Hong Kong

HK has an awesome skyline

all the sassers out

with our vodka, classy

dim sum

street food

play in HK

Bruce Lee

streets of HK

When you all asked what Hong Kong was like, all I could think of was that it was like New York City, but with Chinese people everywhere….and it is. Luckily for me, I had Shelly who knew the ropes of Hong Kong because she studied abroad here last semester, so she was my own little Chinese tour guide. The ship only docked into Hong Kong for two days but we had the option of meeting the ship at its next port, Qingdao, which is a city northeast in China. Most people either flew or took the train to Beijing to see the Great Wall, but since my grandma and I took a trip there after I graduated high school, I decided to just spend four full days in Hong Kong.

Since Shelly was familiar with everything, she took us to all the hot spots of shopping and places to get cheap massages. On the last day I got my eye lashes permed, and I love it. So now for the next few weeks, I don’t have to curl my eyelashes. Hopefully it’ll last til my graduation so you all can see it. In HK we did some site seeing, but mostly walked around the city shopping and just absorbing in the city life.

Since all the sassers were still in HK the first night, we all got to go out and of course take over an area. Everyone migrated to a district called LKF where we chugged a bottle of vodka that was purchased at a local 7-11. Later we learned that many locals pregame outside of 7-11’s because its cheaper. As usual, the night was fun….and ill just leave it at that.
The rest of the nights, Shel took us to places where it was ladies night meaning not only free cover, but free drinks all night, or until the wee morning hours. We also got to hangout with Shelly’s old friends from the university and that was fun too. The highlight of my Hong Kong experience was definitely eating great food.

On April 21st, we flew to Qingdao in the afternoon and arrived late night. It was a pain getting to the ship because no one spoke English and Shelly couldn’t use her Cantonese skills since everyone in China speaks Mandarin. After we collected our luggage and went through customs we finally communicated with a guy to take us to the ship by showing him Chinese characters which supposedly meant the address of the port that the ship was at. Little did we know, he was bullshitting us and did not know where the ship was and we were lost for almost an hour. He ended up calling one of his friends who spoke English to talk to us, but even that was difficult since her English wasn’t very well. Finally, we saw some sassers randomly walking around and they pointed us in the right direction. I will confidently say that I think that Qingdao was one of the worst ports we’ve been to. Our ship was docked in an industrial area where there were bulldozers and ships that looked like they were digging for oil or something. It was not very welcoming and was pretty shady. Barely anyone could go out because of lack of communication and because of shadiness.

On the last day I went on an SAS trip to a home visit and it was also probably one of the worst SAS trips I have been on, but I guess they are just hit and miss because most of the SAS trips I’ve been to have been excellent. The tour guide was not very informative and it was definitely not organized well at all. We hung out at a local family’s house for about 45 minutes where we asked them questions and they asked us questions. The family had great hospitality; they served us tea, fruit, and other snacks. No one in the family spoke English, but our tour guide translated for us. Later that day I met up with the girls back at the ship. We had our last authentic Chinese meal and then did some shopping at another market. We were only there for a short while because the quality of everything was poor and nothing at this point could have beaten the shopping in Vietnam or Hong Kong. So we went to Wal-Mart and stocked up on ramen and water, haha. I think its safe to say that SAS should change it’s port of call when Wal-Mart is the highlight of everyone’s trip.

Overall, HK definitely made up for the lack of Qingdao’s tourist opportunities. I wish the ship could have just stayed in HK longer, but supposedly it costs 20K for us to port there for one night. One last thing to mention about Qingdao, it was cold! The first port where I needed a sweater! And it was cold on the ship the days between China and Japan. It’s supposed to be warmer after we leave Japan, lets cross our fingers so I can work on my tan before I head home. I can’t believe we’re at our last port already =o( So sad……