![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amulMy spell check program has stopped acknowledging the existence of contractions. Every time I type an apostrophe, it complains. I am just saying.
So, I was going to tell you about Shenzhen, and though my time on the other side of the world already feels painfully far away, it's important to me that I document the rest of the trip.
I got up early and gave Thorn Chain a call, as we'd agreed that the first to wake should call the other. They were still in bed, and I spent a good long while online trying to hunt down that beautiful Shen Hao that I wanted. There was a phone number for a store in Shenzhen. I think I wrote about this part already. The number had a message in Cantonese in it. I went downstairs to the lobby and had the clerk on duty translate for me. He grinned apologetically and said, "It says this number is, how you say, not there. Not working. Gone."
A bad omen, but we pressed on. I had an address and a map, and if the store still existed, I was determined to buy one. Just for the thrill of being able to look at it before purchasing it. TC called to let me know they were up, and we agreed to meet at the MTR-Central, MTR being Hong Kong's subway system. Central was only one stop away, and as I ducked into a street-level bakery for breakfast, I thought about walking there, since by subway it would take me less than half the time it would take Moon Howling Wolf and TC to get to Central.
The bakeries are a part of Hong Kong that have me seriously considering moving there. They sell stuffed bread. Stuffed with all kinds of odd deliciousness. Hot dogs, pizzas, BBQ pork (my favorite), weird vegan delicacies. The bread they use for these is sweeter than any bread I've had elsewhere, and as with all HK street-level shops, the retail section of the store is barely big enough to turn around in. So you literally step off the street, point to some food, and you're on your way. Far faster than any fast food joint, and if you pick the right hours, it comes straight from the ovens, piping hot and buttery in your mouth.
I decided not to walk all the way to Central, assuming there was quite a bit of walking in my future. My feet were hurting pretty badly at this point from all the running around, and - I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but my knee has been giving me trouble. Some days, I were a knee brace/ace bandage kind of thing. It helps, but only while it's on. I think it's to do with keeping my knee joint locked and sitting on chairs that are too low.
Anyway, I munch on food and walk down the street, and got to the station, this time not even needing to pause for directions. I even took a different route, showing off my knowledge of this section of the city, getting there by smell. TC and MHW showed up on time, and we hopped the rail and headed to the border between Hong Kong's Special Economic Zone and China proper.
We get to the border, and there's a tiny bit of debate regarding our departure cards. We could hand them the ones that carbon-copied off our entry cards, but somehow all three of us are hesitant to give those up. Is the carbon copy just for our convenience, or do we need it to return to the states? A couple of British backpackers traveling with a Chinese girl overhear our debate and we chat for a bit. In the end, we fill out a second set of cards, and show them both to the border agent.
He takes the carbon, hands me back the other one, stamps my passport, and I'm through. Out of Hong Kong. A brief bit of turmoil, as I briefly lose sight of TC and MHW. Finding them again, we head over to the Visa Office. Now, MHW is a very thorough individual. Whenever he goes anywhere, he always spends several hours looking things up online, printing out maps, making lists of places to go. In a lot of ways, his travel habits remind me of my father's (which is to say, personally distasteful, but often appreciated when there's a problem). Someone had got him a PDA as a gift between the last time I saw them and their arrival in China, so he was even more prepared than usual. The entire train ride over, he was showing us maps of areas we should check out, reciting discussions about areas heavy with pick pockets and the sorts of precautions you take around them. He'd even hunted out some info on my Shen Hao.
So, it was a much bigger surprise to us than it would have been to me had I been traveling alone when we saw the sign at the Visa Office which read "As of April 1, 2004, US Citizens will not be issued On The Spot Visas. To apply for a visa, US Citizens must apply at least 5-7 business days before traveling."
We're a bit shocked by this. The English backpackers, whose names were Tim and James, came up the stairs and told us they'd been looking for us to tell us the bad news. The Chinese girl who was with them, who it turned out was American born and had only been in-country for about six months, was also sympathetic. They were caught up in their own debate, which I quickly used as a distraction from my own issues, while MHW stormed off to yell at someone in broken Cantonese.
So, the Brits had met Kristi, the Chinese girl, at a bar in Hong Kong the night before. They chatted her up and she had invited them to stay with her in Shenzhen for a couple of days. They hadn't realized that you needed to pay for the visas, and apparently the last round of shots had put them under the mark. They couldn't even pay for one visa. Kristi could get into the country, but then they'd be stuck same as we, and so they were debating. I was half-tempted to give them the money on promise of a postcard, when MHW yelled for us.
He'd been ping-ponging back and forth between a pair of desks, at a furious loss. It seems that the only way to get back to Hong Kong was the train we had taken to arrive. The problem was that the train platform was in Shenzhen. You know, on the other side of the border entry point which we couldn't cross without a visa. We were stuck in the no-man's-land (a quite appropriate phrase, since literally no one owned jurisdiction in the thirty foot of corridor we were stuck in). Several passers by who spoke fluent English and Cantonese stopped to help him, and later us, but to no avail. Apparently, the only way for us to get back in to Hong Kong was to first visit the Refusal Registry desk, then visit the Passport-stamping line, and then the Refusal Registry desk again, and back and forth several times.
Tim and James, the Brits, were equally confounded by the lack of an ATM. Oh, there was one in Shenzhen, about fifty feet from the entry point, just around a corner. But they couldn't get to it without a visa. There weren't even any bathrooms there.
After three hours of bouncing back and forth like this, and waving to the British boys every pass, I decided to offer them the money they needed. Clearly, I wasn't getting into Shenzhen, and I'd already done more than enough shopping for my tastes anyway. I found James standing by the entry line, he grinned worriedly and told us he was a sucker.
"Gave her mah debit card. Let her cross the border. She's in another country right now with mah card and mah PIN number, and if she screws me I'm totally screwed. She seemed a good sort at the bar, but, well, I suppose they always do."
You think she's ditched you? Well, look at the bright side, you'll get a Refused stamp on your passport. You can prove you were never in China today.
"Knew it was a fool move even before I handed her the card. She's only been gone twenty minutes, so the jury's not back just yet, but still. It's eating at me right now."
But his worries were soon allayed, she came back with the card and the cash, a guard passed it over to him and they got their visas in the end. I gave him my card and asked for a postcard.
Two hours later, we were finally back on the train for Hong Kong. Ironically, this meant that we'd be getting back at 4pm, which is around when we'd usually wake up anyway.
We stopped at a sandwich shop in the train station and had lunch and a much-needed piss. A Chinese businessman let us share his table and talked with us about the development of Shenzhen. It had been a farming village until about fifteen years ago, and most of the development into the multi-million-population city had been in the last five years. It had over 500 Starbucks in it already, only they're posh sit-down joints, five or six times bigger than they are in the states.
We got back and disembarked in Kowloon, did some window shopping while waiting for the fitting of the suits we had ordered the day before. Afterward, we hopped on this night cruise of the harbor. It was a two-hour tour, including a light show (the same one we'd seen from the back end up on Victoria's Peak) and all the booze you could drink. They had two different kinds of rum, and port. I nearly vomited over the rails in the middle of an I Love You Man Moment with MHW.
The Hong Kong skyline is vast, maybe ten times longer than Chicago's, and that's on both sides of the harbor, Kowloon and HK. It was staggering. The Kowloon side goes on, deep, as well, and the city's lack of street grid means that you can see the depth, too. We drank, the lot of us, and talked of the future. MHW is struggling to keep his head. Hong Kong and Ocean Park were bigger than anything he'd ever dared to let himself dream, and he doesn't know what comes next. A girl once asked me why I didn't work with them, and I had told her it's a beautiful dream, and I could be very happy helping them achieve it, but it's not MY dream. So there's a tiny chunk of jealousy, of regret, options lost and paths not followed, especially as I feel like my own way is muddled and dark.
I use this metaphor a lot, that sometimes you're up on the hill and sometimes you're down in the valley. When you're up on the hill, you can see where you want to go, but you can't see the path for all the trees below you. Or you're on the path, but you can't pull your head up even if you want to, those trees cover up your goal, your destination, and all you can do is walk the path you're on. Well, that night we were on the harbor. The city laid out like a dragon's horde of jewels before us. The glittering immensity of where their path had led to is breath-taking, and while I would have loved to stay, to walk those roads....well, I had a flight to catch the next morning. My ticket to that glistening vale was a visitor's pass, not a work visa. You have to apply for those ahead of time.
We arrived where we had left, and headed out for cheap sushi and shots, Blood Curling Mouse and Wordsmith Scarecrow joined us. As if I hadn't a large enough crush on her already, BCM orders sushi like a pro. We said our goodbyes in what is called The Quiet Hour, but deep in the night of Hong Kong, the city was very much alive and awake. Thorn Chain hugged me tight, and whispered into my ear, "See you on the other side of the world," and it's a sad, strange thing to think that with all this, they'll still need to find crappy day jobs, retail stores, bars, sandwich shops, when they get back. By this time next month, they'll be lucky to find minimum wage, and I am already caught up in the grindstone of my third return to college.
Maybe if we were a different sort. Maybe if we loved Christmas then our paths would be easier. They started selling Christmas in the stores before October even started this year. But the likes of us were made for Halloween, and it is no good to dwell on might-have-beens. Doubly ironic, I don't even know what I'm doing for my favorite holiday this year, or who I'd do it with. The places I usually go, the friends I usually celebrate with, they are behind me, and my path lies somewhere ahead, past the trees, beyond this valley and the next.
Still, I suppose my abortive trip to Shenzhen proves that it's not the destinations that make life interesting. For me, it is and always has been the people you meet along the way.
So, I was going to tell you about Shenzhen, and though my time on the other side of the world already feels painfully far away, it's important to me that I document the rest of the trip.
I got up early and gave Thorn Chain a call, as we'd agreed that the first to wake should call the other. They were still in bed, and I spent a good long while online trying to hunt down that beautiful Shen Hao that I wanted. There was a phone number for a store in Shenzhen. I think I wrote about this part already. The number had a message in Cantonese in it. I went downstairs to the lobby and had the clerk on duty translate for me. He grinned apologetically and said, "It says this number is, how you say, not there. Not working. Gone."
A bad omen, but we pressed on. I had an address and a map, and if the store still existed, I was determined to buy one. Just for the thrill of being able to look at it before purchasing it. TC called to let me know they were up, and we agreed to meet at the MTR-Central, MTR being Hong Kong's subway system. Central was only one stop away, and as I ducked into a street-level bakery for breakfast, I thought about walking there, since by subway it would take me less than half the time it would take Moon Howling Wolf and TC to get to Central.
The bakeries are a part of Hong Kong that have me seriously considering moving there. They sell stuffed bread. Stuffed with all kinds of odd deliciousness. Hot dogs, pizzas, BBQ pork (my favorite), weird vegan delicacies. The bread they use for these is sweeter than any bread I've had elsewhere, and as with all HK street-level shops, the retail section of the store is barely big enough to turn around in. So you literally step off the street, point to some food, and you're on your way. Far faster than any fast food joint, and if you pick the right hours, it comes straight from the ovens, piping hot and buttery in your mouth.
I decided not to walk all the way to Central, assuming there was quite a bit of walking in my future. My feet were hurting pretty badly at this point from all the running around, and - I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but my knee has been giving me trouble. Some days, I were a knee brace/ace bandage kind of thing. It helps, but only while it's on. I think it's to do with keeping my knee joint locked and sitting on chairs that are too low.
Anyway, I munch on food and walk down the street, and got to the station, this time not even needing to pause for directions. I even took a different route, showing off my knowledge of this section of the city, getting there by smell. TC and MHW showed up on time, and we hopped the rail and headed to the border between Hong Kong's Special Economic Zone and China proper.
We get to the border, and there's a tiny bit of debate regarding our departure cards. We could hand them the ones that carbon-copied off our entry cards, but somehow all three of us are hesitant to give those up. Is the carbon copy just for our convenience, or do we need it to return to the states? A couple of British backpackers traveling with a Chinese girl overhear our debate and we chat for a bit. In the end, we fill out a second set of cards, and show them both to the border agent.
He takes the carbon, hands me back the other one, stamps my passport, and I'm through. Out of Hong Kong. A brief bit of turmoil, as I briefly lose sight of TC and MHW. Finding them again, we head over to the Visa Office. Now, MHW is a very thorough individual. Whenever he goes anywhere, he always spends several hours looking things up online, printing out maps, making lists of places to go. In a lot of ways, his travel habits remind me of my father's (which is to say, personally distasteful, but often appreciated when there's a problem). Someone had got him a PDA as a gift between the last time I saw them and their arrival in China, so he was even more prepared than usual. The entire train ride over, he was showing us maps of areas we should check out, reciting discussions about areas heavy with pick pockets and the sorts of precautions you take around them. He'd even hunted out some info on my Shen Hao.
So, it was a much bigger surprise to us than it would have been to me had I been traveling alone when we saw the sign at the Visa Office which read "As of April 1, 2004, US Citizens will not be issued On The Spot Visas. To apply for a visa, US Citizens must apply at least 5-7 business days before traveling."
We're a bit shocked by this. The English backpackers, whose names were Tim and James, came up the stairs and told us they'd been looking for us to tell us the bad news. The Chinese girl who was with them, who it turned out was American born and had only been in-country for about six months, was also sympathetic. They were caught up in their own debate, which I quickly used as a distraction from my own issues, while MHW stormed off to yell at someone in broken Cantonese.
So, the Brits had met Kristi, the Chinese girl, at a bar in Hong Kong the night before. They chatted her up and she had invited them to stay with her in Shenzhen for a couple of days. They hadn't realized that you needed to pay for the visas, and apparently the last round of shots had put them under the mark. They couldn't even pay for one visa. Kristi could get into the country, but then they'd be stuck same as we, and so they were debating. I was half-tempted to give them the money on promise of a postcard, when MHW yelled for us.
He'd been ping-ponging back and forth between a pair of desks, at a furious loss. It seems that the only way to get back to Hong Kong was the train we had taken to arrive. The problem was that the train platform was in Shenzhen. You know, on the other side of the border entry point which we couldn't cross without a visa. We were stuck in the no-man's-land (a quite appropriate phrase, since literally no one owned jurisdiction in the thirty foot of corridor we were stuck in). Several passers by who spoke fluent English and Cantonese stopped to help him, and later us, but to no avail. Apparently, the only way for us to get back in to Hong Kong was to first visit the Refusal Registry desk, then visit the Passport-stamping line, and then the Refusal Registry desk again, and back and forth several times.
Tim and James, the Brits, were equally confounded by the lack of an ATM. Oh, there was one in Shenzhen, about fifty feet from the entry point, just around a corner. But they couldn't get to it without a visa. There weren't even any bathrooms there.
After three hours of bouncing back and forth like this, and waving to the British boys every pass, I decided to offer them the money they needed. Clearly, I wasn't getting into Shenzhen, and I'd already done more than enough shopping for my tastes anyway. I found James standing by the entry line, he grinned worriedly and told us he was a sucker.
"Gave her mah debit card. Let her cross the border. She's in another country right now with mah card and mah PIN number, and if she screws me I'm totally screwed. She seemed a good sort at the bar, but, well, I suppose they always do."
You think she's ditched you? Well, look at the bright side, you'll get a Refused stamp on your passport. You can prove you were never in China today.
"Knew it was a fool move even before I handed her the card. She's only been gone twenty minutes, so the jury's not back just yet, but still. It's eating at me right now."
But his worries were soon allayed, she came back with the card and the cash, a guard passed it over to him and they got their visas in the end. I gave him my card and asked for a postcard.
Two hours later, we were finally back on the train for Hong Kong. Ironically, this meant that we'd be getting back at 4pm, which is around when we'd usually wake up anyway.
We stopped at a sandwich shop in the train station and had lunch and a much-needed piss. A Chinese businessman let us share his table and talked with us about the development of Shenzhen. It had been a farming village until about fifteen years ago, and most of the development into the multi-million-population city had been in the last five years. It had over 500 Starbucks in it already, only they're posh sit-down joints, five or six times bigger than they are in the states.
We got back and disembarked in Kowloon, did some window shopping while waiting for the fitting of the suits we had ordered the day before. Afterward, we hopped on this night cruise of the harbor. It was a two-hour tour, including a light show (the same one we'd seen from the back end up on Victoria's Peak) and all the booze you could drink. They had two different kinds of rum, and port. I nearly vomited over the rails in the middle of an I Love You Man Moment with MHW.
The Hong Kong skyline is vast, maybe ten times longer than Chicago's, and that's on both sides of the harbor, Kowloon and HK. It was staggering. The Kowloon side goes on, deep, as well, and the city's lack of street grid means that you can see the depth, too. We drank, the lot of us, and talked of the future. MHW is struggling to keep his head. Hong Kong and Ocean Park were bigger than anything he'd ever dared to let himself dream, and he doesn't know what comes next. A girl once asked me why I didn't work with them, and I had told her it's a beautiful dream, and I could be very happy helping them achieve it, but it's not MY dream. So there's a tiny chunk of jealousy, of regret, options lost and paths not followed, especially as I feel like my own way is muddled and dark.
I use this metaphor a lot, that sometimes you're up on the hill and sometimes you're down in the valley. When you're up on the hill, you can see where you want to go, but you can't see the path for all the trees below you. Or you're on the path, but you can't pull your head up even if you want to, those trees cover up your goal, your destination, and all you can do is walk the path you're on. Well, that night we were on the harbor. The city laid out like a dragon's horde of jewels before us. The glittering immensity of where their path had led to is breath-taking, and while I would have loved to stay, to walk those roads....well, I had a flight to catch the next morning. My ticket to that glistening vale was a visitor's pass, not a work visa. You have to apply for those ahead of time.
We arrived where we had left, and headed out for cheap sushi and shots, Blood Curling Mouse and Wordsmith Scarecrow joined us. As if I hadn't a large enough crush on her already, BCM orders sushi like a pro. We said our goodbyes in what is called The Quiet Hour, but deep in the night of Hong Kong, the city was very much alive and awake. Thorn Chain hugged me tight, and whispered into my ear, "See you on the other side of the world," and it's a sad, strange thing to think that with all this, they'll still need to find crappy day jobs, retail stores, bars, sandwich shops, when they get back. By this time next month, they'll be lucky to find minimum wage, and I am already caught up in the grindstone of my third return to college.
Maybe if we were a different sort. Maybe if we loved Christmas then our paths would be easier. They started selling Christmas in the stores before October even started this year. But the likes of us were made for Halloween, and it is no good to dwell on might-have-beens. Doubly ironic, I don't even know what I'm doing for my favorite holiday this year, or who I'd do it with. The places I usually go, the friends I usually celebrate with, they are behind me, and my path lies somewhere ahead, past the trees, beyond this valley and the next.
Still, I suppose my abortive trip to Shenzhen proves that it's not the destinations that make life interesting. For me, it is and always has been the people you meet along the way.