My father and cousin arrived in Hong Kong last week. Our conversation at the airport may have just as well gone like this:
Dad and Dan: "Look at us! We're in Hong Kong! Look at us in Hong Kong!"
Jacob: "I see you! This all feels uncanny; you being in this place where I have been on this side of this planet!"
D&D: "Let's stop using so many exclamation points!"
J: "Okay."
D&D: "So are you going to dictate our lives for the next week?"
J: "I am."
D&D"Wonderful."
Oh, I wasn't that much of a fascist tour guide. Having said that, I'm guessing there were a few points when the two travelers felt like I was running some Asian hybrid boot camp. An hour after they arrived in Hong Kong I had them squeezing their luggage through Saturday night Lan Kwai Fong toward the monthly barbershop blues night in SoHo (new readers see September 20th entry). That night they slept on inch-thick mattresses in my room. Come morning I spat on the notion of jet-lag as I rounded up the troops and took them to Tsim Sha Tsui where they had to fend for themselves against the dozens vendors selling copy-watches and tailor suits. Wasn't an easy thing for these two calm, kind gents. Dad kept saying no thank you, which actually means "tell me more!" and Dan asked how much, which means he now owns 17 fake Rolexes and a zebra-skin Versace suit.
That day, my Chinese class happened to be going to a Beijing-style restaurant as a sort of fun, out of class assignment. Dad and Dan were able to meet my laoshi and many of my classmates as we dined on duck and fried bananas. Dan wasn't too enthused about eating something that had once quacked. I think it had something to do with cultural icons Daffy, Donald, Huey Dewey and Louie, Launchpad McQuack, and Laffy.
After the meal we took a tram to the top of Victoria Peak, which overlooks downtown Hong Kong. It was here that two profound things happened. The first was that we found a seven-story shopping mall on top of a mountain. Typical Hong Kong. The second thing was when Dad speculated that my friend Dahee, who he had met earlier and is from Korea, is so nice that she makes Mother Theresa look like a gangster. I guess the view was profound as well:
The next day we voyaged across the New Territories to Sai Kung to do some camping. It's a bit of trouble just getting Sai Kung (like, two hours by train and bus), but once there we still had to get a taxi ride and do a two hour hike. Lucky for me as a boot camp drill sergeant, it was already dusk before the hike started.
"A little nightfall oughtta keep 'em on their toes," I would have been thinking had I actually treated their trip to Hong Kong like boot camp. And if I was treating their trip like boot camp, I would have been losing major face as a clean-cut colonel because our cabbie dropped us off at the wrong spot, which I realized after he sped away... which I realized was bad because we were in the middle of a foreign jungle with no working cell phone... which I realized was extra bad because the sun was just about to pay the western hemisphere a visit.
So what was I actually thinking as I quietly led these men deeper into a shroud?
Some combination of "Just keep swimming," "That mountain kind of looks familiar?" and "Heavens to Murgatroyd, we are so lost."
I kept thinking that if we just got to the other side of the next mountain we would be at the beach and campsite I was familiar with. But at this point Dan and Dad could easily detect my doomed navigation that I had tried to conceal by keeping quiet. But the darkness and their (okay, our) "Cobras and monkeys and wild dogs, oh my!" attitude had us pitching the tent on the first beach we found. Sure, this beach had the occasional wild dog. But one-for-three. Not bad.
"Throw another bamboo on the fire." -The Hong Kong Camper.
The next morning, after Dan had a nightmare about a duck, we awoke to these images:
Turned out that we did need to just climb that one last mountain to be at Camp Familiar. Ah well. We had our fun and trekked back, finding out along the way that we should have been worrying about wild bulls as well. 
Dan was wearing red shorts. He's okay.
We made it back in time for my rugby game.
Lingnan University vs. Institute of Vocational Education. We're all friends.
The next day we paid the other Special Administrative Region of China a visit. The Vegas of the East. Post-Portuguese-controlled Macau. It was really boring. I had to sit on top of the 338 meter-high Macau Tower while Dad waited in line to jump off the world's highest bungee jump. 
Actually, I was more nervous than Dad. It gave me great joy to watch him keep it chill while knowing the severe umbrage gravity was about to take at him. (That's my way of saying I wasn't actually bored.)
Actually, I was more nervous than Dad. It gave me great joy to watch him keep it chill while knowing the severe umbrage gravity was about to take at him. (That's my way of saying I wasn't actually bored.)Anyway, this blog is getting pretty long, so long(er) story short: he survived. We returned to Hong Kong but I lost my cell phone on the ferry, Dan got lost but he really didn't, Dad got his haircut, we saw monkeys, and Dad spilled beer on the sixth floor of the Chungking Mansions in an Indian-Pakistani restaurant that doesn't even serve beer (sorry Dad, the world must know).
This was just a great week. Both in quality and quantity. Ask me about this in person if you want to hear more.
The people in charge kept telling me this boat carried the Olympic torch. I wasn't sure if they meant this specific boat or not, so I thought I would seize me a photo-op in case it was. The good news is I got yelled at, leading me to believe it was the legitimate Olympic torch-lighting dragon boat.
are only used during the actual competitions, which only take place in the springtime. In the meantime, decapitated dragon boat scrimmaging will have to suffice. If you'd like to catch a glimpse of the real deal, I wouldn't suggest watching 
Win paddles on the left side.