Hong Kong – Day 1

We had an early day today. We were already packed and ready to go so it was a quick clean up and out the room. I headed to the executive lounge to get a quick breakfast in. We only had about 20 minutes.

I think I’ve become snooty having access to 5-star hotels with lounge access. I could tell there’s a hit of it because I’ve started internally complaining about the mistakes being made at the lounge. They had a rice cooker with rice in it but they forgot to turn it on. Then I saw a server tell a lady that the balsamic vinegar was the soy sauce for the sushi they had. Then when I asked for a latte to-go they gave me an iced Americano and they brought me out congee with salted egg WITHOUT the salted egg.

BOOHOO Steven! You have amazing food at your fingertips and you’re annoyed things weren’t perfect. I can see how money can change people and I think it’s extremely important to stay grounded and NEVER forget where you came from and to NEVER treat people beneath you regardless of how much money or status you have. I hope I stay aware of my own pride and squash it.

After a quick breakfast, we got a Grab and headed to the airport. We got our tickets and went through security relatively seamlessly. The lines were a bit longer than expected but there weren’t any issues getting through. We had about an hour to spare before boarding so we got some coffee and browsed around. I downloaded some Korean shows on Netflix called “Memories of Alhambra” to watch on the 2-hour flight. It looks like a really cool show about futuristic Augmented Reality (AR).

We boarded and I got in about 1.5 episodes before landing. We went through immigration and tried getting some sim cards but couldn’t find any at the airport. I also exchanged my leftover VND to USD. We tried taking a taxi to the hotel but we got kicked off because we didn’t have Hong Kong Dollar (HKD). We found out there was a free shuttle so we took that instead.

Our hotel was only 1 mile away from the airport. It’s far from everything else. Not the ideal location but there is a shuttle that takes us to the closest MTR station (train system). We checked in and then came down to the restaurant to meet with Nelson, a club member from Trojan Business Alliance, the organization Jason and I started at USC. It was nice catching up with him for an hour.

We went back to the room to rest up a bit, shower, and then get ready to head to the night market on Temple Street. We took the free shuttle to the closest MTR station, got our 24 hr unlimited travel cards for train use and headed over to Jordan Street exit right next to the night market.

Hong Kong is a vibrant city. The Temple street is part of the older area of Hong Kong and has streets vendors and many restaurants with outside seating. We were told from Nelson we should try the seafood. We went through the night market pretty quick. It wasn’t very big and it was like all the other night markets; cheap knockoffs and touristy products. We were over them at this point.

We were both starving since the waiter at the Marriott restaurant completely messed up our order. He never even put our order in even though we were the only customers there. It was sort of ridiculous so we just canceled it after we asked him when our meals were coming and he acted as if we never ordered anything.

The food options weren’t very good at the night market. We tried finding some good places via reviews but there weren’t many. Eventually, we settled for one of the street seafood restaurants. It looked dingy and the cleanliness was suspect but the food hit the spot. It came out quickly and was better than the low expectations I had.

After a quick dinner, we caught the MTR before they closed down around 11 pm instead of taking an Uber because it would have cost 40USD to get back. We took the train and got to the closet exit to our hotel and then called an Uber. We were lucky and had a Tesla S for our ride. The driver took advantage of the power of the car and got us there quickly.

It was 11 pm and I wanted to go to the gym but I was still stuffed from dinner. Instead, we just grabbed some sparkling water at the executive lounge and headed to the room to end the night. We have one more full day in Hong Kong before we leave. We plan on getting some dim sum tomorrow morning, hitting some of the malls for holiday shopping, and a nice goose dinner (we heard it was a must-have in Hong Kong – Who knew you could eat goose?) to end the night.

Last full day in Hong Kong and then home sweet home!

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