my flight left Hong Kong at a little past midnight and landed about eight hours later in Dubai at a cheery 4am. about to go through passport control, i tried my best to choose a kind looking agent that wasn’t going to give me any trouble. of course, last time i thought i got a nice agent in Dubai, he cursed at me in Arabic and stamped my passport with a violent stabbing motion.

thankfully, i was able to enter the country with little problem. i found the pre-arranged meeting point at the airport and sat down. i called the guy who was supposed to pick me up but could barely hear or understand him. he mumbled something about langoustines in Copenhagen and showed up 15 minutes later with a frown and a sign with my name on it.

i stood up, walked out, tossed my bag into the back of a beaten up Range Rover, and suddenly arrived at an extravagant house-turned lodge. i immediately put my bags down upon entering my room and flopped down onto the bed. ‘time to catch up on sleep,’ i mumbled to myself. then the room began to rumble as the first of many massive jetliners flew directly overhead. i slept on and off for about five hours.

i’ll probably wake everyone up when i leave for Kabul tomorrow morning.

today’s my last day in east Asia until whenever it is that i come back. it could be as soon as a few months or as distant as a few years; i really don’t know. the uncertainty of my life at this point is bothering me, partly because i’m the sort of person that likes to stay on top of things and keep an eye out for stuff heading my way but mostly because i’m not patient enough.

regardless, i’ve gone ahead and applied for the right of abode in Hong Kong which will allow me to live and work here without restriction.

i should know in a few months.

i finally got a decent seal made. an old man carved it for me from the horns of a bull.

forget about having to mentally convert exchange rates, the one thing that always throws me off about dealing in other currencies is those pesky coins. large colored bits of paper with large numerals written on them are easy to quickly understand but sometimes coinage just demands more brainpower than i care to expend on a relatively worthless form of cash.

case in point, i just found over 40HKD worth of change in my pocket.

i had just gotten off the Star Ferry on the Kowloon side when i noticed an all-terrain motorbike plastered with stickers near the pier. having been a big fan of the Long Way Round series, i immediately suspected its owner to be a world-trekking adventurer. and right i was.

his name is Vladimir Alekseevich Yarets, a deaf and mute 66 year old from Minsk who’s traveling around the world on his (donated) BMW F 650 GS. i shook his hand and gave him 40HKD for petrol.

good luck!

so some clown called and woke me up the other day at 8am, asking me if i was new in town. i asked him who he was and how he got my number in surprisingly uncrappy Cantonese (or what seemed like surprisingly uncrappy Cantonese in my semi-conscious mind) but he ignored me and kept on asking if i had just arrived. so i hung up.

now i wonder if i was talking to a machine.

the night before i left Taiwan, i bought a pack of 科學麵 (science noodles) upon the urging of a friend to try it out. i found it at 7-11 for 8NT (about 0.25USD) which made it the cheapest brand of instant noodles there and apparently the reason for its popularity with the poor and/or homeless.

anyway, what makes 科學麵 vaguely special is the fact that many people (mostly kids) eat it uncooked. you’re supposed to open the package, empty the shiny packet of MSG inside, crush the noodles, shake well, and enjoy.

it wasn’t bad but it definitely didn’t make me any smarter.

ladies and gentlemen…

i’ve been eating a lot on this trip. much more than usual. i even told my friends to expect a fatter (but not necessarily jollier) me when i get back to Chicago. yet all my relatives here in Hong Kong are adamant that i’ve become progressively skinnier.

jiggle jiggle!

so one of my uncles took me out for lunch today before my flight back to Hong Kong. located within one of the larger department stores in downtown Kaohsiung, the restaurant was pretty nice with dark wood paneling and vaguely expensive looking utensils. anyway, i had to use the washroom after lunch so i asked the waiter where i could find one and, to my dismay, he told me to go outside of the restaurant and hang a left.

a public toilet? no love. no love at all.

but nature was about to leave an angry voicemail so i went anyway, resigned to my fate. i quickly exited the restaurant and turned left, spotting signs leading to the bathroom. as i went further and further down the dusty hallway, i started seeing grimy utility closets and the odd fire exit: telltale signs of the horrors to come. my last strand of hope was about to snap until i turned the corner.

and entered one of the most immaculate public restrooms known to man.