Day 169: Bumps in the Road

My least favourite part of travelling is the actual days when I have to travel, especially when I have to fly. Unlike many people, I have absolutely no issues with being on an airplane, but the stress of having to get up early, get to the airport (which is usually a long way from the actual city), wait in lines, go through security, fly, wait in more lines, and then finally lug your things by whatever means you can find to your new accomodations makes for a long, exhausting day. Because of that exhaustion, as well as being focused on many things at once, I, at least, am much more prone to make mistakes.

This ended up being one of my more stressful days overall. Due to some exceedingly poor estimating skills by the girl at my hostel I cut it much closer than I'm comfortable with getting to the airport. I narrowly dodged a bullet when about 10 steps from the airport train I took I checked my pockets like I do almost constantly and realized my wallet was missing. I ran back to where my seat was, found my wallet beneath it, and got back off the train about 15 seconds before the doors closed and it took off again.

Because I'm getting to be somewhat of an expert on airports by now, plus it being a pretty efficiently run airport, I managed to get through everything very quickly and got to my gate with 7 minutes to spare and the actual flight was fine (although with a less fancy seat than my flight in). Once in Hong Kong things were also pretty smooth. There was a bus that took me from the airport almost exactly to the building my hostel is in. Unfortunately between the length of the bus ride (just over an hour) and my mind being occupied on other things I somehow got separated from my hoodie, and it's gone for good now. In the grand scheme of things, it's not terribly important. I still have a jacket, and I can buy another sweater/hoodie if I get somewhere with weather that needs it. It's much better to lose that then my wallet, for example.

After checking in and dropping my things off I spent a few hours walking down the street and occasionally checking places out. My hostel is right in the heart of things on Hong Kong Island, and my first reaction was just being a bit overwhelmed by it. I've been to a lot of big cities, and while I'm not a big fan of crowds I can deal with them ok, but I've never been anywhere that just feels as dense as here. The built up area on the island is only really a handful of streets wide, squeezed in between the mountains and the bay, but it is really, really built up. I'm used to having big modern office towers, but having thin, dirty apartment buildings that are still all at least 15 stories, lined side by side down the street just feels different. Not many pictures today, since I just wanted to get a feel for the place, but here's one of the area near where I am.