I Lands on Islands

Whoaaaa two countries in one post?? That's what we call efficiency. Or maybe just taking too long to write these. Who's to say?

Hong Kong and Okinawa!! So many islands!! So many fun!! So many grammar.

Will this blog post be as long as the last one?? Four people (most of whom I share DNA with) said that they appreciated the length and thought that I was funny, so, sorry!! Now you all have to deal with thousands and thousands more of my "HILARIOUS" and "PERFECT" words.

Guess what? Asia still rules. I've still been eating amazing food, I've still been walking everywhere, I've still been having the best time ever, I still have a normal and appropriate relationship towards Asian women. I promise!!

June 9-10: Kowloon

My mom and I flew from Taiwan to Hong Kong, and even though the flight was only 2 hours, they still gave us a full meal. As I said: Asia rules.

Hong Kong is made up of the Kowloon Peninsula and 263 islands. Our hotel, The Peninsula—gee, wonder how they came up with that name—sits on the southernmost tip of Kowloon, looking across the river at Hong Kong Island. It's a gorgeous and historic hotel that my grandmother always stayed at when she'd travel to Hong Kong for her work with The World Bank. It's also one of the nicest places I have ever stayed in my life and I will certainly be dreaming about it during the next 6 months in the few hours I'm able to fall asleep in my hostel stays. They're famous for their "Peninsula Green" Rolls Royces, which you can hire as a taxi service for $350 one-way. We took the bus.

Actually, we exclusively used public transportation the entire time we were in Hong Kong! Their transit system is fantastic—clean, efficient, and has some features I didn't know even existed like monitors that tell you how full each train car is before it even arrives so you know where to stand. I have spent the last five years riding the New York City public transit, and I am a staunch hardcore defender of the MTA because I love public transit and we're trying our best!! But to be completely honest, not having human waste or rats on a subway car is already a step up from the MTA, and so Hong Kong was like a 17 floor staircase.

After dropping our bags at the hotel, we walked up Nathan Road, one of the busiest streets in Hong Kong, weaving our way through crowds until we reached Tin Hau temple. Well, specifically, one of the Tin Hau temples. Tin Hau is a sea goddess and there are over 100 temples in Hong Kong dedicated to her. Turns out the people who live on 263 islands really want the sea to be kind to them?? I really came to understand why this would be in Okinawa (whoaaaa look at that not-so-subtle foreshadowing).

This was a series of five interconnected temples, and like all the other temples we'd seen, it was beautiful and full of incense. Although, to be perfectly honest, my mom and I had to admit to each other that we were a little temple-d out...

LOOK I RESPECT THE TEMPLES THEY ARE ALL BEAUTIFUL AND AMAZING AND IMPORTANT I RESPECT ALL RELIGIONS AND BELIEFS AND I ADMIRE THE CRAFT AND ARTISTRY THAT HAS GONE INTO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM IT IS AMAZING THAT THERE ARE SO MANY OF THEM ALL OVER THE PLACE IN ASIA. I PROMISE I'D FEEL THE SAME WAY ABOUT CHURCHES!!! NOT THAT CHURCHES ARE BETTER OR WORSE THAN TEMPLES!!! I HAVE A NORMAL RELATIONSHIP WITH ASIAN RELIGIONS!!!

... but also we'd already seen SO many temples in Taiwan and they were all starting to blend together a bit.

We went back to the hotel for afternoon tea, my mom's only request for the trip. She loves "afternoon tea" to a degree that is almost frightening, and is confusing because she doesn't actually like drinking tea that much. But she'll freely admit that it's not the tea, it's the "ambiance." And by "ambiance," she means "scones." The tea (scones) was fantastic, other than a cake that was mostly just a hunk of gelatin. I'm going to blame the Brits and their dining sensibilities for that one...

After tea, my mom went for a nap and I went to the gym, which had a terrace with a fantastic view of the sunset over Hong Kong Island. It also had a fantastic view of the YMCA hotel next door. Specifically, a massive floor-to-ceiling window approximately 50 feet from where I was standing, where a fully naked man stood watching the sunset as well. He and I seemed to notice each other at the exact same moment, locked eyes, and then went back to watching the sunset independently without looking at each other again. Well, at least, I didn't look back at him. I did, however, notice in my peripheral vision that he continued to watch the sunset fully nude, despite being aware that I had a very clear view of him. Nothing like an intimate sunset with a stranger to make you appreciate the beauty of this world and the amazing opportunities that come with travel <3

We headed off to the Temple Street Night Market. It stretches for more than a kilometer, packed with stalls selling food followed by stalls selling clothing, jewelry, home goods, and just about everything else. Overhead, hundreds of colorful lanterns light the way.

I tried a stir fry that included pig's feet, as well as the largest oyster I've ever seen in my life, both of which were fantastic.

We capped the night off with a drink at Terrible Baby, a rooftop bar attached to a hotel nearby. The cocktails were delicious, but the big highlight for my mom was getting napkins that say "Terrible Baby" on them as a present for her sister—my "Aunt Baby" is called Aunt Baby because she is younger than my mom, while my mom is called "Baby" because she is shorter than Aunt Baby. Basically, everyone baby. And for my mom, being able to give her sister something that says "Terrible Baby" on it and say "it's you" is a dream come true.

The next morning, we hopped on the gorgeous, spotless, amazing, beautiful, lovely, wonderful Hong Kong subway to head to the Wong Tai Sin temple. We had to eat our words about being "temple-d out", because this one was amazing.

It had begun as one temple, and over time, more and more buildings had been added to the site, until it was a full complex featuring an insane blend of religions and architecture/art styles.

The gardens and koi ponds were a particular highlight, featuring koi so large I think I would lose a fight to them even if we were on land.

It also features Chinese Zodiac statues, and I waited in line to take the most awkward hand-holding photo with my corresponding animal, the tiger.

From there, we walked to the Nan Lian Gardens and Chi Lin Nunnery. These were incredible.

The gardens were a lovely respite from the city and its noise, featuring perfectly manicured trees and beautiful Zen architecture.

The Nunnery, which sits at the edge of the gardens, is a remarkable building, made without a single nail.

It is one of the most beautifully designed buildings I have seen, and the inner area (no photos allowed) features amazing statues of many different Buddhas. They were blasting recordings of the nuns performing chants the entire time we were there, and even though "Zen Buddhist chanting" has never appeared on my Spotify Wrapped, the songs were certified bangers.

Our next stop was the Kowloon Walled City Park, a park that had been built to replace the Kowloon Walled City, an area of Hong Kong that had been extremely densely populated and was famous for poor living conditions, crime, and drug use. The park featured several exhibits about how horrible conditions there had been. It didn't exactly mention the process of removing all of these people from their homes so that they could be torn down, but I'm sure it was painless and easy and everybody totally understood and was happy to leave.

We headed back towards our hotel, walking through the Ladies' Market. The name doesn't really mean anything these days, as it features all sorts of goods and the vendors are not solely women. But it is the Ladies' Market. We continued onto the Jade Bazaar so my mom could buy a pendant. The Jade Bazaar confused me a little bit, as it had around 100 stalls all selling nearly identical jade goods. Following Reddit's advice, my mom headed to a specific stall in the center run by a woman named Sandra.

I wasn't sure whether to be more proud of her for navigating the chaos of the stalls or for navigating the chaos of Reddit, but Sandra helped her find exactly what she was looking for. She also told me that I was a great son for going on a trip with just my mom. Next time I get a tattoo and my mom loses her shit, I am ABSOLUTELY going to use Sandra's words against her.

We ended the day with Dim Sum near our hotel. It was a fairly touristy area, but the food was still great. My mom was excited that the restaurant wasn't exclusively full of foreigners until I informed her that the people at both of the tables next to us were speaking Korean. I, her child, barely managed to convince her, my mother, not to steal one of the adorable tea cups. Growing up is so weird.

Before bed, we headed to the "Avenue of Stars" to watch the nightly laser show, in which dozens of buildings across the water have synchronized lasers timed to music. It was spectacular, partly because whoa cool lasers!! but also partly because as an American it's impossible to imagine so many private companies working together to make something cool and artistic happen for no profit :/

June 11: Hong Kong Island

We hopped on the Star Ferry and crossed over to Hong Kong Island to head up Victoria Peak. The walk from the Ferry Terminal to the base of the peak goes through "Central", the center of Hong Kong and the financial hub. Every building is connected via elevated walkways, so we nearly reached the tram without ever stepping outside, walking through a massive indoor mall of luxury stores and the entrances to the offices/banks.

We took the tram to the top of Victoria Peak, a beautiful overlook of Hong Kong featuring many hiking trails and old mansions. This used to be a completely segregated area of Hong Kong, where Chinese people were not allowed to live, and the British who lived there would be carried to the top of the mountain on recliners. The tram was very cool, but what's the point of going up a mountain if there's not a massive amount of human suffering involved? Smh.

After taking in the views and a short hike around the back-side of the peak, we took a lengthy bus ride to get back down. It went along a windy cliff road and was only mildly terrifying, especially compared to the transportation I was about to experience in Okinawa—WHOA MORE FORESHADOWING!!!

We walked through Tai Kwun, a former police headquarters/prison that has been converted into a plaza and several museums, then PMQ, originally the "Hollywood Road Police Married Quarters" which is now a big market with around a hundred tiny shops selling high-quality artisan goods. It was a nice contrast to the markets of the previous day, which for the most part only sold cheap and mass-produced items. We reached Man Mo Temple, one of Hong Kong's oldest, which once again was beautiful and amazing, but also once again we felt like we were temple-d out. Sorry, Man Mo.

After killing some time at a cafe in the area, we went to celebrate my mom's [redacted]th birthday! We'd made a reservation at Ho Lee Fook, and we'd pre-ordered one of their signature dishes: goose. This was exciting because there are so many cooked geese throughout Hong Kong that you'd think Cameron Winter lived there. I'm sorry, that was a lazy one, even for me. But we saw more restaurants than we could count proudly displaying dead geese in their windows, some of which would even more proudly display the heads of all the geese that had been eaten below the full bodies of the yet-to-be eaten geese. The meat was fatty and flavorful and I loved it, while my mom didn't want more than one bite. Thankfully it wasn't her birthday or anything. But we also ordered lamb, crispy fried mushrooms, and a few delicious cocktails/Chinese wine, so it wasn't a total bust. By which I mean it was really fantastic and delicious and amazing.

I feel like every meal I talk about I'm like "it was fantastic", "it was delicious", "it was amazing"... But it's THE TRUTH!!! I'm not exaggerating!!! And most of my the meals I don't talk about have come from convenience stores (which in Asia also serve fantastic amazing delicious food).

We finished off the night at UNIQLO to try and get a skirt that my mom had been eyeing. It took us nearly 20 minutes to find the UNIQLO, which sat inside of a massive luxury shopping complex. It felt like "backrooms", except instead of yellow walls, it's every single luxury store you could imagine, all of which were empty except for the employees working there. And also there's a UNIQLO tucked away on the third floor (for the plebs). At one point, we watched someone exit one Fendi location in the mall with a bottle of champagne, only to find him at a different Fendi store within the same complex serving the champagne. Hong Kong!!

June 12: Lantau Island

Lantau is the biggest island of Hong Kong, and the majority of it is protected forests. Plus Disneyland. We rode the subway out to the final stop of the line, where we attempted to catch the aerial tramway—shoutout my BOY 🚡🚡🚡—only to discover that it was closed for most of June. The "360 cable car" (apparently) offers amazing views over the forest. The bus we took was... Cool, I guess.

We reached the Po Lin Monestary and Tian Tan Giant Buddha. Once again... Amazing!!! Wow!!! So cool!!! We climbed the 268 steps to reach the massive bronze Buddha, which features a museum/shrine inside of it and great views of the surrounding forest.

Next to the buddha is the monestary, which contains the "Grand Hall of 10000 Buddhas". I don't think this is an exaggeration numbers-wise—the walls are lined with identical mini buddha statues, in addition to several larger buddhas which sit in the center and sides of the hall.

We sprinted and barely made the bus to the Tai O fishing village (it only leaves once every 2 hours). Tai O is on the outskirts of Lantau Island and is a "traditional" fishing village, although some of it has clearly begun to cater to tourists. It's famous particularly for its stilt houses.

We walked through the center of town past piles of dried fish, squids, shrimp, and other various seafoods, including the village's famous "Shrimp Paste" and ate a nice meal in the Heritage Hotel, another converted colonial police station with a nice view of the water.

We caught a ferry, this time much smaller and dinkier, which took us underneath and around the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge. The bridge and tunnel system is 34 miles(!!!) long, making it the longest sea crossing and the longest open-sea fixed link (i.e. bridge) in the world. It contains several artificial islands to connect the 4 mile long undersea tunnel, which is necessary so that large ships can still pass unimpeded across the water. It took 9 years to build and cost $18.8 billion dollars. Meanwhile, in America.... You know, I'm not even gonna make a joke, it's just too depressing.

We ended the trip with a drink at Felix, the Peninsula's penthouse cocktail bar.

It contains the most confusing sink I have ever seen in my entire life, as well as solid-stone urinals that overlook the entire city, so you can feel like you're peeing onto Hong Kong. I didn't like this, though, because I had grown quite fond of Hong Kong in the last few days.

June 13-15: Okinawa

To begin my month in Japan, I said goodbye to my mom and flew solo into Okinawa. It's often called "Japan's Hawaii", as it sits far off the main Japanese Islands and is a tropical/beach destination, making it a very popular getaway for Japanese tourists. It also houses ENORMOUS US Military bases, which makes the island feel way more American than the rest of the country (or almost anywhere else in Asia). On my first night, I ate a burger. I would say "tasted like home", except it was made of high-quality Wagyu and was so much better than almost any burger I've had in America.

The weather forecast for my 3 days in Okinawa was 95% rain followed by 100% rain followed by 100% rain. Super ideal when you're going to a place famous for its beaches. But I made a bunch of friends at the hostel, and we stayed up drinking, talking and playing Uno each night. I was the only American, and—I know this is shocking—we don't have the best reputation around the world at the moment! This hostel in particular had a complicated relationship with Americans when I arrived, because the week prior they'd had to have the police remove an American who had began ranting incoherently about Jesus, Donald Trump, and how everyone at the hostel was a sinner and would burn in hell. I offered my most sincere apologies on behalf of the entire country.

The next morning, I went on a guided snorkeling trip around the Keramas Islands, which sit a little ways off of Okinawa and have amazing ocean life. We saw sea snakes,

sea turtles,

and so so so many fish.

On the boat, I got to watch the Knicks win their first NBA title in 53 years. I was, of course, so so happy for all of my friends in NYC who got to be there for this historic moment. And even though I was literally having the coolest snorkeling experience of my life, I thought that I just might die of FOMO. Then the lightning storm rolled in, and I thought that I just might die of lightning.

OOOH THE FORESHADOWING IS PAYING OFF!!! FINALLY!!!

I don't want to exaggerate, although I'll be honest, it's difficult to exaggerate how bad this storm was. I wish I could have gotten it on video, but I did not want to walk through the boat to get my phone because I did not want to move, and so you'll have to take me at my word. The boat pitched several feet on the waves, the rain came in sideways and backwards and upside down, and lightning struck around us every couple minutes. I would attempt the "count seconds until thunder to figure out how far the lightning is away", but several times I was unable to get to "one" before a sound like a gunshot would ring out from WAY TOO CLOSE. I fell out of my seat during one of these, and all of the snorkelers huddled on a giant rubber mat in the center of the boat as the guides informed us to stay away from the metal because they could feel it buzzing with electricity. The boat driver, who looked like he was 14 years old, put on "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC and looked like he was having the best ride of his entire (very short) life.

However, the child brought us safely to shore, and I returned to the hostel for more beers, Uno, and American apologies. A few of us went out to dinner at a Yakiniku restaurant, which is bottomless Japanese BBQ where you cook the meat on a communal grill in the center of the table. Harry, one of the Brits, has been living in Japan for the last few years and so guided us through ordering an amount of meat that would cause any member of PETA to spontaneously combust. 15/10 stars.

The next day, I rented a car to drive two hours North to the Churaumi Aquarium, Japan's largest, which features the second largest tank in the world. Sophia, a Brit living in Edinburgh, and Sarah/Charlotte, two Australians, all came along with me. They were all 7-10 years younger than me and I attempted to project cool Gen-Z confidence despite the fact that it was my first time driving on the left side of the road and I nearly turned into oncoming traffic on 3 different left turns. And that I'm only barely technically Gen-Z.

The aquarium was fucking amazing. I needed to throw an expletive in there because I have described way too many things as "amazing" so far. And, look, I always love me an aquarium, but this one put everywhere else I've been to shame.

Their biggest tank needs to be so big because it houses a whale shark, the world's biggest fish.

It's a shark, but it feeds on krill and other small marine animals through filtration, like a whale. Hence: whale shark. I could have watched it swim around for hours, along with the massive rays and fish inside the tank. My favorite were the "devil rays", which are rays with enormous devil-like horns. Hence: devil ray.

It's always amazing to discover a creature that you never knew existed by watching it swim inches from your face.

The smaller tanks were also great, as were the separate tanks for the sharks, the sea turtles, and the Dugongs (manatees).

We continued along to the nearby Nakijin Castle ruins, a UNESCO heritage site featuring the half-collapsed walls of a 12th-century castle that was burned down once in the 15th century (due to "deception") and once in the 17th century (due to "battle").

There was almost nobody else there as it had begun to rain pretty substantially, so we got to wander the ruins on our own with only the sound of the rain and several crows' caws. It was a perfect spooky ambiance for a crumbling castle ruin, and it was SO worth the stop, even if our socks were soaked.

We began to drive back to the hostel, and that's when the rain began in earnest. Every few minutes someone in the car would throw out another adjective to describe it. "Insane". "Mental". "Biblical". "Torrential". And some words that are allowed in the UK/Australia but not in the US. At one point, I needed to drive through a partially flooded stretch of road with water probably about a foot deep when I was ALREADY STRUGGLING JUST DRIVING ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE ROAD. We recevied several emergency alerts on our phones, but they were in Japanese so we couldn't actually understand them. But it was probably fine, right??? Once again, I maintained my cool Gen-Z confidence, and we managed to reach the hostel in one piece, although I felt like I had aged several years from the stress of the drive. Which is annoying because I was already feeling way too old after spending the whole day with these youths and their cool music I hadn't heard of.

That's it for Hong Kong and Okinawa! Hong Kong is absolutely worth seeing at some point in your life, but I don't think I needed more than 4 days there. Okinawa was very cool and I'm sure much more enjoyable if it's not raining the entire time! And I loved loved loved the vibes of the island as a whole and the people I met there. I don't know that I'll return to either of them, but I certainly won't be upset if I do :)

Thanks again for reading!! Let's set up a FaceTime soon if we haven't chatted since I left <3

Next up: mainland Japan!