Observations for First-Time Visitors to Asia

We had our first real visitors come to stay with us in May and in preparing these brave souls for their first venture into Asia, I have come up with the following observations:

• When you get here, you will come through Hong Kong International Airport, one of the largest, cleanest, most modern and silent airports you will ever encounter. Seriously, you could hear a pin drop waiting for your bags to come off the baggage carousel. Immigration is no big deal either, the process is quick and efficient even if you are a foreigner. As a sidenote, if you happen to be a Hong Kong resident, you can zip through in less than 1 minute. Each of us has an ID card with a microchip that recognizes our thumbprint. So, we enter our card, pass through a little gate, put our thumb on the laser pad and *poof* the next gate opens and we are done. Don't hate, just be happy you don't have to suffer the long lines and general bitterness of the US Immigration Officer you will encounter upon re-entering the US.
• Also, the process of getting into town is super easy, just hop on the Airport Express and you will be whisked to the middle of Hong Kong Island in 28 minutes. Get a round-trip ticket before you board and you will save yourself some time when you need to get back to the airport for your return flight.
• However, if you want to go to China, man how the times are changing! Remember how I wrote that visas are really easy to come by? Well, they have not only doubled in price since we got here but they also have new restrictions popping up almost daily because of the Olympics. Now, the Chinese government has a quota on the number of visas they will issue per day. And you have to show your proof of travel and accommodations upon applying for the visa. The cost of a single entry is the same as a double entry but you have to show 2 travel/accommodation itineraries to get a double entry visa. Plus, the visa is only valid for 3 months, not 6 months. You can no longer get multiple entry visas, even if you are a business person and travel to China every week. Can we say "Chinese conspiracy to gouge foreigners who want to travel or do business in China with the convenient excuse that the Olympics are coming"? Oh, and if you want to go to Shenzhen, that requires a "special Shenzhen only visa" that is the same price as the regular China visa. Restrictions should ease after October when the government said it will go back to issuing multiple entry visas, we'll see.
• Each country in Asia has its own culture and identity, so don't assume that just because you travel to Hong Kong and China that you know what Asia is all about. We suggest setting aside at least a week and a half (a week with 2 weekend on either side), or more if you have the time off, to come here. We will help you with the jet lag, so don't worry about missing a day adjusting when you get here. Check out Hong Kong for a few days and hang out with us (we're always up for some American culture), then go to another country or two and experience something totally different. Just be sure to read up on that country's culture so you don't make a major faux pas like pointing your feet to a Buddha.
• A lot of people claim Hong Kong is a fashion capital of the world. Don’t believe them. “Fashion” is a relatively loose term thrown around here to mean the various pieces of clothing that most Asian women throw on to their impossibly skinny bodies in the dark. The typical outfit is the following: some type of bubble dress in either a drab color or some really strange print mostly made of sequins (yes, even during the day), black leggings, brown cowboy boots, a large designer bag in a different color than anything else on their body and a vast array of accessories usually depicting their favorite Hello Kitty or Disney character. That line by Coco Chanel about always taking off one accessory before leaving the house apparently never got translated into Chinese.
• I wish I could say that it gets better in an office environment but it doesn’t. Apparently, somewhere along the way from the US to Asia, the term “business casual” picked up the following items: shorts, jean capris, glitter shirts, stripper shoes, pants with inseams that hang all the way down to your knees ON PURPOSE and big belts with rhinestones.
• It does make for great people watching though.
• Personal space is non-existent. You will get pushed, shoved, bumped, hit, or otherwise assaulted just walking down the street without so much as an “excuse me,” “I’m sorry,” or “m goi.” Don't take it personally, it's just not in their culture. They also don't say "Bless you" when you sneeze or "Have a nice day!"
• There is no "ladies first" rule here either. If you want to get on an elevator, you need to push forward like everyone else does before the doors even open. It's every man, woman and child for him, her or itself. Same goes with getting on a subway, don't even wait for people to get out or else you may miss getting on. Also, in some places, queues are not observed, so always be vigilant when standing in line and stand as close as you possibly can to the person in front of you before some unsuspecting granny "butts" you in line.
• When walking on the escalator, stand on the right or you will get run over by commuters like Marc and me.
• Further compounding the personal space issue, most people work in cubicles. I understand that some offices in the States are also configured this way. However, in the States, if someone is stopping by to talk to the person in the cube behind you, they normally don’t stand in YOUR cubicle to talk over the wall at that person. I have tried everything to keep this from happening like clearing my throat loudly, giving death looks to the intruder, putting up obstacles like my trash can or a suitcase in the opening to my cube. If I can get my hands on some crime scene tape, I’m totally putting it up.
• Speaking of personal space, when you are walking around town, your nostrils may be bombarded by the strong smell of moth balls. It usually happens to us when we are passing an old Chinese woman or man. It is as if their clothes are made of the stuff. We haven't seen a single moth in the city in 10 months, so what's the fear? Well, now that I think about it, maybe that is the reason we haven't seen a single moth.
• Bodily excretions can and do get expelled in public. Spitting is illegal in Hong Kong but that doesn’t stop little old grannies from hawking up a loogie on the corner. The worst offense I have seen is a man who stood next to a trash can, pressed one of his nostrils closed and blew the contents of his other nostril into the trash can with such force I thought he might lose an eyeball. Seriously, I threw up in my mouth a little bit. At least he used the trash can, I guess. In Cambodia, I saw men every few hundred yards pulled over on the side of the road peeing on the grass. I am convinced there are no male restrooms in all of Siem Reap.
• Store clerks are very helpful, except when they are not. The minute you walk into a store, you will be bombarded by “friendly” sales clerks who will greet you and help you with anything you need… and don’t need. I was looking at a dress in a store the other day but didn’t take it off the rack. Almost immediately, the sales girl came to me with 2 other dresses she picked out of the store and said “maybe you like this!” Um, nope. I don’t need you with the bubble dress and cowboy boots telling me what I like.
• If the store doesn’t have what you need, the store clerks do not apologize or try to find another solution for you. They just say no and just expect you to accept it and walk away.
• Hong Kong is supposed to be at the forefront of technology. We already have videocalls as a standard feature on cellphones, but we don't have HDTV, Tivo or DVRs (not that we would want to have these features with the crap channels we get anyway) and we can't pay our credit card bill over the internet. The lack of technology in certain areas defies reasonable comprehension.
• Picking a place to eat can be overwhelming in Hong Kong, so figure out what you are in the mood for and we will try to make it happen. Even if you want something really exotic like Ethiopian cuisine, I'm sure we can find a restaurant somewhere in the city that will have what you are looking for. Don't worry, you won't be stuck eating chicken feet and fish heads from the market!
• The only exception is dim sum. I didn't know this before moving here, but dim sum is a morning/brunch/lunch thing. You can't find it after about 3pm, so curb your dim sum cravings to lunch-time and we will take you to a fantastic place called Maxims at City Hall where it is served the old-fashioned way - by servers pushing trolleys of food by your table. It's quite the experience!
• As in Europe, if you don’t ask for your bill at a restaurant, you won’t get it.
• When negotiating at the markets, it is always good to have your own calculator so you can figure out the price in US dollars before making your counter offer.
• However, there is no sales tax which is so nice once you get the hang of the money conversion thing. The US could stand to learn from Hong Kong and just about every other country in the the world (I'm not talking to you, Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon), maybe then it could do away with those pesky pennies.
• You need a universal converter. Hong Kong has British plugs but other countries in Asia have totally different kinds of plugs and just to make it interesting, every once in a while you go somewhere and there is a US outlet. There is no rhyme or reason to it.
• Always carry a packet of tissue paper. I went to a bathroom without toilet paper one too many times before I figured this out. Apparently it is a common theme in Asia, so is the hole in the floor of a restroom that you are supposed to pretend is a toilet. Also, many local restaurants don’t have napkins or paper towels so you will need something to wipe off that piece of dim sum that didn't quite make it into your mouth (dang chopsticks).
• As a corollary to the above, bring anti-bacterial liquid. Purell doesn’t exist over here. I know because I ran out and had to stock up in the States. The airport X-ray technician probably thought he had an OCD psychosomatic hypochondriac going through security.
• Hong Kong is a very safe place but you do encounter the occasional beggar, usually on the walkways by IFC. Yes, some of them do have legitimate disabilities but some do not. Don't be fooled by the seemingly one-armed man laying on the bridge to the Star Ferry. I once saw him take out his surprisingly healthy arm from inside his shirt and pick up a dollar coin from his collection hat.
• Taxi drivers are, as a collective group, crazy. They drive like they are on fire in the middle of the desert looking for an oasis. Some of them pretend they don't know where they are going and will take you the long way to your destination. And sometimes you are lucky enough to get into a cab of someone who fancies himself an amateur tour operator and stockbroker and will talk your ear off about how great Hong Kong is, as well as the decline of the US dollar and its impact on the Hang Seng index.
• Don't forget your passport and bring an open mind. Yes, it is different than the States but hey, these guys have been around for 3,000 years which is more than we can say about Americans. The Chinese invented coin money, fireworks and porcelain, so there is a lot to learn from them. Just roll with it and I guarantee you will have a good time or at least a good laugh after you stop throwing up.

In the interest of full disclosure, Hotel Liner is getting booked up through the end of the year, so if you are planning on coming to visit, please email our travel representatives* for availability.

*Either Sabrina or Marc

Palau (February 2008)

Place: Koror, Palau and Guam, USA
Language: English
Hello: Hello (hello)
Thank you: Thank you (thank u)

In case anyone out there is actually following our blog (and with over 1000 hits now either a few people are checking in occasionally or our moms are refreshing about every 8 minutes), the last (real) entry left off with the tantalizing, "I'll post about Palau next week, so stay tuned and HAPPY NEW YEAR!" Ok, so that was months ago, but hey, we've had things going on -- other trips, sicknesses, a new job for Brina, getting HITCHED, and a serious bout of procrastination. With all of the chaos, I (Marc) decided that I would step in as a guest columnist and post my first ever blog entry. So here goes ...

For anyone wondering what a "Palau" is, it's a place, not a thing. Actually, it's a small chain of islands in the north Pacific that, since 1994, is an independent country. It's about a 3 hour flight southeast of the Philippines in the middle of nowhere, a few degrees north of the equator (more info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palau). I first heard of Palau in my SCUBA class that I took in college -- my instructor had been there and regarded it like the holy grail of diving, with lots of big and exotic fish, technicolor reefs, and shipwrecks galore. That was sort of the point in my life when the other side of the earth might as well have been the other side of the universe, so I never gave it much thought. Then, around Christmas we began eyeing the Chinese New Year as a long weekend to go someplace special, and we found out that we could use frequent flier miles on Continental to get to Palau. Bingo! We were sold.

The first stop on our journey was Manila, the capital of the Philippines. We had about a 6 hour layover, so we actually left the airport and went to the mall. Sabrina got a long, dirt cheap massage (we're really starting to dig the $10 massages in Asia), and I got a haircut. As an aside, getting a haircut in HK is tricky -- they don't use clippers, and I have found out the hard way that some terms get lost in translation. Good English is more widespread in the Philippines, so a reliable haircut was in order. We didn't see much of Manila other than the road between the airport and the mall, but it's a dirty place with lots of custom-decorated buses with jeep fronts welded on them (called "jeepneys") carting people everywhere. Without a doubt, these will be covered in a future blog, as Brina's job will be taking her to Manila occasionally.

So we landed in Koror, the Palau capital, about 1:30am. Strangely, virtually all of the flights in Palau, Guam, and other islands in Micronesia come and go in the middle of the night. Sabrina asked one of the pilots about this and was told that it has to do with linking up connections to and from other places. Clearly the Palauans are used to this because the little airport was hopping with people when we landed. But for us it was a beeline straight to bed at the Rose Garden Resort because we were scheduled to dive just a few hours later.

Our accommodations at the Rose Garden were fairly spartan, but we did have a majestic view greeting us when we woke up:

We were picked up bright and early by Sam's Tours and taken to their dive shop, where we loaded up our gear onto the boat and immediately took off for the dive sites. To get there, we had to weave our way through the Rock Islands, which are scores of large limestone rock outcroppings topped with thick green foliage -- many of them looked sort of like big green cupcakes sticking up out of the water. The daily rides to the dive sites took about an hour each way, and we really loved sitting at the front of the boat as we zig zagged:


One of these Rock Islands was where they filmed Survivor: Palau -- we passed it every day going and coming. Our first dive of the trip was at a place called Blue Holes. The attraction is four or five huge vertical holes in the reef where you freefall about 50 feet to the large caverns, which aren't enclosed, and you can swim out the bottom into the blue open ocean. It was quite a beginning. The water, as expected, was crystal clear with visability of about 150-200 feet. We continued out along the reef, which was chock full of schooling fish and bright coral -- absolutely exhilarating. We also saw several big sea turtles, one of which Brina got up close and personal with:

After another morning dive, we headed to another part of the Rock Islands to a place called Jellyfish Lake. We got off the boat and trekked up into the jungle carrying our snorkel gear (no tanks). We came to a lake that was probably several acres in size. Although the lake was enclosed on all sides, it was saltwater because of holes in the limestone below the waterline. Apparently thousands of years ago jellyfish got into the lake and, with no natural predators, over time they lost their sting. So now the lake is filled with about 2 million stingless jellyfish. We swam out into the sea of jello, bumping the critters as we went. Really, it was surreal watching them pulsate all around us. It was definitely a highlight of the trip:

In the evenings, we got to meet a number of the locals, often at the bar at the dive shop (where the sunset picture was taken). Many of the locals are expats from other places, and everyone was incredibly friendly. We became friends with the general manager of Sam's and his brother visiting from Ireland, whom we had actually met on the flight over from Palau. That guy had a serious trip: Ireland to Germany to Dubai to Manila to Palau. He had gone from cold and damp to snowy, to warm desert, to hot jungle, to tropical paradise in the span of about 30 hours. Wow. We became friends with the owner of another "dive" bar (no pun intended) called Kramer's, along with his wife, their best waitress. There was also the guy who owned the local tv station whose wife was a lawyer for the Palau court system, and the owner of a dive shop on Yap, an island an hour flight away where stone money is still in use. Most colorfully, our taxi driver that we used on a number of occasions was "Lou #9." This guy looked like a cross between a Pacific Islander and a Hell's Angel with a long mullet and a skull stuck to his steering wheel. We never found out what happened to Lou # 1 through 8, but Lou #9 was good to us -- even gave us betelnuts to chew on. These are the local addiction, and they can pack quite a punch. I was buzzing like crazy off mine, while Sabrina said she didn't feel a thing -- guess I got a good one!

The next day it was out to a world renowned dive site called "Blue Corner." The reef at Blue Corner has a strong current pushing past it that brings in all sorts of huge fish. You hook yourself into the reef with a reef hook, inflate your BCD, and bob like a kite while reef sharks, humphead parrot fish, huge napoleon wrasses, and many others swim by. It's like standing on a street corner in NYC watching traffic:

Blue Corner was our favorite hands down. We dived there twice, and it's definitely the best site we've ever seen. The sheer amount and variety of fish was just stunning!

In the afternoon of day two we dived a wreck called Helmet Wreck -- a Japanese ship that was sunk during World War II. It was neat because many of the artifacts (e.g., helmets, hence the name of the wreck) were still intact and sitting on the deck of the ship. Here's Marc holding a rusted gun that was lying amongst the artifacts:

The third day was more fantastic reef diving, and then in the afternoon we dived a cavern system that was hollowed out of one of the limestone islands. The entry to the caves was below the surface of the water, so that you swim through a tunnel, then surface into the caves. Apparently there is a chimney in the caves somewhere (not visible) so that there is oxygen inside the caves and you can surface and take off your mask:

We had a great time exploring both above and below the surface. You really get the sensation of flying in the underwater portions of the caverns, where you can float right up to the ceiling of the room.

Back at the dive shop, right beside the docks, one of the highlights of the trip was spotting several tiny and rare -- but ridiculously neon --mandarinfish:

On our final (no dive) day, we took a guided kayak tour through an inland "lake." Our guide, TJ, led us through tunnels in the mangroves.

We saw all sorts of cool things -- huge 2,000 pound clams, more secret inland lakes accessed through tunnels in the rocks with poisonous jellyfish floating all over the flourescent blue water, huge underwater fields of multi-colored brain coral, a Japanese Zero fighter plane that had been downed in WWII, and a place to get a limestone mud facial from the ocean floor. For lunch we stopped at a secluded beach on a deserted island. It only could have been better if no one were around to take this picture!

Unfortunately, we were NOT ready to leave Palau. It absolutely lived up to its billing as one of the world's best diving locations, and we felt fortunate to have been able to make it to a place that is so difficult to access.

Because of the crazy flight schedules going through Micronesia, our trip home actually called for a full day layover in Guam. The best thing about it was that it's American! We went to KMart (twice, actually) and stocked up on American toiletries and other supplies that are difficult to come by in Hong Kong. We also rented a convertible and drove on the ring road around the entire island. Guam is a pretty poor place and there really wasn't much to see, but there were a few scenic vistas:

Unfortunately, I got some sort of crazy head cold with a high fever the morning we got to Guam, so I don't really remember too much about it, but Sabrina tells me we had a good time. And of course, being the nice guy that I am, when we got back to Hong Kong I gave the crud to her. We literally felt bad for a month, but as we'll soon explain, it didn't hamper our travel schedule too badly ...