Hong Kong

Hong Kong:

Reminds me a little of New York. Bright lights. Perfect weather.
We have met people from Indonesia, Berlin, Scotland and Canada.

Hong Kong is really beautiful. We are staying on the main island,
in Causeway Bay, in a tiny little hostel. Hong Kong goes from
a dense urban environment to beautiful green hills and ocean views
in a few minutes.

I am trying to find out more of the relationship
between Hong Kong and mainland. It was a British colony up until 1997.
I have detected some animosity about historical sites being torn down in
the name of development. Mandarin, Cantonese and English are spoken here.

I am going through some reverse culture shock or something. I walked
into this coffee shop in Stanley Market area and just about started
crying. It smelled like home, and it made me miss my Mom and Melissa.

We went to Ikea here and I bought some finger puppets to
hopefully give away in India. I also got a little stuffed panda. We
vistited a zoo/amusement place called Ocean Park yesterday and saw some
beautiful pandas. Pandas eat bamboo (and the occasional rat) for 14 hours
a day, and sleep for 10. An An and Jie Jie are the pandas. There are only
about 1500 pandas left, because they are highly independent, only mate 3 days
a year, and their bamboo forests are disappearing. I love pandas.

We're heading to Bankok tomorrow morning. Later today we're going to Victoria peak and taking a ferry to view the harbor.

Love and miss you all. Wish you were here.