I STICKY.

I decided to not even bother to figure out the time differences and how to switch between HK and CA. Instead, I am adopting the recently acquired camping philosphy that time is of no importance. I mean, I'm on vacation, after all.

After a pretty fast 13 hour flight (consisted of Running With Scissors, 17 Again omgzacefron, & SLEEP), we landed in HK. Immediately after stepping off the plane I was greeted with a cloud of humidity and instantly my pores started filling with sweat. Apparently the fact that it was 5 in the morning does not stop HK from being an already sweltering 87 degrees Fahrenheit.

We left the airport and went on an adventure. After getting picked up by a rollicky double decker reminiscent of the Knight Bus in Harry Potter, we transferred buses a couple more times, stopped at a 7/11 for snackage, and then took a ride through dense greenery to arrive at the Big Buddha. Can I first just say -- Hong Kong is breathtakingly beautiful. It's extremely lush, it's seriously GREEN everywhere you look. The mountains are amazing to look at too, and the ocean view is just as nice. Pictures do not do it justice.

So according to my mother, the story is that if you touch the lotus leaves that the Big Buddha is seated upon, you get to make a wish. We made our way up the many many stairs and soon found ourselves at the foot of the statue. Unfortunately we soon found out that to actually get close enough to touch the lotus, we would have to pay a fee. Any spark of faith in spirituality fizzled quickly...sigh. HAHA. Moving on.

After this little side-trip we went to our hotel. L'Hotel. It's QUITE swanky and I enjoy it immensely! We have a room on the 33rd floor and I absolutely love it, unlike my dad who has a fear of heights. Glancing out the big glass windows and being greeted with a view of high rises and bustling city streets far below fulfills some sort of happiness within me. I sat on my crisp white bed and soaked it in for a while as my sister flipped through channels. We couldn't decide what to watch:
1. A program called "Let's Speak Korean!!" taught by an entirely too enthusiastic Korean girl to an entirely too white man. Pretty entertaining.
2. A (BAD) soap opera where the main character is a white girl who speaks English with a Russian accent, but speaks in Mandarin to her father, who looks EXACTLY like Gimli (complete with beard/grunting) and has recently been diagnosed with diabetes.
Needless to say we found our way to MTV soon enough and fell asleep to Colbie Caillat and Taylor Swift music videos. LOVE!

Random HK tidbits:
-Conversation between me and my mother (some of you know she was concerned about my clothing being not conservative enough.)
Mom: (pointing at girls wearing t-shirts) see, those girls aren't wearing tank tops
Chery: they also look like they haven't seen sunlight in fourteen years. I have a tan to show off.
Mom: (laughs at me. SIGH)
To fit in amongst the HK girls I would probably have to lose 20 pounds and get 30 shades lighter. And then take a trip back to 2006 and give myself lawnmower bangs again.
-My enthusiastic urban studies professor's voice has been in my head because HK is full of...
1. ROUNDABOUTS!! A great way to divert traffic! (drift off into a personal story about getting lost in the roundabouts in Paris)
2. High rises galore!! High density, affordable housing! (insert another miscellaneous story from his well-traveled life)
Seriously, I can hear him echoing in my brain. But I'm interested in all this city stuff and city life is fascinating for me right now so I'm fine with it...
-MINUS the fact that I wish I had...very limited parental attention. Haha. Clubbing & Happy Hour are not activities to bring Ma and Pa along on. NTS, come back with friends. I am dying to explore the city without parents.
-like I mentioned earlier I have 2 bug bites already, more than the rest of my family combined. I don't know whether to be flattered that the bugs love me so much or just plain annoyed. One has swollen to nickel sized and the other to poker chip sized. Incredible. My body really just amazes me sometimes.
-HUMIDITY...I STICKY, ALL THE TIME! The immortal words of Katherine Hu, spoken almost EXACTLY a year ago (!!!) hold extremely true at this point in my life. I don't remember what it feels like to be non-sticky. SIGH, southeast Asia. How you tickle my fancy.
-LOTS OF DRAGONFLIES! They're huge. I also saw these bright red spiders with creepily long legs, and a praying mantis the size of my hand.
-peoplewatching = much fun to be had. Also there are billboards of girls who look like they could go to UCI.

And yeah, I finished reading Running With Scissors. Which I HIGHLY enjoyed & highly recommend. I remembered a recent conversation I had with C about getting really immersed into a book and then starting to hear the narrator in your head...because now Augusten Burroughs basically lives in my head. HAHA I'm starting to feel a little crazy, but yeah there is a narration going on in my mind right now. It's fine. Seriously though, that book was CRAZY good. And CRAZY! But really good.

Oh, and I have been writing entirely too much...someone please buy me an electronic journal with a QWERTY keypad so I can write ALL THE TIME. Being on vacation = too much free time, too much free time = too much thinking, too much thinking = too much writing = hand cramps and chicken scratch handwriting. WiFi would be good too, thanks.

But yeah, I am enjoying Hong Kong so far! I'm not really jetlagged, I guess because my sleep schedule at home was weird enough for me to not feel 13 hours of re-scheduling. Whatever. Ok, goodbye from the lobby of my swanky L'HOTEL! Until the next time the computer is freee...