[Hong Kong, China]

On the bus ride from the Hong Kong Airport to the hotel, someone said, “Did you guys notice? NO HONKING!!!”. Someone else said, “Yeah, and there are only motorized vehicles on the highway!” I don’ think there was anyone in our group who didn’t long for normalcy after a week in India.

Upon arriving in our hotel around noon, we all went across the street to the 7-Eleven to get some necessities, then ate lunch in a little “hole in the wall” type restaurant where we dove right into the local cuisine with a wan tan and beef noodle combo. We relished everything from the ability to cross the street without risking our lives to not being stared at all the time. We were like kids in a candy store.

First meal in Hong Kong

Later in the evening, my teammate Meiling decided to put her Mandarin skills to work and took us out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant across the water on Hong Kong Island, in a district called Lan Kwai Fong. LKF is known for its collection of restaurants, bars and clubs and is a popular hang out spot for ex-pats and locals alike.

We took the well-known Star Ferry across Victoria Harbor to the island. The amount of time it takes to get to Hong Kong Island, we later learned, keeps getting shorter and shorter but not because the ferry gets faster. Hong Kong is one of the biggest land reclaimers in the world. The region has been reclaiming land on both sides of the Victoria harbor, thus reducing the amount of time it takes the ferry to cross it.

Walking to dinner; on the way to the star ferry

Tower two of the International Finance Center

After the ferry, we walked a short distance to our restaurant. The menu was full of things I had never eaten before such as pigeon meat, chicken feet, frog legs and something called pickled egg. We wanted to stick with a meat we all knew we would like so we ordered goose but Ryno was set on trying the pickled egg. When it arrived, it looked pretty gross – it’s called “black egg” for a reason. I tried only a small piece of the egg-white – it tasted faintly like egg but it had a jello-like consistency that was a bit weird.

By the end of the day, we knew why Hong Kong is such a great dining location. We hadn’t even spent a full day here and we already had two amazing meals. I couldn’t wait to experience the other thing Hong Kong is famous for – shopping!

On the star ferry, coming back from dinner.