Getting ready to fly back to the US was a complete mess. Many other events happened simultaneously and I was forced to stop delaying errands for whatever reason. I discovered that, once again, the Shekou Ferry would be totally useless to me; I thought I could make the quick trip from there to the Hong Kong airport for my 10am departure, but of course, the earliest they offer is 7:45am, and they wouldn’t let me on (thankfully, I called in advance). So, that meant staying the night in Hong Kong, poor me. Before I left, I needed to receive my sea shipment which was due to arrive at 10 in the morning. For two months, my goods were slowly making there way to me – aboard a ship slowly chugging it’s way across the Pacific, then sitting somewhere in the Port of Guanzhou waiting to get cleared for customs. While being inspected, I reckon, someone found it necessary to pound a double-pointed nail about a three fourths of an inch into one of my guitar cases! Why? Thank goodness it didn’t hit anything vital. Anyway, the very day the shipment arrived in my apartment, I’d be hauling one of the guitars back for Christmas vacation. Pure brilliance!

Before the shipment arrived though, I went to check my email and suddenly the wireless internet connection that I’d used yesterday didn’t work. Dang, now I was unable to verify if my ticket was issued. But, I couldn’t go anywhere because the shipment would be arriving in less than an hour. I should never have waited so long to issue the ticket, but I was also trying to coordinate some timing with the vet in Redmond regarding getting the proper certificates for my cat to come back to China.

I went to get the laundry out of this new washer/drier combo that the landlord bought. So, why were my white t-shirts a sick brown-grey color after the wash finished? Maybe it was the liquid soap concoction I made after mixing the dry detergent with water. Nah, that can’t be it. I walked 10 minutes to Walmart and picked up some official liquid detergent and ran the laundry again, but the job hadn’t finished by the time I left for Hong Kong some six hours later (I hope it’s done).

The delivery went smoothly, thankfully. The crew came in like a hurricane, ripped all the boxes and packaging apart, cleaned it up, and left. The whole incident took about 15 minutes. I had called Xiao Liu earlier for a 10:30 pickup. I had to get to the office to check my email and then find someone to help me with some banking business.

Sure enough, checking email at the office, I learned that my ticket wasn’t issued! Dang, less than 5 hours before heading to Hong Kong and I didn’t have a ticket. This had the potential of “huge mess” written all over it. I must have confused the agent by saying, “These times are good, please issue. If there is a Northwest flight available, please book that instead.” And the response was, “Nope, no NW flight. Want me to issue this one?” Ah well, lesson learned…be more clear. Xiao Liu wasn’t available for a lunchtime run to the bank, so I called Xiao Ji, who’d be ready in a moment for a quick run. I spent that time replying to some work emails.

A few days before, I had tried to return some money that Mingjie had let me borrow as a deposit on my new apartment, but the cash machine kept refusing the order at the last moment. So, I enlisted Michael to come to the bank with me to help me fill out the proper forms to pay back Mingjie and to deposit the December rent into my landlord’s account. We took a number and sat for about 20 minutes. At least it worked without too much hassle. Michael told me that as few as five years ago and certainly ten that very few people used the banks. Now, with a lot of folks moving into the middle class, the banks are drawing huge crowds, a problem that the banks don’t mind, I’m sure. Xiao Ji didn’t have time to take me back to the apartment, so Michael and I went to have food at a cheap Hunan restaurant. After a half an hour or so back at the office, I received a confirmation email that my ticket would be issued in the morning and I had a reservation at the Shangri La. OK, now the real stress was over. All the big items were taken care of. Xiao Shang had some time to take me back to the apartment about 15 minutes later. Things weren’t desperate now and as I write this, it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but I’d given myself a headache having all this stuff to take care of in one day before leaving for an international flight.

I then realized that some of the plants in the apartment would surely be dead by the time I got back, so I called up Xiao Liu again for a quick shuttle over to the office to drop of my keys with Peter (he lives 5 floors above me). I took my belongings with me and Xiao Liu took me to the Fu Min subway stop, just before the border with Hong Kong. That was an interesting conversation. He acted like he understood me. I was trying to say that I wanted to go to the north-south subway line to minimize the number of subway switches that I had to make since I was carrying so much bulky luggage. He seemed to get that and said, “OK, fine.” But, when I asked about the subway stops, he said, “Oh I don’t know where that one is.” Where was the miscommunication happening? Well, I never figured it out, but we found the Fu Min stop without too much trouble and I was on my way.

I began to relax once I was on my way to Kownloon on the KCR train. As usual, the Shangri La was just great, totally comfortable and perfect service. Check out the view from the room. I went out to an Indian restaurant that I frequent, then came back, finished up some work and personal emails, then to bed with the windows wide open.

(above) The nice view from the hotel. Check out the building lit up with “Merry Christmas”.

The following morning, the taxi driver was looking to rip off a foreigner. Speaking in Cantonese (apparently he understood zero English), he asked if I wanted to take a ride to the airport for 825 Hong Kong Dollars, about $105. I declined. For one, that was way too expensive, I didn’t have much cash on me, and I like the Airport Express. A few moments later, he dropped the price by 600 HKDs, totaling about $29. I turned him down again. He must have asked like three more times for the same price. When I arrived at Kowloon Station, the bill was 37.6 HKDs. The drivers always round the cents, so that meant 38 Hong Kong Dollars. This driver didn’t want to give me my measly 2 HKDs though, but I decided to keep asking anyway. “Qing ba liang kuai gei wo.”, I asked Mandarin, not Cantonese. He pointed at the excessive baggage price as if he were trying to fool me or something. But, the 10 HKD for the excessive baggage was already included in the 38 HKD. Finally and reluctantly, he handed me over the 2 HKD coin.

On the Airport Express train, I noticed that the Cantonese and Mandarin announcements had never sounded so different. That’s a good sign! I couldn’t tell the difference in the two a few months ago, but it’s quite easy now. The rest of the trip went well.