Viva Las Hong Kong

Well, I am here, in sunny Hong Kong. Or at least, it would be sunny if it weren't the middle of the night. It is currently 3:30 am here, and it has been dark for me for the last 17 hours. I rather miss the sun. It was my friend.

Not that it's not warm here. No it is 20 degrees celsius, and humid as all get out. Anyways, the epic story of my trip:

I started this morning on a snow-blown runway, which the plane had no problems taking off from. However, then I got to Vancouver, got on my plane with no problems and figured I was in the clear. WRONG-O.

The plane had some problems, which delayed us over 6 hours, so by the time I left Vancouver Airport, it was dark. The plane, for some reason which makes sense if you think about it, flies over the top to get to Hong Kong, instead of across. So, I flew over BC, Alaska, The Bering Strait, Russia, China and finally the city itself before landing. Unfortunately for me, I did not have a window seat on the plane, so we might as well have been flying over Antarctica. There were no screaming babies, so I would categorize the flight as a success.

Once in Hong Kong, I went through a bunch of gates where people made me show them my passport, and some other random paper work, and then I was free and clear. Free and clear in the Hong Kong Airport at 1:30 in the morning, when all the services have closed down. Luckily, I was accosted by a taxi driver who wanted to drive me places, and so me and a young man from Toronto hopped in and drove on our merry way. And when I say merry, what I really mean is insane, because the cab driver paid only cursory attention to things like signs, and I don't think he was even aware there WAS a speed limit. It was pretty fun though.

We got to the hotel, I paid the taxi driver $350 (Hong Kong Dollars) and went in to get my room. UNFORTUNATELY, I was at the wrong hotel. I was at the Harbour Plaza Hotel, and what I wanted was the Harbour Palace Metropolis, which had nothing to do with the first one. So, I hopped in another taxi (there are a lot of taxis everywhere. It's like they're a gang) and got to the correct hotel, met Dr. Chen, got my room and sat down to type this, whilst leaching internet from some other building. Turns out being on the 19th floor is good for wireless reception.

And now I am going to sleep. I have to go shopping tomorrow, and the day after that, apparently we're presenting something at a Polytechnical Institute, which is news to me. I took lots of pictures of my trip, but many of them are of dancing lights that don't look like anything. So, I got rid of the bad ones, and here are the awesome ones:

Vancouver-Hong Kong