We landed in Hong Kong around noon local time. Because we were so sleep depriving, we automatically accepted the local time – not necessarily *adjusted,* but at least our bodies didn’t protest too much. We were unsuccessful trying to find out where Jess’s bag might be. Southwest had made it seem like sending the bag to Hong Kong would be seamless, however Air China was thoroughly confused, though tried to be as helpful as possible. Since Jess arrived without her luggage, we added shopping to our priorities of food and sleep.
Since we are staying in Yuen Long, we hoped on a bus from the airport straight to where we would meet Jess’s friend, Grace. While neither of us had a lot of expectations of Hong Kong, I personally was surprised by the number of trees and the lovely rain.
We got off the bus at the station in Sheung Shei, where Grace met us. I have to say, I’m so glad that we had a local to show us around, especially during that first, sleep deprived night. We dropped off my bag, at least, at Grace’s house, showered, and then headed right back out to Mong Kok to shop and find dinner.
Mong Kok was exactly like my only expectation of Hong Kong – overwhelming, crowded, and bright. The streets were packed with people, there was random karoke on the streets, and the market was full of mass quantities of cheap goods.
Jess ended up finding a few pieces of clothes in a local shop, not in the market. By the time we finished shopping, we were starving and crashing. Grace took us to a very shady building called Chung King Mansion for Indian food at a restaurant called New Delhi. The restaurant was on the third floor, which was my first exposure to retail that wasn’t on the ground floor, or in a larger mall.
Once we had gotten food in our stomachs, we began to crash. We went immediately to sleep when we returned to Grace’s, and slept for a solid ten hours.