Hello :~)
How are you going? Thank you for being here right from the start.
Seeing as this is the very first one you'll have to excuse me as I find my footing – I imagine over time these emails will develop and change form until I hit the sweet spot.
I love reading emails as both a form of procrastination and learning – so I'm going to do my best to keep these interesting and insightful. I sincerely doubt you'll want to read a summary of what Dom and I have been up to, so expect a bit of everything (but there will be a bit of that also).
Anyway, let's jump in!
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Hong Kong
Dom and I departed Melbourne last Monday morning on flight VA87. Everything went smoothly, perhaps the only hiccup was both our suitcases receiving a 'HEAVY' tag. Between checked luggage and carry on, we're probably carting around 60 kilos. Can't wait to report back on how all this excess baggage is working for us when we get to Rome and don't have someone waiting to pick us up at the airport.
Anyway, this past week we've been in Hong Kong. Coming here with Dom has made me realise how one-dimensional my experience of HK has been. I've always visited HK to see my Aunty, and almost all of my fondest childhood memories are hazy stories from my time in HK.
This time with Dom, I finally did some touristy things! We went to Central to see some art galleries, passed by the Ladies and Flower markets in Mong Kok, went on a ding ding tram, and I saw Lan Kwai Fong (the only nightlife in HK!) for the first time. We also went to Yum Cha with my Aunty and played board games with my cousin, so it all balanced out nicely.
A cute fact: Back in 96, Hong Kong won their first ever gold medal at the Olympics, in Windsurfing. Not only that, but a couple of Paralympians had won gold in the Olympics too! At the time, Hong Kong was constructing a new metro station, and they ended up renaming it Olympic to pay tribute to their Hong Kong athletes 😭.
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Disneyland
On Thursday, we headed to Disneyland. Is Disneyland the happiest place on the world? Yes. Yes it is. It was Dom's first time at a proper theme park. As for me... well, I've lost count of the times I've been to a theme park. I don't think I realised at the time, but my parents took me to a hell of a lot of theme parks when I was younger. As a kid, I was a ride fiend.
The first ride I ever went on was the Tower of Terror. What exactly compelled a seven year old to pick a ride with a 40 metre drop in pitch black for her very first theme park experience is beyond me. Other seven year olds were probably running for the teacups, but I chose a ride based on the bloody Twilight Zone. When I met Sofia's mum for the first time, she called me a psychopath – I guess she's more right than she is wrong.
Anyway so the premise of the ride is simple – you enter an elevator shaft and they drop you down the shaft in complete darkness. Who on earth cooked this idea up??? I think my parents still have the picture they take of you mid-ride. I'm there screaming, some of my front teeth missing.
Unfortunately the rides at Hong Kong Disneyland aren't quite as exhilarating, but that's okay as I seemingly become more of a wuss and far more prone to motion sickness. Dom's favourite ride was the Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars, and we ended up going on it twice. (By the way, how odd are these POV videos? When we went on the ride, someone in front of us was told to put his camera away, yet as soon as we turned the corner he pulled it back out to shoot a front seat POV video. I wonder how many times he will watch that video again?)
I honestly don't think I've ever seen Dom as happy as he was at Disneyland. What a time to be alive! Above, you can see Dom blending into the landscape at Toy Story Land.
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Chungking Express
One of Dom's favourite movies, we also visited a couple of the spots that featured in Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express.
The Central – Mid-Levels escalators is the longest outdoor escalator system in the world. Riding the full length of it takes about 20 minutes. Heading up a steep hill in Hong Kong, it was designed to reduce congestion on the streets. Now, it's a nice way to view part of the city.
And of course the Chungking Mansions. Located in Tsim Sha Tsui, the building block is a bit of a world inside another. We just walked around the bottom, but last time Dom was here he stayed a night in one of their shoebox rooms. According to him you can get great Indian food in the Mansions also.
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On your way out...
Some links that might be of interest to you, some relating to the tidbits above, some not.
- Original EPCOT film – Outside of movies and theme parks, Walt Disney also wanted to a create a city of the future. He passed away before he could make his dream a reality, but the EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) theme park in Florida is meant to be heavily based on it. Skip to 13:22 if you want to see what his idea of a futuristic city was like.
- Secret XXX message in Lion King – Around 2003, I'd read Snopes.com religiously. What a weird part of the internet. Anyway, this is a funny urban legend about slipping naughty words into a G rated movie.
- Faye Wong covers The Cranberries – An awesome cover that is part of the soundtrack of Chungking Express.
- Kowloon Walled City – once the most densely populated place on the planet, Kowloon Walled City probably holds even more mystery and intrigue than the Mansions.
- Hiding anger in the face of bigotry – A really good piece by Omar J. Sakr. When we were at Melbourne airport Dom went to go find a copy of The Saturday Paper and when he asked the shop assistant if they stocked The Sat Paper, the woman replied 'we don't have any copies of Saturday's paper, we've got today's issue!'
- Union Kiosk is now 100% vegan – One of my favourite lunch spots in Melbourne is now completely plant based! Very exciting to see.
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Good Bye :~)
Now, we're in Wuhan, staying with my grandparents. Then, we head off to explore some more of China on our own. I imagine the next instalment will be when our time in China comes to an end.
Speak soon!
Love you ♡
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