Letter to Daryl

Photo: After traveling from Xining to Hong Kong in one long day, a late-night-exhausted-blurry-view of lively Hong Kong Harbor from the amphitheater of the Youth Hostel on Mount Davis, Kennedy Town, Victoria, Hong Kong Island, August, 2010.

Hey Honey,

Yes, Sander and I arrived in Hong Kong last night. Our journey went like this:

We took a taxi yesterday morning from our hotel in Xining to the airport about 20 miles east. We boarded the plane around 1:35 pm and took off 30 minutes later. To our surprise, after only a couple hours, we were landing. This was too soon to be Guangzhou. People started to get ready to disembark. This stop was not explained to me when I purchased our tickets and it was certainly not printed on our tickets. I don't know if we were the only ones who were clueless though. When the stewardess announced what was going on I could neither understand her Chinese nor her English. Minutes later, with a lot of lateral movement by the plane (which we have noticed a lot of during our domestic flights in China, making the flights more wild than a roller coaster since roller coasters don't move that way [at least the ones that stay on the tracks]), we abruptly landed in Changsha!

Changsha?

Once off the plane and in the terminal, and after being told to wait at the wrong gate at the wrong time by a woman at the Changsha information counter, we ended up on the right plane at the right time and assured by a more reliable source that our luggage was on our plane.

We arrived in Guangzhou around 6:00 pm and were soon in a taxi for the Guangzhou East Train Station.

We went through Chinese customs and caught the Express train to Hong Kong with 20-30 minutes to spare. On the train, knowing the hostel closes its gates at night and locks them but unsure of the time (I was thinking possibly 9:00 pm but more likely 10:00 pm, but that was 24 years ago and tonight it was already after 9:00 and going on 10:00.) I told Sander that it's a killer hill up to the hostel and were it closed we would either be camping out or paying for a hotel that would in one night cost more than the hostel costs in three.

I asked Sander, "You need to ask yourself a question: 'Do you feel lucky?'"

Sander replied with an emphatic: "Yes!"

We arrived in Hong Kong where we went through their customs and were in a taxi for the youth hostel by 10:30 pm via the Harbor Tunnel and then through Central and Kennedy Town in Victoria on the north shore of Hong Kong Island. At it's western point he took a hard left and drove up to the top of Mount Davis approaching the hostel just below the summit. It's quite a summit.


Photo: Impressionistic view of Hong Kong Harbor at night from youth hostel, August, 2010.

As the taxi pulled to a stop, we saw that the gate was still open! We hopped out, Sander paid the cabby, and we grabbed our gear reading the sign on the gate as we entered: GATE CLOSES AT 11:00 PM AND WILL NOT OPEN UNTIL 7:00 AM. We made it inside by 12 minutes! Twelve minutes!

Can you believe it!

Ours was an incredible sprint across China. To have covered all that distance -- in China -- in one day, through all those different methods of travel, and then to get inside where we had reservations with minutes to spare was incredibly lucky. I told Sander, "I'm traveling with luck," as I looked at him. He replied, "I'm traveling with luck," as he looked at me.

We were both lucky and totally exhausted!

We still are.

Right now we're in Kowloon, on the north side of Hong Kong Harbor and north of Hong Kong Island.

After scouting out how we were going to get to the airport the day after tomorrow, we decided to take the Star Ferry across the Harbor just for the fun of it. To enjoy the ride. To enjoy the sights of Hong Kong and Kowloon and the harbor itself. It's a beautiful harbor and a gorgeous day.


Photo: The famous Star Ferry, which we used daily to travel back and forth between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.

Having hardly eated yesterday, we pigged out on some Hong Kong pasteries this morning and then sat down and had a real meal for a change from yesterday. For tonight we're entertaining the thought of picking up a Beijing Duck and taking it back to the hostel with us where we will wash clothes, write up our journals, and just relax. Maybe we'll view the harbor from the summit of Mount Davis just above our hostel too.

Anyway, thank you for writing and just wanted you to know where we were and how we got here. We'll soon be on our way home.

I love and miss you too!

Brad