HONG KONG: DAY ONE

here's a slideshow from my first full day in honk honk (hover for captions):​

crossing the star ferry.

​on the way from kowloon, where my hotel is, to hong kong island. 

can you see the humidity?

can you taste it??​

dim sum!

aziz, my tour guide and boss for the week, at city hall for dim sum.​

the sweets.

my favorite part about this dim sum was the black sesame soup. i must learn how to make it!​

a view from the escalator.

​after dim sum, aziz and i took the escalator further up the island to begin a hike.

the obligatory waterfall shot.

the hike begins!

puppy hiker.

​i was too shy to introduce myself, but here he is.

a crane for eggboy.

eggboy likes cranes. ​

the top of the island.

complete with two shopping malls, obviously.​

honk honk from above.

hong kong island and kowloon, across the river.​

being er.

​aziz told me that if a girl is ditzy, she is "so er." "er" means "two" in mandarin... like the two that i'm making with my hand in this pic. hehe.

a pretty wall.

a colorful wall.​

the back?

i think that's the back of hong kong island.​

aziz.

it just occurred to me that this year marks seven years of being friends with aziz! ​

escalator #34329058942

​heading back down the island.

heading further down.

on the trolley of doom. that thing gets nearly vertical. never taking it again.​

the mtr.

taking the mtr back across to kowloon for indian food!​

HONG KONG: JET LAG + TECHNOLOGY = NOT SO BAD

greetings from 4-in-the-am hong kong after waking up from a bad dream about the night's watch and staying up from jet lag! jet lag is poopy. i should have listened to my gut and taken a benadryl so that i could have slept through the night. but i didn't because part of me was afraid of sleeping too much and not having enough time to practice the gong before boarding a boat that one of aziz's friends chartered for the afternoon.

so i figured out my eating plan for the next week (it includes shengjian bao​, which are like pan fried soup dumplings. i think. and peanut butter stuffed french toast!) and then i got an email from eggboy telling me about the 1000 pounds of soybean seed that he just picked! ​and then i called him on facetime, doubtful that it would work because i thought that both people had to be on wifi, but that's wrong and it totally worked! ​and i got my very first glimpse of eggboy in a tractor!!!!!! ​it was the coolest thing ever. he had dirt all over his hands and his tractor was pulling this big thing and the land went on for as long as the eye could see and he even had a cute little thermos with soup made by eggboy mama. 

it made being jet-lagged totally worth it! (says the me that isn't yet falling asleep ​on a boat later today.) 

and now i am going to try to go back to sleep and dream of dumplings dancing in a field of soybeans.​

-yeh!​

THE EAGLEBIRD HAS LANDED. HELLO, HONK HONK!

so i made a video about it:

SCENES FROM A PERFECT BIRTHDAY WEEK

like a marzipan macaron, my birthday was sweet and perfect. i couldn't have asked for more. other than more stomach space. ​

now i'm noshing on cake and packing for hong kong. tomorrow = dumplings!!

also: a big big happy birthday to my pops! i lost count of how old he is and i just tried searching for an embarrassing old photo of him to post, but he looks practically the same now as he did in stoop's baby pictures, so i'd say that's a good accomplishment right there.

-yay!​