My first day

And so it all began on a cool spring morning in NY; my most anticipated dream was starting to come true ( well it started when my visa was approved ) but for the sake of a good and exciting story I'd want to start my blog with a false beginning and that is when I woke up to get ready to travel to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong would be my first stop in my journey that would take me to mainland China; why would anyone want to go to China someone may ask, I'm sure those who want to go or have gone would have different answers, as for me to sum it up, because I want to, I had wanted to for a long time and now that it is happening I want to take the opportunity to write about my own experiences that are about to take place.

If you will follow my blog I want you to know that I will not be judging Asia way of life or trying to sway anyone into liking China or chinese; my purpose is to express my own perception of what is like for me to be visiting, living here but I will not claim to be right about any of my views or opinions expressed.

I arrived at the airport very early in the morning to avoid long lines ( I don't like lines ) and because my brain was still asleep or because I could't read the sign right I ended up in the business class line which had no passengers waiting, the agent was nice enough to check me in [when I was done I then saw the line for economy class ( the working class ) and it had lots of passengers], I had started my trip on a good note.

After I made it passed the TSA check point ( don't you hate taking your shoes off ?) I headed off to the waiting area and my first thought was: boy I really now know what it feels like to be a minority but that wasn't my first cultural shock or was it? ( I'll explain)

Plane takes off and I'm half asleep ( it is 10:10 am) but knowing this was a long haul I wanted to make sure I was awake for breakfast, I was so looking forward to fresh ham and cheese omelette with toasts, OJ or coffee or something close to that but then it came and when I heard it I thought I had heard wrong, pork with rice, blueberry muffin, a piece of bread, fruit salad and my chioce of drink....what? did I sleep so much I missed out on breakfast? I had never had lunch or dinner for breakfast, I wanted to resist the thought of eating pork at 11 am when at the very least I would have bread and cafe con leche but my stomach took control of my brain and quickly discarded the idea and started to eat, a shock indeed, one which made me think that Asians had weird eating habits or did they?

I then remembered where my family came from, and what myself had seen in the past; see, my family ethnic background is hispanic and there are regions of their country where people actually have steak, rice, eggs and beans for breakfast, others have dinner leftovers for breakfast ( in the region where my mother is from we don't eat those kinds of meals for breakfast); because I had never had been exposed to that is why I was momentarily shocked and as a consequence I judged them ( I hardly ever judge anyone ) but quickly learned a valuable lesson, even though you may have never been exposed to something it does not mean someone in your family, friends or within your ethnic background have not and you should not label it weird or give it any other negative label, I realized then that we are all different yet all alike and what may really separate us may be language, ethnic features and geography.

So after that experience I concluded that my first cultural shock was being surrounded by Asians which made me feel a minority, luckly for me Asians may be some of the most kind, friendly, noble people and so the feeling was all in my head and now that I have spent a couple of days here surrounded by millions more, I have yet to feel a minority.

Ok so now to some funny moments; after the 15 hour flight, the long waiting line at the immigration check point, the train ride to the city, I get to the machine that would dispense a ticket to take another train to go to the hotel and realized that it would only take coins which I had a few but somehow the machine was not taking my $20 denomination coin so I went over to a food stand inside the metro station ( subway means something different to them) and asked a worker to break the $20 into $10's, I gave her the coin and she looked alarmed, insulted or a combination of the two but was able to utter the words 7 eleven so I went over to 7 eleven ( it was across the way) and thought, let me buy something so I made sure they would have to break the coin, I grabbed a drink whick cost $5 ( hk dollar), hand the clerk the $20 coin and she looks at me as if saying are you serious? she says something and a helper says to me, it is $5 and your coin is only worth $20 cents.....boy did I feel stupid but could not stop laughing at myself.

After finally getting to the hotel, I made it BK ( wanted to play it safe ), had dinner came back to the hotel only to realize that the adaptors I had brought with me to be able to use my computer and phone were not the right ones ( only work in europe) so as to not break my addiction to computers I went out to look for a converter which I thought it was going to be easy (a few people had told me it was easy to find ) well I walked up and down the street my hotel is on and for the life of me could not find one simple converter, just when I was about to give up my search I find this little store that had it so what I thought was a day that had started on a good note would end on a bad one for me but now I think that after it is all said and done the balance will be all positive.

My day ended as soon as I got back to the hotel, I just passed out, jet lag took over and so off I went to talk to morfeo :) ( if you do not know what this means make a comment and I'll explain)

On my next blog I will talk about my visit to Burger King; my first daylight venture out into the city; my encounter with a nice, wonderful Hong Kong girl who took time out to show me around the Island and other experiences as my journey continues.