Today’s damage: 18,000 steps, covering 8 miles and 31 flights climbed. I wonder what my Fitbit would’ve said yesterday if I had remembered to wear it around. Not quite this bad, but I still want to know.

I made a smiley face, but it looks like an alien.

I woke up at 3am this morning, which would be noon back home. I pulled out my phone, caught up on email and twitter, looked at possible things to visit later, then tried to go back to sleep. It wasn’t working very well, so I took the melatonin Stori had set out for me, and it seemed to help. The next time I woke up was when Stori came into the room for breakfast. We had cereal, some chicken bacon, and strawberries. She showed me how to use her little counter-top dishwasher before leaving for work. She also gave me her umbrella in case it rained today.

It did. It really did.

Once Stori was out I got myself ready to explore. I put on the flip flops I bought yesterday so I could test them out and get used to how they work again. I brought my backpack for holding purchases, and a water bottle in case it was useful. I was thinking I’d visit the nearby market, now that I have some cash on me, then further on to the beach and see if people were actually swimming. If so maybe I’d join them. Then later on in the day I could head to the downtown areas for some exploration and possible shopping. The moment I stepped outside I felt the drizzle and went back for the umbrella.

Morning Tai Chi

I hadn’t been out this early (9 am) yesterday so I wondered if the lack of people was due to the rain or the hour. I decided that the odds of people swimming at the beach were low in this weather, and since no one seemed to be out, the market could wait. So I hopped on a bus in to Central.

Catching the bus all by my lonesome.

Once I arrived I decided I’d just walk in whatever direction looked the most interesting. The first detour was up some stairs to St. John’s Cathedral, which to be honest was more normal than I hoped. I started continuing towards the “Hong Kong Park” and could probably see part of it just a short distance away, but I spent a while looking at a map of local landmarks and decided to head in the opposite direction.

I circled back to where I got off the bus and kept walking this time, past the cathedral, and soon was surrounded by stores like Rolex, Gucci, and Armani. I felt too underdressed in my flip flops to even be on the sidewalk outside the shops. In the rain most people were dressed more conservatively, plus this was obviously a much more business-centered area compared with Stanley the laid-back market and beach town.

But I soldiered on until I hit was I was aiming for, the “Central-Mid-Levels Escalators,” a name which I didn’t understand until I got there (Mid-Levels is a region higher up the mountains, so these escalators connect central and mid-levels, see?). Here there were enough “normal” people that I stopped caring that I wasn’t wearing a suit. I walked up a little bit, then wondered if anything interesting was up that way. I pulled up a map and debated for a while. I only knew one thing in that direction: a history museum. Whereas if I went down there seemed like a lot more.

Now I kept following the crowd for a while. After a bit I reached the IFC mall, but all of the stores I saw were more of the fancy high-fashion kind, so I kept walking. The next while was just a bunch of aimless walking, so I’ll just let you see the pretty pictures instead of trying to build some story out of it.

I ended up getting most of the way to the piers but changed my mind. I’d rather go to a different neighborhood than switch islands completely. So I took the subway over to Causeway Bay where we had gone last night. I picked “Times Square” as the place to exit, because I thought it was close to where we went yesterday, but once I got to the surface I noticed it was, of course, more super fancy shops. Seriously, this was getting annoying.

Hey, Google!

I pulled out my phone to see where I actually was and saw, in the building I had just left, was the Google Hong Kong office. I had thought it was farther north, on a different island, so I didn’t think I’d be able to visit it and I left my employee badge back in Seattle. But I took the elevator up to reception and while rambling a little bit I took a picture of the “Google” sign. But once they knew I was an employee they just gave me a temporary badge and let me in so I could eat :) I obviously accepted the offer of free food. I walked around a bit, then asked if I could keep the badge for the rest of my vacation and return it before heading home. They said that was fine, so if I happen to make it to the Bangkok office I’ll have a badge ready to go!

Now that I’m posting this, I really should’ve sat down in those chairs. They look comfy.

Now I really wanted to get back to the stores I could afford, so I started walking in the general direction of buildings I thought sounded promising, but I didn’t look at the map very much and just kept turning corners until I ran into the World Trade Center and headed inside. It was here I spotted a Uniqlo and figured I’d give it a chance. It had some really fun shirts like Mario, which I should go back and look again, but what I actually got were some shorts and shirts that are advertised as quick-drying and odor-fighting, which I didn’t really have before and certainly need in Thailand where it’s even hotter than here.

Now that I had food and clothes, I didn’t really need to stick around, so I got a bus back to Stanley and went to the market. There I picked out a magnet, a fan, and a little Buddha. Right as I was finishing up the rain got much worse and people appeared to run for the hills. But I, who had spent all day in the rain with no shoes, was not deterred!​ I grabbed another bubble tea and went back to the cottage to relax before Stori got off work. We didn’t have any fancy plans tonight, since we have to get packed for our flight to Chiang Mai tomorrow.

We got dinner in the nearby plaza. My drink had red bean and ice cream. We also got a dessert of French toast with ice cream, a combination I had never tried before but it is awesome. My dinner was rice with a kind of tomato and egg soup. Not something I would’ve picked under my normal routine, but it was tasty.

This is how you end a long day walking.