Getting a move on out!

Well I am off to Guangdong. I was originally going to stay in Hong Kong longer, but as I am going to return to Hong Kong at the end of my trip for several days, I feel as if I should get a move on early. There are buses departing for Guangdong hourly from near the Wan Chai metro station, cost: 100 HKD (~$20).

I went out with some fellow hostel-goers last night (Alex from Australia/England, Melissa who is currently living in Shanghai, Mo who is from Scotland and another guy from Canada) and got in about 2am. Surprisingly I woke up early this morning at 9:30, and decided I was over Hong Kong, though the company has been great!

The Olympics in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is home to to the Equestrian portion of the Olympics. This morning I was reading in the China Southern Post that 40,000 tickets to the events became available through a company called China Travel Services. These tickets are only available in Hong Kong, you MUST come in person to one of their offices to buy them.

Low and behold, I happen to be in Hong Kong, so first thing this morning I stopped into their office in Central Hong Kong and bought tickets to two events, a final event (where medals are awarded) on August 14 and a dressage event on August 17. I bought two tickets, so if any of you want to fly out for the games let me know!

On another note, the picture above was taken with a new lens I purchased for my camera, a Nikon 18-200mm. My dad knows how long I have had my eye on this particular lens. I traded in my two lens that span this same spectrum a 18-55mm and a 55-200mm. It was just two otherwise. Final cost for the new lens 5,000 HKD. This translates to 659 U.S. Dollars, this is roughly the price of a used lens in the US, so I think I got a pretty good deal.

DELAYED!!!

The epic journey begins, at the pace of a hurd of turtles and has quickly down-shifted to the pace of a turd of hurdles... going nowhere fast!

Currently I am sitting on my Seattle flight to San Francisco, on the tarmac in San Fran. While we landed 25 minutes ago we have moved gates three times and have yet to park at a gate. The pilot just came on to tell us they are moving us back to our original gate, WTF? Anyways, this delay is on top of the hour plus delay out of Seattle for weather. Whether my Hong Kong flight was delayed too, I don't yet know, but I am pretty sure that I just saw my Hong Kong flight take off.

I am challenging myself to look at this as an adventure and not fret about it. If you know me your know that I like to plan to a "T," so this is a big challenge for me. It's like a choose your own adventure novel. To travel to Hong Kong turn to page 72, or for travel to Chinatown in San Francisco turn to page 33. Here's hoping it's Hong Kong.

UPDATE #1
Looks like it is page 33 after all and lucky me, I get to spend the night in San Francisco before hoping to LA in the morning for a 1:00pm flight to Hong Kong. In the mean time I am going to try and find my bag.

UPDATE #2
The customer service representative put in a meter for the airline to pull my bag at 2:00, however when I finally left the airport at 11:15, they had still not located yet, but I was told that someone was actively looking, so I headed back to the hotel to get some shut eye. When I came back at 6:45 the next morning, no one had found my bag yet, then came along Oscar. I am convinced that Oscar has special powers, because after 15 minutes of looking, Oscar found my bag!!!

After throwing out a couple bottles of liquid, I opted to carry my bag on board. I am convinced had I not spent all night pushing for my bag, it never would have made my Hong Kong flight, because it never would have made it to LA, when they found it my bag was sitting in the International Baggage Area.

I learned a lesson though, take a picture of your bag before you check it. It did wonders in helping Oscar find my bag!