〇 | Hong Kong.

September 2^nd , 2016

So today concludes my first full week here in Hong Kong. All seven days have been quite adventurous… a little more than I expected, which is great! There’s also no sign of me recovering from jetlag just yet, I don’t know what time zone I’m running on. I wake up at random hours but always before 6am HK time, and every evening I crash at a different hour before 9pm. ZERO consistency. This is also probably because I’m just so excited to be here; literally every night as I fall asleep I keep thinking about how I just can’t believe I’m living here for 4 months.

But anyways, back to this blog post. There’s so much to talk about ahh man…

Well for starters my flight was with Cathay Pacific Airways from JFK to HK.

It didn’t even feel like a 16 hour flight. I actually tried to pull an all nighter so that I can just pass out when I got on the plane, but that didn’t work out. My excitement got the best of me, I was up watching Better Call Saul, and TED talks for nearly the whole way. Yes the plane entertainment included TED talks, I couldn’t sleep man these were talks I haven’t seen. And Yo the food was great! My first meal was BBQ beef, mashed potatoes, and spinach which all tasted phenomenal. But that’s not it! My dude Chase (flight attendant) came back down the aisle when I finished and dropped an ice cream bar. I wasn’t ready.

The rest of the flight went just as smoothly. There’s a cool feature on the TV screen where you can switch to a camera view that sits under the plane. So as we flew over the Arctic you can see the ice sheets on your little screen. Then when approaching Hong Kong you see this lovely mountainous city area, it’s truly an astonishing sight from above.

My first impressions of Hong Kong are not what I expected. They well exceed my expectations; I’m super impressed with just about everything here in this region. Side note: that’s one thing I was confused about for a while, whether Hong Kong is a city of China or a separate country. Turns out it is neither. Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region (SAR) under the People’s Republic of China that has a high degree of autonomy with its own local administration. Anyways, Hong Kong feels super dense. Being a city boy from the Big Apple, this caught me off guard. I had never experienced a place with more people in motion and on the go. I actually did some research to look into the population density and it turns out New York is the denser city, but boy does it not feel that way. But what’s more impressive is that even with their huge population I can definitely say that Hong Kong is by far a way more efficient city. EVERYTHING here is built, works and runs so efficiently. The public transport utopia, maintenance, buildings, rooms, any kind of space, THE PEOPLE, and pretty much anything else you cant think of are all so efficient. IT’S AMAZING. I’ll have to come back to the efficiency in another post. Hong Kong leaves New York in the dust.

Like I said there’s just so much to talk about, I won’t throw it all and bore you in just one post. I’ll make sure to keep posting a lot of pictures to let the coolness and beauty of this place do some speaking for itself.

But thank you for reading! I hope in someway it brought you some enjoyment, and maybe a little inspiration. As inspiration is my favorite thing in the world, whether I’m on the receiving end getting new motivation, or if I somehow spark a new sense of motivation or interest for someone else. So, if you feel a little more inspired after each post to come to Hong Kong or study abroad or travel in general or just do something new, then I’m satisfied with this journal.

– Keith