Hong Kong Phooey - (wasn't this atom ant or secret squirrel's sidekick?) Just returned from my third home leave back to California where it was as hot as Singapore but without the humidity. On the way back, I took a 36-hour layover in Hong Kong and experienced an amazing time in the city. It is very easy to explore from the airport and I would encourage everyone flying through to take the extra day or two to see it. Contrary to what others have told me, I found the city extremely cosmopolitan with cutting-edge architecture, easy to navigate, clean, and the people were very friendly. Maybe it was a face for the Olympics. It reminded me of a mix between Singapore and the Bay Area, with wonderful hills with hiking galore.
In my first eight hours I took planes, limousines, shuttles, MTRs, an alpine gondola, a ferry and a taxi ride throughout the city. Landed at sunrise and did not stop sightseeing until sunset, when jetlag began to take me down.
The gondola takes you through the hills to the base of the largest outdoor Buddha statue with a killer staircase to reach him. Around his backside is the Wisdom Path where someone cut trees in half and performed calligraphy on them. Maybe it was the aliens. Then there is a path up to a peak, but I turned back on since I was in my urban hiking stilettos and had no sunscreen. I did peddle a black cowboy hat off a Chinese man on my way down to protect my face. 
I thought Singapore was the shopping mecca of the world, then I was proven wrong upon my visit to Dubai. Well, there is somewhere in the world where malls and designer clothes are even sacred – Hong Kong! It is not only sport, a pass time, and the point where almost all merchandise passes through en route to every other mall in the world, but you are literally forced to shop everywhere you go! And the prices are not cheap, as one blonde girl would have thunk. It is very cool to take the ferry from the mall in Hong Kong to the mall in Kowloon. It is the best view of the skyline one can have, especially at night! I spent my evening exploring the streets then settling in an Internet karaoke bar to do my homework.
Wow, that was interesting. The next morning I walked the entire town on foot again through the financial district with thousands of Filipino maids who had the day off and picnic in the plazas in their sausage casing tight jeans and t-stirts with sparklely writing on them, up to the botanical gardens and zoo, where I got to see monkeys in cages. I walked so much that the bottoms of my feet were blistered.The Kuwaiti Ambassador is a PRICK! (or at least his driver is...)
This week I moved out of my serviced apartment as my project is beginning to end and I am now classified as a business traveler. Instead of living in hotels, I have moved into Raphael’s house in Novena for the next six weeks. His stay in Germany was extended and he was nice enough to let me use his SUV to move my stuff over to his place. Yey, I got to drive on the wrong side of the road! The driving I had no problem with, except I kept turning the windshield wipers on every time I wanted to make a turn. The parking was a different story. The garages are very tight in Singapore and granted I have television cameras on the bumper, I still parked kind of funky.
I was told the car I was juxtaposed next to belonged to the new Kuwaiti Ambassador, a black Mercedes. I filled Raphael's vehicle with my stuff before running off to my meetings. When I returned, the Mercedes was gone. Someone had keyed the entire drivers-side of Raphael’s car, probably because of my un-orthogonal placement of the vehicle, that was still within the lines. I have filed a complaint against him and hope he will not send the Taliban after me. After all the jokes last night about trying to drive on the correct side of the road, Raphael still thinks I have made this whole story up! He doesn’t believe his car is keyed. Well, he is in for a rude awakening upon his return from Schnitzeland. It is long, deep and was definitely intentional.
After I realized that my apartment complex was not going to interfere with a case against the ambassador (they are refusing to release the CCTV tapes to me), I went to file a police report. It took an insane amount of time to do the paperwork and I missed my yoga class. I ended up walking through rush hour traffic. At a stoplight, a taxi next to me rolled down the window and my friend Joe yelled out, "hey Kelly, are you on your way to the ambassador's party?" Not the Kuwaiti ambassador, but the Irish ambassador. Now in the past 6 months, I have been to 3 parties at the Irishman's house and met him at the European film festival and I don't even know where the US ambassador lives.
