Arrival

Sorry, had to get that one out of the way.

Anyhoo, I'm going to be living/working in Hong Kong for the next 10 months so I figured I might as well do another one of these travel blogs. Justin's not here this time because he's an IDIOT, so I'll be flying solo on this blog. That said, I will still be taking potshots at Justin as often as possible. If his grandparents are reading this, I hope they get upset. I'll be teaching English, but I won't find out where or who until Friday, so more info as I get it.

Getting to Hong Kong is really easy! All you do is drive to the Newark airport, get on a plane, and 16 hours later you're practically there! I flew Continental and they had a great selection of movies (over 200!), plus the seat next to me was empty, so no complaints there. I will say this about a 16 hour flight: It's opressively long. For example, I watched Pirates of the Carribean, an episode of The Simpsons, read for a while, then decided I should get some rest. My parents gave me some sleeping stuff, so I took a pill and fell asleep within the first 10 minutes of Singing in the Rain. When I woke up, I was completely refreshed. I looked at the map to see how long until we landed. We were still 8 hours away.

When we touched the ground, I went through customs (pretty painless), and a couple people from Chatteris were waiting to pick me up. It turns out that there are two other CNETs (Chatteris Native English-Speaking Tutors) from Philly, one of whom (John) was on my flight. The Chatteris folk then assisted us in getting our Octopus Cards. "Wow, an Octopus Card sounds like the greatest thing ever created," you're surely thinking. Well, they're not number one--air conditioning, or as the Brits say, "air con" is--but they're definitely in the top ten. An Octopus Card is basically metro cards on steroids. Not only are they accepted on the MTR (subway) and bus systems, but one can also use them at almost every store. I've already bought not one, but two bottles of water using my Octopus Card.

After Octopus rocked my world, we hopped on a double decker bus and headed to Kowloon, the island north of Hong Kong Island where I'll be staying for the duration of training. FYI: So far my impression that Hong Kong is that it's sort of like New York, only every burrough is Manhattan. Kowloon, therefore, is like Manhattan. After checking into our rooms, John and I went to a local pub where we had a couple of beers (Blue Ladies) and played some darts with a couple other CNETs who wandered in.

One thing I failed to mention- everyone wears surgical masks to prevent the spread of Swine Flu. Almost all of the airport workers had them on, as did the Chatteris representatives. Upon our arrival at the Anne Black Guest House, we were asked to put on masks ourselves as a precautionary measure. It was definitely a little strange meeting people while wearing a surgical mask that may or may not actually do anything. We've been told that as long as we're asymptomatic, we can keep the masks off for the rest of training.

By the time we got back from the pub, it was about 12:30 AM Monday night. I took off at 4:00 PM on Sunday afternoon. I went into my room, met my roommate Joe, talked to him for a bit, then passed the **** out. More to come later this week, including CNET profiles, impressions of Hong Kong, and pictures.

Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee