And so it begins. Even if it almost didn't.

Friends,

For weeks, I was thinking about the perfect first sentence to write on this blog, as if I were already there and would know what to say. It would probably be some fragmented, staccato saying about how I don't know the language and that's the worst thing in the world, or how I'm here and can't navigate anywhere, or how my internal clock is forever screwed up.

Well, the last statement is true, but the rest really wasn't like that. I guess it's fair to say this... I had no idea what I was walking into. Literally. Hailing from the suburbs for my entire life, I didn't even have the ability to conceive what 7 bajillion people all on one chain of islands looked like. Heck, if I didn't look at Wikipedia and Google Image Search the preceding days before I took off, my mouth would probably still be agape from all of the sights. The heights of the buildings, the population density, the ethnic composition... Everything is different. Everything. And that's precisely it... It's different. There's no implicit emotional attachment. I can't even ascertain what it means to me that I'm one of millions upon millions of dots in this island. It is ridiculous. Whatever bland expectations that I had were shattered within milliseconds. For one thing, the air is still air. I'm not viewing all of these marvels through a lens or a screen, though... They're just... real. And not like a California surfer "real", either.

And seeing as it hasn't even been a full evening yet, it's hard to say anything definitively. Especially given the past twenty four hours and the near-train wreck that almost occurred, followed by a vast web of blessings that led me to this third floor chair.

To start, due to an early flight out of Cbus, I was up around 4 in the morn for a flight from 6:30 to 8:15 or so to New York-JFK. That means that I got around 3 hours of sleep that night.

And when I got on the plane, everything went wrong. For starters, there were a total of 9 of us on the plane. Even for a regional jet, that's pretty weird. And, even weirder, no crew besides the attendant who had to do pretty much all of the work beforehand. So the flight takes off about 20 minutes late. That's a Negative Nancy from the get-go.

Then, as I kind of sit there idly for the duration of the flight, thinking I'll need my charged stuff for the next behemoth flight from NYC to Hong Kong, I attempt to sleep. These efforts are futile.

Then, through the haze of my zoneout, the pilot quips in, "There's a heavy fog around JFK, so we'll be circling until it clears up. Could be up to a half hour delay."

I mean. Whatever. It's a half hour, and my next flight doesn't leave until 2. Back to the sleepless pit of my mind for a bit. I begin to eavesdrop on the guy behind me. Clearly a New Yorker, though maybe removed. He's loud, but his accent is only faint. He looks Midwestern... But his word choice is distinctly New York. He begins to chatter with the flight attendant about going back to visit his old stomping grounds (cha-ching!), clearly a big fan of himself and his vast insider knowledge about NYC (though in reality, he lived in Long Island, and the attendant was from Staten Island...), to the point where he was trying to talk over the jarbled messages of the pilot... Apparently, we're flying in closer to give landing a go. But alas, the dense NYC fog wins again. And an even better message is that, after an hour and a half of circling, we're down to our final notches of fuel. As in. We're landing somewhere soon.

So the pilot finally tells us that we're landing in LaGuardia, the other NYC airport, conveniently located nowhere near JFK and my next flight. AKA... I might be screwed. No worries, says the pilot. We'll probably fly back over.

On the plus side, I've now seen the extent of New York City from above at least 4 times. It's very peaceful from up there.

So we land all too gracefully in LaGuardia, where no gate for us exists. In fact, they had to ad-hoc send a group of non-English speaking immigrants to push some stairs next to the plane and get us out, followed by checking us in the basement door of the terminal so we could walk up to a gate for further instructions.

Except these further instructions never came. Somehow, we were lost through the cracks of the American system. Our entire flight cancelled, we had no choice but to see if we could leverage a way to get to JFK, which is a good 20-45 minute drive across town.

We waited at the gate. They told us to get our bags at the claim. We got our bags and hoped for more information there. Our bags were there, but not our information guy. He had to catch another flight.

So at this point, we begin looking around, eventually stumbling back up to the ticket queue for American Airlines, since we were ousted from the actual travelling part of the airport to get our stuff. Whoops. We moan and complain for something, and eventually, one Indian woman headed for Afghanistan was able to get to a superior, and subsequently get us a collective shuttle to JFK.

It was now past 11:30. 7 hours after awakening. And I was on a shuttle van to JFK airport, having to re-stand in line, re-check my bags, re-go through security, and re-get to the ticket before the plane left.

Boo.

I was dropped off at the ticket line for the AA gates, and saw the huge line... And went around it to the special services. I explained my situation, showed her my baggage tags, and she told me that that flight had been transferred to another airline. In another terminal. With another 15 minutes of walking to another ticket gate... With that amount of people waiting around, then all  having to go through security, not to mention finding where this plane is... I wasn't a happy camper.

Then, the karma pendulum swung. Everything after this turned into good luck. The airliner, Cathay Pacific, had a significantly shorter line than American, the lady told me that I needed new tickets anyway, so I might as well get them before they don't let me through security, and that the flight was being delayed for 15 or so minutes because of the backup from the aforementioned fog problems.

So, in short, I made it to the gate. And there were well over 14,000 people waiting for that same one. Which meant only one thing: that the tank of a plane, the 777, was probably going to be in use. Given that the flight was 16 hours, it was going to be a big one anyway, but this was the monster of all monsters. Walking through, I found out that it was actually the monster of all monsters with an amazing plush interior. High ceilings, TV sets on every seatback, just as many attendants as there were rows, and free headphones made this worth it all. Every blurb the pilot said in English was parroted a millisecond later in Cantonese. Duration: 16 hours.

I was going to Hong Kong. Wow.

That didn't really sink in.

And I still hadn't slept any.

As I began to sit down, a girl had kind of stumbled into me, looking at her ticket, and holding a tour book of Hong Kong. I told her that I had a few of those, too. She asked if I was studying abroad. I nodded, and said at CUHK... She shrieked. So was she. A minute later, another girl walks up behind me and politely told us that she overheard our conversation. She was going, too. All from JFK. 4 of us by the end. There were 2 Penn States, a Notre Dame, and a Miami student all heading for a brand new world.

So, 15 episodes of Modern Family, 13 episodes of The Big Bang Theory, 15 minutes of Hong Kong TV, 15 minutes of Hong Kong pop, one hour of sleep, one British album, and two complementary meals later... I had landed.

In Hong Kong. Nope, still hadn't sunk.

First thing that I saw were lights. Not a ton, because the airport was removed from downtown. But in the horizon. In every direction. Waiting. It was incredible. So now I'll actually show a picture or two.

The rush to the baggage was fun. Everyone uses carts, which is funny in that it clogs up the traffic, yet creates a car-like atmosphere to the movement. Because it was about 7 pm there, it wasn't really all that busy. We proceeded from there to the taxis (green for New Territories, where our campus was located). They were British-style driving, which I didn't even think about beforehand... It makes sense. But it was weird. Straight up. I split a taxi with one of the other students.

Because of a bad motion sensor, this is the base of a skyscraper. This highway, already like 4 stories up, was simply molehilled by these buildings. And they were everywhere in random patches.

Across the harbor were a ton of residential apartments, left, and some office buildings.

This was very close to central. I really wish this camera didn't such at motion, because the clearness of these buildings against the harbor was serene. They just jutted out of nowhere, their electronic reflections drawn into the water in glimmery blurs. These moments of pure joy were found in between slightly hysterical Cantonese banterings of our taxi driver with a neighboring one. "Everything they say sounds angry!" the girl next to me said.

Eventually, we made our way there. The taxi ride costed both of us a combined HK$250 (about $30) for a half hour ride. Not horrid. I was greeted by a friendly, not-English speaking man at my hostel, where through bits of dialogue and hand motions, he registered me and brought me to my room. Chih Hsing Hall room 306.

And what a great place it was... Wow. I have the perfect view of a nearby harbor, even on the islands of the New Territories, much removed from the hustle and bustle of the standard city. The following is the view from my window:

Yeah, I think I can tolerate that view for a few months.

When it's day time and I don't have to be on a screaming taxi tomorrow, I'll update with a more pic-centric response... Since this entry took forever. But I guess that's what happens in travel. Or only sleeping 4 hours in a 30 hour span. I can't decide which.