossing of 8 lanes.



the woman states "ok - there - whoosh - whoosh". the "whoosh" was the sound the woman made. so its merely a phonetic spelling. in either case, i don't speak whoosh.

------> jacoby's new nickname is "dragon styler"

second, the woman introduced me to a man sitting on the opposite side of the highway. third, the man walked me back down an alley and up 2 flights to an apartment room. there we agreed on the price of 80Y. fourth, we walked back down the alley. fifth, we turned left and walked two blocks down and then made a left. sixth, we walked further, until we crossed the street. as tired pissed and in pain as i was, i crossed that intersection chicago pedestrian style. no-look-your-cars-will-stop-for-me type strut. seventh, we walked into a mall. yes, a mall. eighth, we walked into an elevator which had this sign posted in it. notice the use of the word "schlep":



ninth, we took the elevator up to the 4th floor and walked down this hallway.



tenth, we got to this emergency exit:



eleventh, we walked through this door which, at this time, did not have a lock on it. this lock would become troublesome later in the evening.



twelfth, we walked up a flight of stairs to this landing.



thirteenth, i looked to the left, where this view was provided:



fourteenth, we walked up these steps. i hoped that wasn't blood.



fifteenth, we saw this man. i eventually found this out to be the husband / dad / man of the apartment in which i was to sleep. he spoke zero english, but was as kind as they come. as was his continuously smiling and lovable wife.



sixteenth, i by myself found my room in that apartment.



whew. you think you're tired just reading that. i felt like i was continuously stepping in open pit barbeque flames. i sat down on the bed, and tried to do what i could for my feet. in the end, i figured that since i was in guangzhou for the first and probably last time, i should get up and see what this fair city has to offer a small curious traveler. so i sucked it up, popped several blisters, and headed out to the riverfront.

note to self: never pop blisters. then they just become open wounds. although, i've got to disgustingly tell you - it was always odd to pop a blister, and feel warm water ooze out. seriously. odd.

(*) on my way out into the crazy little world of guangzhou for the first time without 70 pounds of obnoxiousness on my back, i realized the city is a bit more interesting than what i had previously imagined. as i headed towards the river, and dusk became to gradually creep forward, the city began to slowly awake, and the night markets began to open up. there is a small portion of the late afternoon / evening in chinese cities where it seems everyone removes themselves from their houses and either tries to sell something, or buy something. the sensory overload and stimulus workload for my brain at these points is always something near impossible to deal with.

(*) this walk towards the riverfront made me realize why i love china. the chaos. the ambiguity. the small "stores" stacked upon one another with no room to spare and no room to escape its chaotic underpinning and there's no chance to relax. its continuous sensory overload. its like the lights and neon vegas offers, but with a life altering perspective changing by-product. the small alleys and walkways thrust upon the wide-eyed traveler shops/homes/homes that are shops, in a manner that is relentless. i don't think i could eternally exist within that environment, but i'm eternally grateful for its gifts.

(*) walking towards the river made me realize something. how i hadn't ate a full meal since i have arrived in asia. thoughts of my previous trip to china a few years ago where i got a touch of food poisoning from failing to cook a shrimp for long enough in a mongolian hotpot therefore relegating me to 10 straight days or so of eating only bowls of rice, were still fresh in my memory. then there it was. as the sun shone through the clouds for just a single moment before the evening fully overtook guangzhou's night: a restaurant run by an ethnic chinese muslim minority. here is the result of me sitting down for a bowl of their delicious hand made noodles with beef.

before:


after:


nostalgia never tasted so good.

(*) after reading a portion of "Atlas Shrugged" and finishing off my $.50 bowl of delightful dinner, i headed to the riverfront. it was much like hong kong, but not nearly to the same degree. small booths exploding out of every building, offering to sell locals and explorers together the newest bootlegged fashions, assorted uniform trinkets, and cell phone casings. the river front was not nearly as exciting as hong kong's victoria harbor, but it had its own unique character. as it still was light out, i was unable to determine if the guangzhou city counsel has the same affinity for neon as does hong kong's. here is a picture or 2 of the front.




(*) this is the riverfront of the "pearl river". it faced a tall order of living up to victoria harbor. inevitably, it failed. but i did learn that i absolutely DO WANT a "chair" on the back of my bike.

(*) walked up to a bridge which ran over the river. took a few camera shots.

(*) i walked back to my home with my headphones on. i almost bought a cello at a music store. i got the salesman extremely excited, but the fact he did not have a hard case for the shipment of the cello prevented serious negotiation. it was entertaining when he offered me a regular soft case and he said something tothe effect of "this will be fine for your travels". right.

(*) the walk home provided one of the more "oh shit" stories i was to encounter over the course of my trip to asia. i forgot that the only way i was shown as to how to get to my apartment was through the mall. well, what would happen if the mall was closed? well....

that was the point i started hustling / hobbling home. i got back to the mall, and all the stores' lights were turned off, and all the entrances into the mall were locked, except for one. and the one entrance that was open, was being guarded by a security guard. figuring i would utilize my knowledge from previous asian encounters, i vowed to myself to act like i knew what the hell i was doing.

me as i walked by the security guard: "hey, what's up there chief"
security guard: "...."

nothing, because he didn't understand what i just said as i walked through the open doors. i walked by a laborer who seemed to be delivering things on the overnight shift in front of various stores. i went to my usual elevator, took it up to the 4th floor, and found the emergency exit. that's where the lock on the door in the picture above garners much more weight. as all people do immediately before they get into an accident, i said, "oh shit."

i walked up and down to various floors, hoping my memory had, in its infinite wisdom, played yet another trick on myself. no dice. after attempting to proceed through all possible entrances and exits. all to no avail. i decided to try my luck outside.

i walked back out the entrance through which i hastily entered. i had to be let outside of the mall through that exit, by the security guard who i had previously shuffled by. it then occurred to me. i had been locked inside a chinese mall by myself. righteous.

after getting out of the chinese mall jail, i tried to talk to the security guard about how to get to my hotel. how did that fare you ask? well. (1) he didn't speak english. (2) i wasn't staying at a hotel, it was some guy's spare bedroom. (3) the guy's spare bedroom was not named by a neon sign. (4) i didn't speak chinese. what saved me? technology my friend.

i tore through my bag, found my camera, and scrambled to find the pictures i had taken from my room's window of what was immediately to the left and right of and what was directly in front of my apartment's room. bingo bitches! the guy recognized what the hell i was babbling at. he then pointed me down towards the back portion of the mall. although he pointed me in the right direction, from what i could tell from where i walked in the mall, the end point where i was to turn right to head towards my room, was a pitch black alley.

since i didn't want to pay for another hotel room elsewhere (read: cheap bastard placing economics over personal safety), i decided to roll the dice. what's the worst that could happen? well, nothing. other than i was extremely frightened like a little school girl. but after 2 straightaways and 3 corners into literally nothing but black night, i found the staircase leading up to my room. seriously. black. imagine walking through a coal mine without a head light. and instead of a coal mine, it is a foreign country where the yakuza roam freely.

lesson to be learned from this? always take pictures of where the hell you stay. that, and carry around an address of your place either scrawled on a piece of paper or a professional business card. or your arm in sharpie.

i got home, watched a bit of WWF in english - i forgot how real wrestling is - and then went to sleep on my plywood bed with a bit of padding atop it.

here are the sandals i used to shower. this is the black market at its finest.



here's a quality picture from hong kong i forgot to share. it was in a Foot Locker type store in hong kong.



imagine walking down Michigan avenue & seeing this cartoonish figure in a window, welcoming window shoppers. oh you crazy chinese.

(4) Hong Kong: China Light

(*) This post addresses my first day in china / arrival in Hong Kong.

(*) The title "Hong Kong: China Light" refers to skin color. I had previously traveled to China - Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai, Qingdao, and Huangshan - and my travels in Hong Kong, compared to previous chinese experiences, were remarkably different. First and foremost, the Chinese individuals residing / visiting in Hong Kong were visibly lighter and fairer in their skin's complexion. I suppose you could mark this up to the entire Great Britain colonizing Hong Kong and making it a special governmental province thing. It also seemed as if Hong Kong was the pseudo fashion capital of china. I'm again guessing this has its basis in the heavy western influence offered / forced upon the local population by great britain. i felt i was in hollywood, but on LSD. not that i've ever taken LSD. but it just is what i assume LSD would do to your mind - make it explode.

i truly felt i was back in the good ole us of a, even though i had just left it, and was merely in a portion of a city with a high degree of chinese individuals residing there. even the amount of chinese / asian individuals in hong kong was not up to what i expected. the population of hong kong consisted of a remarkable amount of muslims and africans. i would have to say there were about 1/2 light skinned asian individuals, 1/4 africans, 1/4 indians, with white travelers / ex-pats / business individuals peppered throughout. i had not expected this type of diversity, and that reality took a bit of getting used to.

the entire idea of the white and faired skin being that which represents true beauty in the asian culture, was extremely prevalent. excuse my fascination with this, but it goes against every social more i've existed under. in the US, we have tanning beds, the beaches, sun tan lotion, and other forms of latin american / african american skin coloring copyright infringement. white people want to look darker in america. thats why my ridiculous sister goes to a tanning booth in chicago during the winter prior to her heading to florida - she wants to get equally good doses of skin cancer and a "base for her suntan in florida". so when i come to asia and see advertisements for local products with either (a) skinny white american/european young anorexic girls/women, or (b) airbrushed white skinny white asian young anorexic girls/women, it tends to make me face the fact i am half way across the world and experiencing a different culture.

so the entire point of the above portion of this entry is that, although Hong Kong is usually depicted as a Chinese city in one way or another, it is almost nothing like any other chinese city i had personally ever visited. i also get this same type of feedback and comments from individuals who have traveled throughout asia. you can even tell from merely the restaurants, this is not your traditional chinese city. previously while traveling through china, it was somewhat difficult to find an authentic western restaurant of some sort, if not impossible. not the case in hong kong.



notice the "spaghetti restaurant" and the "irish pub". seriously, its amazing where the hell you can find an irish pub if you absolutely have to.

(*) As I get off the plane and swim my way through customs and other border non-sense, my head is still attempting to wrap itself around the fact i have flown 14 hours and change from chicago to a point nearly half way across our small little globe. I follow the english signs towards baggage claims. Ah yes, the english captions under local signs and symbols. there will be more entertaining instances of these amusing translations. but for now, i'll leave you with this small tidbit.



i am amused b/c, although i have been alive for 26 years and a bunch of days, i've yet to ever see a sign in america touting of a pharmaceutical office like walgreens welcoming their customers with merely a sign that reads "drugs".

i arrive at the luggage claim and recite the customary "please god don't let the good employees of United Airlines lose my bag" prayer. that would have made for an interesting beginning to the trip. no bag. eventually i see my black bag roll around the corner of the baggage conveyor. the bag slowly moves up from the hole that spit it out, whose origin is always unknown and mysterious, and towards me, but not first without causing me to fall in love for the first time during the trip. there will be others. the bag moved past, the closest thing i can say to describe this woman without sounding like an utter jackass, a gorgeous hipster (used endearingly this time around) of asian descent. a skirt that had no business being worn in anything but a night club of which a sample of our chicagoan population would describe as "classy" "ritzy" or "posh" or of which a sample of our chicagoan population would describe as "douchebaggy" "euro-trashy" or "i gave up on my life and now no longer care how society views me". the t-shirt was the first of many which would amuse me. this one was something along the lines of a t-shirt reproduced to look as if it were old, nostalgic, and original: it was reproduced to be viewed as a shirt she had purchased at the original concert, with all original cuts and tears, and fringes - back when the band last performed at their greatest concert ever in 1973 prior to the drug-induced suicide and eventual breaking up of the band. if that were true, i too would wear that shirt. but (1) she looked no older than myself and attendance at said concert would have been impossible, (2) she didn't seem to be extremely hardcore. maybe it was the gucci handbag that threw me off, or perhaps it was the dolce & gabbana luggage that made me call bullshit on her t-shirt.

plus the t-shirt was a Sex Pistols t-shirt, and as i would soon come to realize, those things are a dime a dozen in china / asia. despite the vast majority of these individuals having trouble with the english language. and if they are having a difficult time understanding my english over the background drone of motorbikes and street vendors, i'm uncertain as to their ability to lock into what exactly johnny rotten was yelling about. perhaps i'm just being naive.

(*) Pizza Hut & KFC are deemed to be fine dining in asia. and i curse zee germans, especially sabine, for forcing me to eat at a KFC in Hanoi, Vietnam. Yes, she put a gun to my head. we will get to this later. if it troubles you so much to see the photographic proof that KFC is a fine dining establishment, fast forward to Hanoi, Vietnam. Maybe the 2nd day.

(*) After falling in love and getting my bag, which i also love, i took the train from the airport to Kowloon. Even within the airport, after stepping out of the luggage claim area, i was immediately hit square in the cheek with the type of ultra-modern looking architecture that is somewhat symbolic of hong kong. i feel absolutely uneducated speaking of architecture after traveling in the arhcitectural auspices of sarge, but i simply felt at times that i was existing in a city that was from the future. hong kong offers you a vision and representation of what the year 2068 will look like.





then again, i could just believe that in the future, the color of orange will take over.

at kowloon, i transferred from a free shuttle (the stop was labeled as K2), in order to get to Hong Hum Train station. at the moment i had believed Hong Hum train station was somewhere in the middle of all the action. later on i would find this to be true. somewhat. although i disagree with aspects of the Lonely Planet and those who use the Lonely Planet as a bible from which one must not depart, it definitely saved my ass in Hong Kong.

the train from the airport to Kowloon was ultramodern. it had a television for those of you sitting on it to watch. picture the chicago el train, and then, in order to turn this into the train i was on - gut the entire train, install soft comfortable benches on both sides of the train running perpendicular to the walls of the train, with each bench allowing seats for 2. then put a tv, clean carpet, and remove all smell of urine. BAM. you have a kowloon train.

there was a common area for people to places their luggage. but as aesop reminds us backpackers while traveling - must not sleep, must warn others. so, don't trust others. don't trust locals. its a difficult way to live, especially for someone who is politely disdained at times for my inherent and foolish wish to trust people. but it is necessary.

i got off this ultra sleek train, jumped onto a free bus shuttle, and took it to the 4th stop - Hong Hum train station.

(*) fucking shit this place is hot & humid.

(*) seriously, i'm constantly sweating.

(*) Made way to Nathan Road with the help of the shite Lonely Planet map. by the way, would it kill Lonely Planet to insert some maps that aren't at times utterly and completely useless? I was on the march to find "Chungking mansion".

(*) I walked west from the train station and found my way to 40 to 60 Nathan Road - the area of Hong Kong which is most affordable for backpackers to find a place to stay for the night. and as i reached 40 to 60 Nathan Road, i got my first chance to reenter the world of bargaining. its odd how capitalism cuts you out from that world. think of 2 buildings in chicago. then imagine never having lived or visit chicago. then imagine not being able to speak the language or read the signs. then land at o'hare. then make it 9pm at night.

now, go & find that hotel.

looking back, i'm amazed things tended to work out. especially with regards to the navigational chip that so often shorts out in my head. magellan i am not.

(*) For those of you who have not been to asia, first, i suggest you go. second, you must barter for everything & anything. i've bartered at restaurants, hotels, and obviously the street. when bartering, your goal is not to screw these people over. after all, the individual with whom you are bartering and attempting to secure goods from, may always say no. you are not placing a gun up to their head. there is still a sense of capitalism in that the holder of the good may refuse to give up his or her control over the property if the individual wishing to receive the goods is not exchanging something of fair value.

when bartering, your goal, as a white backpacker in a foreign asian country, is not to get uber hosed. as you travel throughout asia, you learn there is a 3-tiered pricing system of goods. the first is the local price. you as a backpacker will never get this. we found a few small exceptions to this (.12 cent beer and free fruit), and we'll get to those later, but for the most part, this rule is the golden rule. the second tier represents "a good deal". the local individual is still making a handsome price of you (since you are not a local and presumably when they sell the product tolocals they are still making a profit) and you as the traveler are not paying the 3rd tier. the third tier represents "screw the traveler". here the seller is making a killing, and the traveler is getting screwed. the traveler may be getting screwed for several reasons. first, the traveler may be so rich and old (your grandparents who travel the world), they could care less what they pay for these things. surprisingly most of the time, this tier of pricing is still cheaper than what you would pay in america. second, the traveler may be so naive and fresh to the scene (the traveler who first steps off the plane in say hong kong), they don't know any better.

after some getting used to, you can reach the lowest level, which is the 2nd tier good price, directly at the border of local first tier pricing. i'm happy and proud to say by the end of my trip, i reached this level. i even have a certificate saying so which i display proudly on my refrigerator via magnet.

my first offer for a room was 150 hong kong dollars. this is nearly $20. no thank you. the second offer was 180 hong kong dollars. with 8 hong kong dollars equaling $1 us dollar, the price of $22.50 was not appealing to me. i'd rather stay up all night, scared out of my mind on the main street, and then sleep on the train the next day, then do that. hey, i was on a budget. the 180 hong dollar offer came from a larger bigger taller (not tall and bigger in fat tall american terms, but from an asian perspective), and as i attempted to bargain, it was easy to see she wanted me to die. she wouldn't budge from 180. i smiled, and attempted to bargain. after speaking with her friend, she shot me an evil, hey whitey go crawl off and die look, i smiled back at her and said in english, "you wouldn't look like an evil Fred Thompson if you smiled". her facial expression yielded no response.

The third offer was 100 hong kong dollars. all right. after a bleak attempt at bartering, it was obvious this was the set price. and the documented "accountant books" of the "hotel" in "chungking mansion" proved this. these are all in quotes because they are all misnomers.

The "hotel room with single bed" that the guy told me i could get for $8.50 u.s. dollars was smaller than a prison. I could not extend my legs fully across the bed. the air conditioning unit was nasty with a dirty wall fan to accompany it and a ceiling fan which had accumulated dust since adam first ate some fruit from some tree. this "hotel" was on the 4th floor and it did not have a window. the "chungking mansion" is 17 stories tall. the first floor of the chungking "mansion" was a strip mall. there were small stores selling various small pieces of tourist crap, small food vendors, bootlegged DVDs, bootlegged CDs, bootlegged jeans, bootlegged t-shirts, bootlegged water, and bootlegged trinkets. floors 2 through 17 were filled with hotel rooms and small restaurants.

as you would get off the elevator (which took 15 minutes of standing in line to get onto), you could go left, or you could go right. on my floor, a step to the right lead you towards a very small and very dirty indian restaurant. a step to the left lead you towards my "hotel". the hotel was nothing more than the "lobby", a "bathroom", 4 "hotel rooms" and a "kitchen".

the "lobby" was maybe, MAYBE 8 feet by 10 feet. there was a tv in the corner and when i entered, an old woman, presumably the mother, staring at the television. she said nothing to me. didn't even look at me. so much for customer service. when i left the next morning at 8am, there were 2 men / boys (the children i'm guessing), sleeping on the tile of the "lobby", with a fan blowing air over them. it literally took me 5 minutes to tip toe over these two bodies in the morning, with my huge bag and my other oversized bag, trying desperately not to step on their backs. i succeeded. but not without some hesitation, some nervousness, and a dose of good luck.

the "kitchen" was only a sink and some type of oven that was run by being hooked up to a propane tank. i'm sure that met all local fire code standards.

the "bathroom" was 3 feet wide by 6 feet deep. there was a sink that was about 8 inches by 8 inches to your left as you stepped in. then on the left hand side, to the immediate left of the sink, was the "shower". and by "shower", i mean a faucet that poked out of the wall that rained water down upon you. ironically enough, hot water too. then to the immediate right of the shower, was the toilet. a good old western toilet. as opposed to the eastern "toilet" which is nothing more than a hole in the ground.

the bathroom was so small that as you showered, the water would splash into the sink, onto you the bather, and then onto / into the toilet. it was kind of fun and a lesson in efficient use of bathroom space. take that martha stewart, you psychotic thing you.

my personal favorite, the bedroom. ch-ch-ch-check it out. wha-wha-what's it all about.



notice the walls coming apart. the room was 3 feet by 5 feet 9 inches. i say 5 feet 9 inches because i couldn't extend my legs the entire length of the bed. i also had to keep the tv turned on all night with a towel over it, so that the opaque light of the tv kept the roaches away. and no. i didn't get much sleep. that was one of the longer nights in my life.

forgot to talk about a detail of the elevators. the elevators were the slowest things in the world. what made them even more entertaining, and which offers a microcosm into china, is that there was an attendnat there who worked the elevator, who made sure everyone stood in line. see, the chinese have a problem with lines. i don't know if they simply don't like them, or there is something in their culture which labels lines as bad. but they just simply do not believe in lines. at first i was offended that people were cutting line. but with me being bigger than most (which is pathetic) people there, i decided that when in rome, do as the romans do. local asians must have thought i was a mob god with my ability to push, plunder, and absolutely annihilate lines by getting to the front with the greatest of ease. i also think they revered me b/c i made an excellent lead blocker in getting to the front of the line. i simply find it ridiculous that someone's job in hong kong was to make sure people stand in line for an elevator, and ensure too many people do not enter the elevator at once. i imagine the elevator-line-checker's evening out to go something like this.

"hey gorgeous, what are you doing here?"
female bats eyelashes.
"oh, me? nothing. just got off work, came here to relax".
"me too. just got off work."
female becomes interested.
"oh really? where do you work at".
male elevator-line-checker proudly,
"i work over at the chungking mansions. i make sure people are in line for the elevator - i run some of the tightest, most orderly lines in all of hong kong".
female swoons and is in love.

(*) surprised by number of non-asians in hong kong. especially indians and africans.

(*) everything is white / pale skin. it is interesting the ratio of white models & asian models used in advertisements.

(*) after checking in to my hole, i walked to Victoria Harbor. gorgeous. hong kong loves neon. the architectural style of hong kong could best be described as highly influenced by crank & neon. there were some buildings whose entire colors would change due to LED lights or neon. and by "some", i mean a good 25% of skyscrapers near the harbor. I walked by the hong kong culture center & movie star path. I walked to the end end of Victoria Harbor and back into an ultra modern ballermall. the store of tommy hilfiger, with an extremely large american flag, was the most nauseating store to walk by. here are some pictures from my walk. by the way, 7-11 is huge in asia.









(*) Hong Kong fashion. as an expert people watcher, hong kong's sense of fashion blew me away. everywhere i looked, there were hardcore american hipsters: Nike, Adidas, Tommy, v-necks, striped v-necks, ridiculous trucker hats, ridiculous belt buckles, ridiculous mullets - ridiculous ridiculousness. for the next person that goes over there - do me a favor. print out some fake business cards that say something like "Vogue Street Team", and take pictures of locals. tell them you are doing an expose on hong kong street fashion. i can't even talk about this anymore because it frustrates me to no end that i failed to do that.

(*) Hong Kong is a delightful recipe made up of 1/2 Britain, 1/2 China, sprinkled with crack.

(*) Wandered into an arcade with electronic horse gambling arcade game. two things to notice from this. first, arcades are very much a large portion of asian lifestyles - whether the arcades be in the form of either a gambling casino or a true arcade with whack-a-mole and crazy japanimation street fighter type games. and they are all filled with an overpowering cloud of bootlegged chemical filled cigarettes. i don't think the cigarettes are bootlegged, i just think the chemicals used in the cigarettes are bootlegged.

the second aspect of the chinese arcade to extrapolate from this visit was that the chinese were so occupied with gambling, they cannot even gamble on real live horseraces. these gamblers had sunk so low into their lifestyle, that they would watch a computer animated, computer generated horse race on basically a large plasma tv screen. the animation looked like the cut-scenes you would get to after beating 3 characters in a row in Mike Tyson's punch out. we're talking shite graphics. and yet there would be 4 or 5 men sitting there, chain smoking, gambling. wow. if you're going to be a degenerate gambler, the least you can do is get out socially and bet on real live things. i wanted to grab these men by their non-popped members only jackets and tell them, "my god man, be a desolate gambler in a social place where there are other gamblers who have given up on their lives and families and friends". but i don't think they would have understood me.

(*) the evening flea market = insane. and humid. have i mentioned how f-bombing humid this place is? the market allowed for one stream of two way traffic. there was literally (stall)(shoulder of person going one way)(shoulder of other person going other way)(stall). it was hard enough to take my camera out & take this amateur photograph.



(*) I walked past Kowloon park which had a soccer field & a huge city swimming pool in the middle of nowhere. i am particularly proud of this self-portrait i created with my best friend at the time - my tripod. additionally, i took this picture as 6 shady looking pack of hong kong hooligans walked by me & eyed my camera.




(*) as i was on a budget, hong kong was the beginning of utilizing some of the most important information i learned during my undergraduate studies: chain smoking helps kill your appetite / stomach's appeal to please be fed as it is starving.

(*) there are just so many shops & people on top of each other. continuous sensory overload.

(*) while walking around aimlessly, i was actually given a compliment. yep. in english. which shocked me even more. the more surprising part? it was uttered to me concerning my physical features. yep. i kind of looked around, just to make sure the person was talking to me. what's even more - the person who uttered it was female. oh hell yeah. a female commented on my physical features in a positive way. i must admit, i too was slightly shocked. the statement?

"come see beautiful girls here, handsome".

you got that right. never mind the fact it was uttered by a 55 year old woman who only wanted me to spend money at her whore house. she thought i was beautiful. and the thing is, she doesn't even know about my inner beauty.

(*) travelers in countries such as asia, where your chances of western toilet versus eastern hole in the ground toilet is about 20/80, know that Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonalds are not to be referenced in regards to their food. No, they are the public water closet. that's because since i'm white, i can walk into any mcdonald's or kfc, and use the water closet free of charge. and as these are western restaurants, their bathrooms 75% of the time will have western toilets and 95% of the time will be clean. the KFC in hong kong was no different. good work hong kong KFC bathroom attendants.

(*) in hong kong, as it was once ruled by the british, the cars are on the opposite side of the road. its a good thing i hadn't started drinking.

(*) plethora of double decker buses. its as if every other bus you would see hustling through downtown chicago was a double decker.

(*) not only do the cars drive on the opposite side of the road, the drivers are on the passenger side of the car. its like hong kong does this on purpose, just to add to the mountain of other things that are constantly sending off seismic charges in your brain; preventing it from putting together a rational thought.

(*) More cell phone stores than anything. There were 3 cell phone stores in a row on a relatively main and busy street. i wonder if the managers of each store talk shit about the other stores to their customers.

(*) My feet began killing me in hong kong already. which was odd b/c i brought one pair of new balance shoes that i had previously had for several months. unfortunately, this would not get any better, and for the following 3 weeks i would battle approximately 10 blisters: one of which is still healing today. a big thank you to sabine, one part of zee germans, who had some foot bandages. or else i may have had to have my right foot amputated.

(*) I was exhausted at the end of my first night in hong kong. i had walked several miles that night, and being that i hadn't done much of any physical exertion in america, my lungs & legs & entire cardiovascular system really didn't understand how to deal with this entire notion of "physical effort".

(*) I eventually found my way back to the hostel. i took the wrong set of elevators at first, but finally got to the right floor and into the right hostel. i tried to sleep at 11pm on a saturday night in hong kong. i didn't go to the irish pub, spaghetti house, italian restaurant, or burrito loco. i didn't have money, and quite honestly, i was fucking tired. i knew there would be other nights for drunken debauchery and the like. i put on the television to keep the bugs out and put a towel over the television as a dimmer. as i napped on and off as my body was still good & fucked up from jet-lag, i continuously found myself checking my ipod to see what time it was.

here is a picture of the outside of the chungking "mansion" on nathaniel road / backpackers road.



a typical view from a typical hong kong street.


and remember, joy and peace.