And so the travels continue.

I said I was going to Malaysia. That was a lie, sort of. I was all set to leave, about to book my flight. So I decided to reserve my spot on the mountain. 17000 baht to climb the damn thing. 485 USD. From the National Park Service. Are you kidding me? On their website they have a much cheaper rate. "Oh that's for when you book far ahead."

"It doesn't say that."

"Well also it's for Malaysians only."

Argh! The dual pricing bullshit rears its ugly head again. I don't wish to patronize a place that does that, so I won't. It's not like, an ultra special mountain. There are others that people can climb with no skill, that are higher. So screw you mountain, unless you want to give me a reasonable rate, I will not be seeing you. So now I have time off and nowhere to go. Looking around the map, where haven't I been? On the list were Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, and Indonesia. Bangladesh requires an expensive visa. Indonesia and Sri Lanka weren't bad. But what's this? Macau Airlines, round trip, for about $100. When I want to the price breakdown, the ticket was only 100 baht. ($3). Everything else was taxes and fees.

Ok, let's go to Macau and Hong Kong. Ah, but it's too good to be true. It's a red eye both ways. No worries, I am skilled at falling asleep in things. On things? So I took some melatonin, and got an exit row for being white. Because that racism goes both ways. Anyway the flight was mostly empty, no wonder they wanted to offload those tickets. When I arrived, I went for the boat to Hong Kong. I figured I would do Macau last, so I would be close to the airport. Except the boats don't run at that time of night. Damn. So I had to enter Macau, and then had a lovely 4 hour nap on chairs with armrests (my mortal enemy!)

Come 7am, I went over to the pier and went to Hong Kong. Super easy immigration process, they have. They don't even stamp your passport. Like yeah whatever, don't care, in you go. You get a receipt with how long you can stay. (30 days for Americans) Wow, so easy. It's taken me longer to buy a soda than to enter a country. And the boat to Hong Kong is a freaking hydrofoil. I've never been on a hydrofoil before. Turns out it's awesome. I was sitting there thinking "Wow, they're taking a long time to board people." Then I look out the window. That water looks awful movey. Turns out we've been sailing for like 10 minutes and I didn't realize. Neat.

So after about an hour I arrive, and I've got a fierce hunger going on. I find what looks like a greasy spoon, with everything written in Chinese. No problem! The boss asks me what I want in Cantonese, but since I can't speak that I say it in Mandarin. It took a second to process it, then chuckled and took me to a table. He said something else to his staff, but I only understood "foreigner" and "mainland". Oh well, got ham and eggs.

So after dropping things off at the hotel, I set out. As in the pic above, Hong Kong Island has these really old trams that are like 100 years old. The local call them 叮叮, which just means "Ding ding". They're cheaper than the MRT, and amazingly still going strong. I'll probably put a video in here so you can see what one looks like. Anyway, the first destination was City Hall. City Hall was close, and on the way I saw the city gallery. Similar to the one in Singapore, it gives the history of the city and their plans for the future. I loved it. Maybe I just love city states since they have to plan so well, but I love efficiently designed systems. So I quite enjoyed the museum, and it gave me a positive outlook on the country.

Turns out city hall is not really city hall, more like a civic center. Across the street was a cool building though. Moving on to.. lunch! Mother of God why is everything so expensive here? I mean, I thought my breakfast was a fluke for the novelty of a Chinese-style American diner. Nope. The cheapest meal I saw from these street restaurants was $25 HKD. (7.75 HKD is 1 USD). Ffs I can get 2 slices of pizza and a coffee in New York with that kind of money. You know what is cheap though? Subway. A 6 inch and Coke is $21. What is going on? Am I in backwards land? Then I saw McDonald's advertising Double Cheeseburgers for $10.

WHAT IS THIS WORLD!? Why is American fast food cheaper than street noodles? What is happening? In Thailand, the minimum wage is $10 A DAY, and McDonald's there costs twice as much as here. There's some messed up logistics going on.

So, back on track, there's a moving walkway which carries you up this hill in a district called The Mid Level. It's not entirely pedestrian, but mostly. It has some interesting churches and temples I went to check out, but mostly full of families and hipsters drinking Kale smoothies and $145 coffee. Not a typo. Actually saw coffee being sold for $18 US. Who can afford to live here? Also, did everyone forget we're next to China? You could buy a coffee factory for $18. I really don't understand this place.

So, let me tell you who can afford to live here - the folks of The Peak! (I also went to a Maritime Museum.. nice but unnotable) Up on mountain is well, 山头 (Mountain top). True story, it is per square meter the most expensive real estate on Earth. Also, more terrible true story, until 1947 the Chinese were forbidden to live there unless they were servants to the Europeans. Holy shit. America, we're pretty bad. But we didn't smuggle in drugs. And then when China said, "Hey! No more drugs!", we didn't start a war to say, "Nah, you're gonna take those drugs." And THEN take part of their land as payment and say, "You people stay down there while we live in the nice houses. You can come up if you want to clean my toilet." Jeeeeez.

Anyway, politics aside, it's simply beautiful up there. You can see the entire island, and it's a steep mountain. So the view is phenomenal. In fact, I'd call it the 2nd most amazing view I've seen (Hot air balloons over Bagan still #1). It's just awesome. The pics really don't do it justice.

After waiting up there an hour for sunset, that was it for me. I stopped back for some overpriced street food, and went off to bed. At this point my phone was on its last legs, as I hadn't charged it in 2 days. And as for me, my legs are killing me too.