First morning in Hong Kong

The place I'm staying in is more like a private room within a youth hostel then a guesthouse. Crossed the street from the building with reception, down an alley way I wouldn't adventure if it was back home, and into a building with sleeping 'doorman', up 8th floor, down another corridor, and 2 gates into the corridor leading to my room. About 7m2, and with what will be the norm through my Asia stays, a shower over the toilet. Most places keep the shower just in case in addition to a regular shower area, but here it was all-in-one. The room and 'bathroom' was super clean, so all good. The funniest thing was Tommy, the owner, proudly announced I had a room with window. There was indeed a window, but it overlooked the building across, if I extended my arms I could nearly touch the opposite wall, so no light from that window, and as it turns out I never opened the curtains. I had a fantastic sleep, thanks to Melatonine pills and jet lag. I wpoke ip around 9am, somehow managed to get rid of jetlag before i even felt it. Adjusting my clock to Hong Kong time as I left San Francisco certainly helped. After organizing my stuff, I wandered the streets in search of breakfast, and ended up in what would become my internet fix, Cafe Pacific (or something like that). It's a chain available across town, like a deluxe Starbucks, with plush red velvet armchairs, subdued lighting, good coffee, and a few computers for customers. It's limited to 15 minutes, but it worked well & provided a small fix of emails.



I decided to hanfle my Vietnamese visa right away, and thanks to the above internet + google maps found the location in no time. The city is easy to navigate, with lots of signage everywhere, both for streets but also most monuments, and key areas. I ended up using mostly the tram, my favorite, altough in the end I will have used all tranportation: taxi (dirt cheap & fast), regular bus (like the London double decker buses), mini bus/van (seat 12 people), subway, and ferry boat of course. There is plenty of fog and pollution, but in retrospect, nothing like Bangkok. It's all relative... My guesthouse is in Causeway Bay, lively and with one main advantage, not one foreigner in sight besides my reflection in the mirrors. At the Vietnamese Ambassy I praise the numerous blogs I read before departure, with some handy tips like take passport pix with you. Indeed, came in handy to get my Visa, took 15 minutes all in all.