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Last stop

Saturday, February 10th, 2007

Last place before home time…scary how things creep up on you. I was pretty much fine until getting on the bus to the airport this morning and since then have been feeling freaked out and shakey…..home…one place. Well actually I don’t have anywhere to live when I get back so it could be a couple more weeks of living out of my pack until I can afford to move to a flat. Anyway Hong Kong, a weird sort of middle country, not really ‘Asia’ but more intense commercialism than anywhere I’d been in the west. Tash had long ago booked us into a 5 star hotel, that’s right 5 star, flasher than any place I’d ever stayed in and it clearly showed as the staff didn’t seem super excited to see me when I stumbled in carrying my pack looking awful after a day in airports. I didn’t quite fit in with suits and suitcases with wheels. But once I’d actually showered and stopped dressing like a backpacking hippy I was treated the same, with extreame politeness and an almost scary attitude of helpfulness. It was great! After the whole year of staying in crusty guesthouses and dorm rooms it was amazing to have staff that wanted to help you. We even had the pool on our floor, a clean bathroom with hot water and cable TV. Of course we spent most of the 3 days sitting around in bed watching TV, which was awesome. Went for a few swims, went to a great market (with shoes!) and window shopped in high class designer shops. We met up with our friend Lisa and some girls with her who had been in the Philippines on a missions trip and we heading home, so cool to be able to see them in Hong Kong, even though we’ll catch up with them this weekend.
We were feeling nice and relaxed (and clean for once) and it was time to go to the airport one last time. One problem though….weight limit.
I’d always wondered how it was possible for people to take that much stuff that they’d actually go over the weight limit, but when looking at all my stuff I was a bit worried. I’d left a bag from India in Hong Kong and once I’d picked that up it was looking doubtful that it was going to happen. I managed to fit everything in my pack, as well as a massive carryon bag that while fit the dimensions, I knew would be over the limit but just hoped it would be OK. So my pack weight 25kgs and she didn’t say anything but then she asked to see my hand luggage…and weighed it. 15kgs. Too heavy she said, but incredibly she let me check it on with out paying any fees. So I checked in 40kgs of luggage, twice the normal limit. I just hope the extra bag survives as it’s a pretty shitty bag from India not made for being thrown around planes. The only problem now is getting on the flight from Auckland to home with all my stuff because we have to recheck our bags in. So on the plane now…will be in NZ in about 8 hours, very scary to think about but don’t think it will hit me until we land.
photos from Vietnam, Laos and Thailand are here:

Vietnam Laos Thailand

I am living in a material world: Hong Kong

Monday, December 25th, 2006

Compared to India, HK was so clean, and shiny, and organised. The airport was big, travelators along the floor, toilets with toilet paper…I got confused and overwhelmed and filled in a departure card instead of an arrival card. So back to the end of the line.
I did eventually make it out, the airport was pretty massive and I grabbed some yummy cheap sandwhiches before getting on the bus into town (so easy and organised). 40 minutes later we were in downtown Kowloon surrounded by more shops than I’d ever seen, billboards sand neon signs almost blocked the sky and people everywhere. I found my hostel inside this massive building on the man road which probably had more people inside than the whole of Christchurch. The hostel was more of a corridor with beds in it, just seemed like a whole lot of different rooms called different hotels and hostels. All a bit strange, but a whole lot of cool people in their. I went down to the water with a German guy to check out the skyline and watch a lightshow they have there every night. One thing that I did notice was the incredible amount of christmas decorations, in India I’d almost forgoten it was christmas but here they’d gone all out and down on the water the massive syscrapers across from us had the entire sided of them covered in neon santas. All pretty crazy, but the view was pretty incredible, I’d never seen so many massive building and the lightshow was interesting, a speaker behind us blasted out some cheesy music and all the buildings flashed along in time with massive lazers. We went had some chinese for dinner then went back to bed as I was shattered by then because of my early start that morning. Wasn’t flying out until late that night so I spent the day checking out a bit of the city. Went and dropped a big bag of stuff I don’t need for the last bit of the trip at the hotel me and tash are staying at on the way home. Tash organised it and its a super flash, 5 star hotel. Wll be cool to stay there on the way home and great to get rid of things I don’t need as it made my bag about half empty. I caught the ferry over to the island where it seems there are more banks than people. Everything is all super flash, there a shopping malls everywhere and people shopping everywhere, kind of crazy.

Stocked up on a few supplys then it was time to head to the airport. The bus was bit late so was already running late, after waiting for ages to check in I found out that to get into the Philippines I needed proof of onwards travel, so had to wait for ages to find details of my onwards flight which luckily I had booked. Then immigration took forever finally made it though and i rushed off to try find Tash who was flying from Christchurch to meet me in the Philippines, she had a little bit of time in Hong Kong where we were planning to meet up beofre our seperate flights to Manila, just got there before she was going to leave. So great to see her if only briefly. Flight to Manila was only 2 hours apart from getting weird headaches from cabin pressure it was pretty average. Touched down in Manila around midnight after getting baggage finding Tash again we went out to met Jess and Andy, friends from home who are teachers at an international school here.