AROUND THE WORLD WITH 1DREAM April 1-10, 2010 Hong Kong & South Africa
Day 2 - April 2, 2010 Hong Kong
Today began with a much needed 11am lunch. The kids needed to get some sleep so we gave them a few extra hours and they were very appreciative. Our lunch began at a Chinese version of fast food. Most of us had some type of noodle with chicken, toast, and maybe a scrambled egg. It was cheap, it was tasty, and we were the only non-locals eating there... always a good sign.
On our schedule today was our first game on Asian soil in the history of the 1 Dream Foundation. Through the powers of Facebook, we were able to connect with Nike's head of marketing in Hong Kong, and he was able to organize a competition for us against the U-18 Nike sponsored club team which are the best team here in Hong Kong. Upon arrival we saw 4 boxes of shoes and we through we really had scored and maybe this would be our welcome gift to their country. I guess not... right before the game began all of their players were given the brand new, KOBE, shoes with a crazy colorway and they were now ready.
The coach of the locals was very interested in practicing with our team. He wanted to practice for 2 hours together and then play a game for 2 hours. I politely had to use the jet lag excuse in telling him that there is no way that our 7 players would be able to last for 4 hours on the court... soft Americans I guess. We compromised with 60 minutes of practice followed by our game. We did some drills, tried to figure out how to communicate with each other, as only 2 or 3 of their guys spoke English and developed some good friendships during our afternoon on the court.
The game began and we were jumped on early by our hosts. They could play! Making three pointer after three pointer we found ourselves down by 10-15 points for the majority of the game... but low and behold, just like a great NBA team, we made our run when it mattered most and outscored them by 16 in the fourth quarter to pull away with a 70-66 victory. A good way to start the trip. After several photos, exchanging of emails, and lots of smiles and hand shakes we headed back to our hotel to shower up for our night on the town.
We once again hopped on the hotel shuttle bus and rode down to the harbor. We then boarded the world famous Star Ferry for the 10 minute and 30 cent voyage across the harbor. The ride across the harbor is pretty crazy with boats dodging each other constantly and the enormous skylines dwarfing over you.
Upon docking in Central Hong Kong, we walked about 1/2 a mile to hop on the double decker tram that curls through most of Hong Kong Island. These trams are OLD, the ceilings are LOW and the seats are UNCOMFORTABLE. But life is truly about the journey and hopping on these trams is like jumping back 50 years in history. After 20 minutes on the tram, we hopped off in the Times Square area of town. Although there was no big apples dropping from the sky, the crowds of people were very similar to it's NYC counterpart. There were stores everywhere, hoards of people, and we were starving. After unsuccessfully trying to find a more authentic restaurant, we settled for a hamburger restaurant and we enjoyed our dinner immensely. It was now nearly 9pm and most of us were dragging. We hopped back on the MTR and made our way back to our hotel.
We had some technical difficulties with the broadcast tonight... which in reality only means that the kids were supposed to wake up at 11:30pm and put on the show, but they slept through their alarms. Beauty sleep was more important I guess !
We're headed to the largest Buddha in the outdoor world tomorrow and we'll be sure to rub his belly if at all possible!
Day 1 - April 1, 2010 San Francisco - Hong Kong
After departing from San Francisco at 1:20am on March 31st, we enjoyed spending our entire Wednesday on our airline as we endured a 15 hour flight across the Pacific before landing in an overcast Hong Kong at 7:20am local time. Most of the kids were able to get a few hours sleep on the packed flight, while a few seemed to rather enjoy watching every movie and tv show offered on the in flight entertainment system. So, upon landing there were the refreshed and there were the exhausted... little did they know that we had at least 5 miles of walking in 95% humidity ahead of them.
We made it through immigration relatively unscathed, although John Mahoney did get taken to a "back" office for a few questions... John is one of the more menacing looking people that you might know, so none of us were surprised by this event. After 10 minutes answering questions about his reasons for being in Hong Kong, John was released and joined us at baggage claim to pick up our 21 pieces of luggage.
We collected our luggage and proceeded through customs and found our bus operator who would drive us the 40 minutes to our hotel, the Hotel Royal Plaza. It was a pretty uneventful drive except for Kyle Clement who was like a little kid at Christmas, taking pictures of every single thing that he could. He has a "real" camera as opposed to most of our cheap little digitals from Best Buy, but unfortunately Kyle's camera makes an annoying "beep-click" noise every time he closes the shutter. After photo 230, this got pretty annoying and we almost had to throw Kyle's camera out the window!
We finally arrived at the hotel and checked into our rooms. We had about two hours to shower, take a little nap and get settled before embarking on our day-long walking tour of Hong Kong. 11:30am was our departure time, and surprisingly nobody was late and thus we were on our way. First stop was the MTR (metro) station as we would buy the tourist 1-day pass which would enable us unlimited travel on the MTR system.
Hong Kong subways are extremely clean and void of any type of graffiti, trash or unsavory characters. Subway stations here do not have restrooms which is an interesting fun fact of the day. After about 15 minutes and a couple of transfers we realized a few things. First, we realized that the subway cars are not made for tall Americans. With a ceiling height of about 6'5", several in our group banged their heads constantly. We also learned that when the beeping begins, you better start pushing your way either in or out of the train so you get where you need to be. Otherwise, the doors will close on you!
Upon our arrival in Central Hong Kong, our plan was simple... we wanted to find a bank to change our money and we wanted to find some lunch. The bank task was accomplished within the first 5 minutes as there were banks everywhere. While at the bank, a few of the nice locals who worked there suggested a restaurant where we could have the famous bbq'd goose. They gave us directions and a map that was written in Chinese and we were on our way. After an hour, we were still on our way, completely lost and we decided that eating those geese, would have to happen another day. We found a little pizza parlor and enjoyed our first real meal in 2 days.
After lunch we continued walking and made our way toward the infamous Snake Shop. Hidden down an alley, you see two cages in the front area with two small snakes... we knew we had arrived. We were the only customers in the 12x20 foot shop that afternoon and the 5 Chinese employees spoke 1 word of English, "200" which was the price of their "service". The store was filled with 50+ wood drawers. Within these drawers were snakes, the snake "man" would simply open up a drawer and pull out a few snakes for us to take a look at and ultimately select for their "service". We had two brave people in our group that decided to fork over the 200 HK Dollars and they selected their snakes. What happened next is not for the faint of heart. The snake man pulled out his knife and withdrew the gallbladder for the snake and emptied it into a small little bowl. Added to the bowl was some Chinese wine, the concoction was mixed together and then our two brave souls drank it. Not for the squeamish, that is for sure, but the Chinese profess the healing powers of the snake innards, and if you would have seen the people working in the snake shop, average age of 80, you would think that maybe they were right. Some great photos and stories for sure from those 20 minutes with the snake people.
We continued our walk, metro and taxi ride and ended up at the Peak Tram. This is a funicular which takes you up to the top of Victoria Peak, travelling up the mountain at a nearly 45 degree angle. After the 15 minute ride to the top, we were literally on top of the world... or at least the top of Hong Kong. Although it was an overcast day, the views were amazing and postcard worthy. We walked around the peak for 30 minutes and then hopped back on the funicular for the ride back down the mountain. We then hopped in 3 taxis and made our way back to the subway station for the return trip to our hotel.
Our evening on the town began with a bus ride to the harbor front area of Kowloon, where we watched the world famous Symphony of Lights. This is a light show which incorporates 50 or so skyscrapers on both sides of the harbor. It was an interesting show, more geared for people who are amused by lights going on and off and synthesized music... not really our groups cup of tea, but a good thing to check off of our list.
We then hopped back on the MTR (subway) and exited at the Temple Street Market. This is another huge walking street with shopping, food, and people everywhere. We found a nice outdoor restaurant and we all enjoyed some good Chinese food. After filling our tummies, we walked through all of the stalls of products, searching for the most authentic of knockoff items. The Vans were pretty rough replicas, the Ed Hardy gear was much better and those gold Rolex's could have fooled the most posh of customers.
We were worn out and ready to get some sleep, so we hopped on our taxis and returned to the hotel for some much needed sleep. Day 1 in Hong Kong was now complete.
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