Are you from Holland?

Saturday was great. The first thing I want to comment on is the fact that I am loving the decrease in average height the farther south you get in China. This means I get more and more leg room in the cabs. I also am glad I took this long to visit Hong Kong. It is going to make Beijing look pretty awful in comparison and now I have an exit strategy from Beijing so it is not that bad.

We woke up Saturday and grabbed a nice breakfast in the hotel lobby. I ate using all real silver utensils. It was pretty cool. We then got our flights changed to first class out of Hong Kong instead of having to go back to Shenzhen. Even the concierge made fun of me for flying into Shenzhen. He also gave us a couple of places to go to get my camera and made us reservations at a nice Cantonese place.

We headed out and I got my camera in a huge mall that had every store I had ever heard of. The deal was better than both Beijing and the States but not by quite the margin I expected. For some reason I kept expecting it to be half the price. Most things seem to be that way. A little cheaper but not the huge discounts everyone always talks about. Although the no tax deal is pretty sweet and kind of makes up for the lack of huge discounts so what you see is what you pay.

After the camera we headed back to the hotel for some dim sum at the hotel restaurant which was amazing. While we were waiting for our table I managed to buy a shirt at Zegna which was just a couple of doors down. They have at least 13 of every boutique you could want in walking distance from wherever you are in Hong Kong. The shirt happened to be the same color as my dad's and when I wore it to lunch everyone thought we were from Holland.

Look how cute the twins look. Needless to say he quickly changed after lunch.


We also got some laundry done. They put this awesome bowtie in my ratty ass old shirt. I was amazed.

Larger than life Jackie Chan working out.

We went to the ladies market which is like the markets in Beijing but it is outside and bargaining is a real pain in the ass. To make up for that though they usually start at a much lower price. My dad got most of his presents and I picked up a Pistons jersey and shorts, got to celebrate the soon to be Eastern conference champions somehow.



Kowloon was just as neony and crowded as you would expect. One of the big differences between here and Beijing though was the pretty blatant pornography and strip clubs. Don’t get me wrong Beijing wins hand down for upfront prostitution but Hong Kong wins for blatant sexuality. As we were walking around it kind of started pouring again so we headed back to the hotel to relax (aka sleep).





We headed to dinner at Prince which was the nice Cantonese restaurant. I mostly liked it but my dad was not a big fan. They did try to rip us off (and succeeded some) because we were a little out of our element in ordering. The food was good. I have not had Cantonese much in China and it was interesting having it in Hong Kong. If I go back to Hong Kong though I will probably go to a different place. The view was spectacular though as it was on the 11th floor and looking out on the harbor.

The coolest thing was the laser light show at 8. Now I have not changed into a hippy and am not going to planetariums to watch lasers to the grateful dead. This light show involved all of the buildings in Hong Kong. The shot different kinds of lights all over the place and from many different heights. As my dad said it was if you were in a George Lucas film. I tried to take pictures but they did not turn out well.

After we finished we went back to the hotel and had a cigar in the lobby while chatting. It was a nice way to finish a fun day.



Our hotel from the outside.


The view from our room.