Landing at Hong Kong International Airport was both an exciting and exhausting experience. Never flying for more than a couple of hours, 15 hours across the Pacific made for a rather nervous and stressful flight for this short haul junky. The excitement was such that sleep was impossible; the in flight entertainment system became my best friend. Wearied-eyed, sitting through 5 movies on the plane’s personal entertainment system, some computer work and a feeble attempt at sleep, my destination was within sight.
Viewing Hong Kong from the airplane’s approach path was impressive and awe-inspiring. The vast number of high rise buildings was unequal to any other city I have seen. At over seven million people, population wise, it was a couple of million fewer people than Los Angeles but seemed significantly larger. It appeared the city was not as spread-out as LA but instead built much more vertical and concentrated into a smaller space with lots of tall building housing not only businesses but many residential units.
De-boarding the plane, making my way through immigration and customs, I found myself experiencing something new. As a non-international, non jetsetter with no frequent flyer miles to my name life had just become exceedingly exciting. I had no reason to be nervous about my trek through customs, as I had nothing questionable to declare other than my vitamins and supplements. I was nervous though as I was not sure If I would be questioned about an unlabeled plastic bag of vitamin B capsules or some vitamin C powder I had in my bags in order to prevent getting sick while on my first meeting with the woman I was hoping to be the love of my life. I didn’t quite know what to expect but after a few routine questions from immigration and customs agents regarding my stay and my luggage contents, I made it through without any problems.
As I walked through the cavernous Hong Kong Airport gates and terminal, I was amazed at the towering ceilings and the enormity of the airport structure along with the ultra-modern appointments throughout. The gate concourses were so long, they seemed never-ending! In pre smart phones and handheld GPS days, I realized there would probably be many challenges in this strange land over seven thousand miles away from my home, without the slightest idea of how to find my way around. Sure I had some regular paper maps and other aids, but I felt rather overwhelmed at the prospects of navigating a city where it was becoming clear since my landing that most public employees did not speak my language.
I exchanged some U.S. dollars for Hong Kong dollars at the airport and felt my safest means of transportation would be a cab. There was a high speed train that went directly from the airport to the downtown area, but I felt I should save that experience for the return trip home. Finally finding my way to the transportation area of the airport I flagged-down one of the numerous airport cabs.
I had believed that Hong Kong, with status as an international megacity and being run by the British Government for so many years, would be more English language friendly. I was wrong! Strangely enough, English is not spoken much in this country, not even by cab drivers or waitresses. My budget was limited for this trip so my hotel was not one of the more notable large big-name chains, but rather a 3 to 4 star venue off the beaten track. Communication with my cab driver was to a large extent non-existent; he didn’t know my obscure hotel location no matter how many ways I attempted to pronoun it. I was forced to show him the map I had brought along of Hong Kong. This proved to be the catalyst for discovery and we soon arrived at my home for the next week.
Driving in Hong Kong is similar to driving in England; they use the Great Briton system of driving on the left hand side of the road, with steering wheels positioned on the right side of the vehicles. This trip was turning out to be an adventure from the get-go; the cab driver had no idea where I wanted to go and was not able to communicate with me and as he was driving exceedingly fast (apparently for a big tip) I also felt as though around every turn would surely lead to my demise. You see, besides the disorientated feeling of being on the wrong side of the road, the cab driver felt for some reason, getting me to my destination as quickly as possible was the utmost of importance to me.
I tried to relax and take in some of the surroundings of this wonderful and uniquely different city. The city was generally clean and modern with little air pollution. I was surprised, but came to find that all of the cabs and public transportation vehicles run on natural gas. This seemed to have a significant improvement on the air quality, given the size of the city. For that I was happy as I was sensitive to pollution and bad airborne particulates.
Hong Kong is divided into two distinct large districts. The mainland side called Kowloon, in the heart of the action – close to the night markets, lots of busily congested streets thriving with numerous restaurants, bars, businesses and shopping. And connected by a long undersea tunnel, is Hong Kong Island, with its high end stores, restaurants and the legendary towering business centers. I chose the Kowloon side for both budgetary reasons and the close proximity to affordable shopping and general fun for tourists without limitless cash reserves. After checking into my hotel room in the heart of the, I proceeded over to Jewel’s hotel, a dozen blocks away by taxi cab.
The mega Asian city overloaded with red, white, blue neon signs everywhere in another language and character set was impressive and overwhelming to say the least; I could not read any of them nor did I know what kind of establishment each represented. Inordinate displays of double deck busses and red and white government owned cabs were omnipresent. As is the situation in most Asian countries, there were so many people on the streets it was difficult to navigate without bumping to someone. This new and utterly fascinating experience was entrenching me in a case of sensory overload. Combined with the high humidity, the stress of finally meeting my love from across the seas and the lack of sleep on the plane, I felt as if I was dreaming and this experience was becoming all too surreal. For this U.S. boy being so far from home, surrounded by so many colorful signs in a language made-up of symbols that I only was familiar with from the streets of China Town in San Francisco, I was overwhelmed to say the least. As I disembarked from the elevator and walked down the hallway of a rather dirty-floored and smelly second rate facility, I wondered if somehow, I was still engaged in a dream while on the plane. No, this was not a dream, as I gazed at Jewel’s room number; it was all becoming very real! There I was, almost 8000 miles from home ready to meet the woman I have been engaged in a wonderful virtual relationship with for the last 6 months.
Finally arriving at my sweetheart’s hotel room doorway, I was nervous as the sweat—partly due to my nervousness and the fact that Hong Kong was a rather humid place – was profusely dripping off of my head. It was rather embarrassing but I could wait no longer. I knocked on the door, several times, but no answer. As I tried one more time, the door opened slowly. There she was, groggy, just waking from a nap. She was petite, cute as can be, shy and full of the incredibly enthusiastic expressions I was privileged to view that first webcam session. As I leaned over to give her a small kiss, she greeted me with a reciprocal kiss and a big enthusiastic hug. We embraced for over a minute it seemed. Eight months of anticipation, unending late night phone conversations, and what amounted to only a virtual relationship had finally become real. We were both so happy to finally be in each other’s arms.
We were all hungry so our first order of business was to eat. We proceeded to a rather fancy Chinese restaurant close to my hotel. The hotel décor featured signature Chinese red gold motif with white tablecloths. As we sat down in this large establishment filled with the noontime crowd we were handed our menus; it was then we all realized we were in trouble. The menu was entirely written in Mandarin or Cantonese with non recognizable Chinese characters throughout. We were looking around to see if there was anybody who spoke English to give us some assistance. Most were Hong Kong business people and locals; they were all speaking a Chinese language. When the waitress arrived, we were dumbfounded and didn’t know what to order. Surely the waitress would speak English and assist us with our choices. We were wrong on that account so we were forced to continue to look about the restaurant for help figuring out the menu; while Filipinos eat some different dishes, none of us wanted to end-up with boiled snake, deep-fried scorpions or eel for lunch. Finally, a dignified looking couple from Europe – who seemed to have lots of experience in Hong Kong and a good grasp on the local language – noticed our travails and assisted us with our order. When the order finally came, we were treated to an eclectic mix of dishes including one in particular that was the most interesting of them all. Birds nest soup was set before us in a large bowl in the center of the table. I was not too thrilled at eating this Chinese delicacy at first – but tried it anyway. Rather slimy and thick, it tasted good once you got past the thick consistency of the soup mixture. With the exception of the soup, we were forced to eat the rest of the meal with chopsticks, as there were no other utensils available. I figured it would be a growth experience and tried my best, but most of the food ended up falling from my chopsticks back to my plate or worse yet – directly on the front of my shirt.
The following couple of days were spent with Jewel and her son Jesse experiencing all of the great tourist spots in Hong Kong including Ocean Park, an incredible huge salt water aquarium and amusement park, Victoria Peak, offering unreal vistas at the Sky Terrace, a wonderful tram ride and some of the finest shopping and restaurants in all of Hong Kong. Jesse especially enjoyed the long suspended tram ride taking us over towering cliffs overlooking the China Sea. We had to ride this very high and long ride in order to get to the peninsula where the Ocean Park aquarium was located. Jesse was our photographer taking lots of pictures documenting our experiences. One of the best diners we all experienced was at the top of Victoria Peak. A high-end outdoor restaurant served one of the best New York steaks in all of Hong Kong, cooked to perfection on an outdoor grill with all of the trimmings.
After the initial couple of days, Jesse returned to the Philippines as his high school classes were beginning. We were all sad to see him go and he obviously wanted to stay longer and see more sites but his schooling was more important.
Jewel and I continued our exciting discovery of Hong Kong, this time taking in more of the high end shopping and restaurants and more adult venues such as the art museums. Luckily for us there was an exceptional impressionist exhibit featuring all of the great artists from that period such as Renoir and Monet. I am not an art expert by any stretch of the imagination but Jewel was enthralled at seeing works of art from these greats as I was also. It is not something we normally would do but it was fun nonetheless. Being such pseudo art experts, we would carefully analyze all of the great works up close and personal, we pretended to know more than we actually did about the classic fine art before us. The important thing was that we both began to see and understand why God had somehow reserved and preserved our long distance relationship for each other; we were happy in each other’s presence and thoroughly enjoyed doing similar things.
One evening we enjoyed a fantastic high-end Italian restaurant in one of the towering and exclusive business areas of Hong Kong. The waiters at this restaurant acted more like our personal butlers than our servers. We felt like movie stars and both relished the attention; at least to a point – then it became utterly laughable. The waiter’s eyes were continually trained on us and our every move was watched closer than a cheetah seeking to kill an antelope for her family’s dinner on the plains of Kenya. The stares caused us to feel as if we were doing something wrong or possible not dressed appropriately enough for this 5 star dining experience. Actually the team of waiters was ultra-accommodating – so much so that if we took one sip of water from our glass they would be there to fill it immediately. When we would get up to go to the restroom, the waiter was there to remove our napkin from our laps and neatly fold it; then, on returning to our table, they would pull our chair out for us and place our napkin back in our laps and ask if everything was alright. I accidentally dropped a brochure from an attraction on the floor; one of the waiters was instantly there picking it up prior to me even noticing the item fell. Now, I like great service as much as anybody else, but when a waiter instantly sweeps-up a few crumbs that fall to the ground from a breadstick a little broom and dustpan, it gets to be a little much. We both got the biggest kick out of this and made many jokes at the waiter’s expense. Luckily they did not understand English at all. As an appetizer they sat a large bowl of grapes in front of us that was consistently and incessantly replenished by our waiter friends. These were not ordinary grapes though; they had been marinated in brandy. They were so delicious; we could not stop eating them! We didn’t actually believe we could get drunk on marinated grapes – but we did. The jokes and mimicking of our waiters grew increasingly loud; we were actually getting out of control and acting more like rude teenagers getting high on pot than adults at a high-end Italian eatery. This added to our fun and laughter and made for a fun and memorable experience that we still talk about today.
We walked and walked for miles; we were ready for a rest. We stopped at a cultural park to enjoy the unique Chinese statutes and wonderful green gardens. Jewel at this time was very weary, her feet tired and aching from her new shoes. I sat down on a park bench and waited for my sweetheart to sit down beside me. Instead, she stretched-out on the park bench with her head in my lap, I began to stroke her back and caress her hair. Birds were singing and the humid air began to grow cooler as a breeze blew through the park. We were both so happy and fulfilled being together enjoying this special moment in an exciting international, world-class city. While the park experience may sound simple and ordinary on paper, we talk about this moment often and recall it as a special time God gave us to remember forever.
As we continued our sightseeing mission of Hong Kong, it was inevitable we would stubble upon the Rodeo Drive equivalent area of this fabulous city. We entered a high-end mall featuring all of the top designer brands such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Prada. The Gucci store in particular caught my sweetheart’s eye. Casually walking into the store known for its Italian designer handbags, I was struck by a feeling of somehow not belonging. Not being a multi millionaire, a New York model or Hollywood actor, I had little exposure in this world of high society. Surely these purses must be only a little more expensive than the handbags found at JC Penny’s or Target. Then again, looking at all of the marble in the store, the décor and general atmosphere, it felt awfully lavish. The fact there were no prices on the bags, many displayed on separate little pedestals, should have given me a clue as to the price of these highly appreciated Italian masterpieces. My girl was thrilled to be in an actual Gucci franchise store and I didn’t want to spoil the moment for her. I played along, pretending to feel natural in this setting. I allowed her to look and ask the salesperson lots of questions as I nervously paced back and forth. I was actually making every possible attempt to wander through the store’s doors into the general mall area and thought my sweetheart would somehow see my nervousness and follow. My attempt at redirecting our path was not working. Jewel, being an attractive woman in her late thirties, working in sales and marketing in the corporate world of Manila, naturally appreciated the finer things in life. She fell in love with one of the handbags that was similar to a colleague back at work, nicknamed: “The Gucci Girl.” Obviously, she was given this nickname by her fellow sales associates due to her extensive collection of Gucci purses; this girl spent a significant budget on designer accessories. Wanting to impress my girl, and seeing the look on Jewel’s face resulted in the following words emanating from my mouth: “Go ahead and buy that one.” As the saleslady rang-up the total, I was shocked to find it was about the same price of my round trip airline ticket from San Francisco to Hong Kong. Being a practical kind of guy I was rather taken back, but nothing was too good for my girl! The credit card made it a little easier, but I never thought a purse – normally a forty to seventy dollar item at a regular store – could come close to the price of a round trip plane ticket to a destination halfway around the world.
As each of these initial days of our physical relationship ended – days filled with togetherness, fun and excitement and we were in each other’s arms, we both realized it was one day closer to having to say goodbye. We both realized deep down – due to the extreme distances and expense – when we would see each other again. When it finally came time for Jewel and me to part and return to our respective countries, we both were divested! I could not begin to relate the sickening feeling that overcame both of us as reality sank in at the Hong Kong Airport. We both cried at the airport and on the plane home but another day beckoned for the continuation of our relationship.