Hong Kong 1

We took our first trip to Hong Kong city this past weekend. Astute readers may remember that we've been to Hong Kong to camp before, but that was some kind of rural part of Hong Kong (?) which totally doesn't count. A bunch of our friends have birthdays this month, so we decided to go to Hong Kong to celebrate, although we only managed to stay together for about 15 minutes before the whole group disassembled.

Beware! No longer are you allowed to transport your luggage full of dead chickens between China and Hong Kong. Although the penalty of 50,000 kuai seems pretty steep.

Approximately 30% of the people in this picture were celebrating their birthdays.

The building on the far right is the one where Batman jumped off to steal that dude back out of Hong Kong. You do not stay in Hong Kong unless Batman permits.

I wish you could read Andy's shirt better, because it's hilarious. It's a plea to reason, saying how abysmal it is that people think Tibet should be independent. And I quote: "TIBET WAS IS AND WILL ALWAYS BE A PART OF CHINA We need more truths instead of listening fucking lies." You can kind of see where it says CHINA'S POWER at the bottom. I begged him not to wear it in Hong Kong, where tons of people speak and read English, but then again I don't know how they feel about it in Hong Kong. If he wears it in America, he'll probably get lynched.

They have this huge boardwalk devoted to Cantonese movie stars.

Hee hee.

Andy made me lie on a bed of nails at the Science Museum, which we went to because we're the nerdiest type of sight-seers. It hurt even though he promised it wouldn't!

They also had a kind of fun optics exhibit there, including crazy sideways room:

And "Kitty's head in a vase" room.

Requisite "infinite room":

Hong Kong is pretty amazingly infested with Christmas spirit. There's crazy lights all over the building. It's surreal to see this kind of stuff when it's still 70 degrees out. Speaking of which, our dorm room at school came with a tiny Christmas tree, but I wonder what the chances of finding a menorah will be. I guess I can always make one out of a potato?

Jackie Chan stared at us with his message of fitness while we enjoyed burgers and fries at Outback Steakhouse.

After we got separated from most of the group, we still had one birthday boy left with us, so we went in search of a cake.

We brought this wonderful mango slice cake and plenty of cans of beer to a public square in Hong Kong. We thoroughly enjoyed all said items. It's awfully convenient that they don't have any laws against public drinking anywhere in China.

Then Andy bought me a 'muscat' flavored KitKat. Surprisingly gross! (ANDY EDIT: Not just muscat, but Muscat of Alexandria! We could have snacked with kings!)

I guess I should consider myself lucky for not having to eat tomato soup KitKat.