Hong Kong

So we were told that we would have to go to Hong Kong by our school in order to get our working visas. We had to fly to Shenzhen, which is the last major city in China before taking a bus to Hong Kong, going through several checkpoints along the way. When we finaly got to Hong Kong, it was incredibly apparant that we were in a very different place. The Western influence has been embraced for decades, so the place is more like New York or London than it is anywhere in China. Everyone speaks English for the most part, and there are hundreds of little things that you notice as well that make China so different. For one, we weren't stared at because we weren't the only white people on the street. Also, cars drive on the other side of the road and they actually obey traffic signals. It was nice not having to fear for my life every time I crossed the street. There is incredible food from all over the world as well. We were really only in Hong Kong for a day and a half, just to take care of our visas, so we didn't have much time to do or see anything special. We basically just walked around drinking PBR's all day and talking about how cool it was that we were in Hong Kong. After a memorable night in the Wan Chai district, we were disappointed that our time in Hong Kong was so short and we had to get back on a plane to China.

On a pretty sour note, we were informed yesterday that we wouldn't be able to go to South Korea because we wouldn't have our passports back in time from getting our resident permits made official. After weeks of us being completely transparant with our plans and intentions of leaving for the holiday, we got screwed. I'll hold off on ranting, but the way that things are done, and information is shared, on all levels, is inexcusable. Anyways, we'll try to plan a few things, maybe go to the beach town of Ningbo, and probably go to Shanghai for a few days. Definitely not happy about it, but what can you do. A common term used by expats here as a way of coming to terms with bullshit like this is "TIC: This is China."