Hong Kong & Vietnam Day 1

I have never traveled out of the country before and neither had my friend Son. Son wanted to visit Vietnam. We had talked a little about it, but Brandon finally got the ball rolling and set a date. So in Aug 2011 we headed out to Hong Kong first and later traveled to Vietnam. This is our trip.

Here we are at San Francisco Airport. About to start our adventure.


My very first in flight meal. Weird to say, but one of the things on my bucket list was to have an in flight meal and travel internationally. So that's two down.

Did you know that the Alcoholic beverages are free with United if you fly in Asia? I didn't, but I do now.


This was the first sign of land we saw. It was nice to see Taipei during our 12 1/2 hr flight to Hong Kong.

Some islands I saw as we were descending. It really didn't hit me until about this time. I started getting super excited about this long vacation. I have never been away from home for more than about a week.


Touchdown at Hong Kong airport. We landed around 6:00pm. This trip is going to be epic.

I haven't seen my friend Eden in a few years. I met him when he lived in the states and he moved to China about 6 years ago. He was at the airport to great us. It was nice to know someone local to show us around.

Here we are riding the Airport Express Train. The station is located at the Airport. I must say that is pretty cool and convenient and it's not like BART or Cal Tran. Really comfy chairs.

A video of us on the Express Train



When we got to our stop we ran into a driver. He offered to take us where we needed to go. Instead of a taxi we rolled with style in this stretched Mercedes Benz. LOL


After we checked into our hotel we headed out for some food. It was a long flight and I didn't want to waste anytime sleeping. Eden booked the rooms for us. He put us right in the heart of the tourist area. We stayed in Tsim Sha Tsui aka: TST. There were a lot of bars, restaurants and shops all within walking distance.




A picture of Hong Kong money. The exchange rate was about 1/8. So just divide by 8 and that's how much it is in U.S dollars.

After dinner he headed out for some drinks. It about 9pm at this time, but all the neon lights light up the night.


We ended up at a Yaki Tori restaurant. They gave us a private room and we started with some drinking games. The cup is filled with beer and then you put a shot glass in it. It should float. The object of the game is you pour sake into it. You have to at least put one drop of sake into the shot glass. The person that makes the glass sink into the beer has to chug the whole thing. It's a fun game.

Here's a picture of the cup we started with. I put a bottle of beer next to it so you can see the size of that bad boy.

Eden's friend Jensen.


Grilled Eggplant with some spices and green onion.

I haven't seen my friend from High School for years. He moved back to Hong Kong literally right after he walked the stage at our High School graduation. So here he is trying to keep a steady hand.


When I first saw the menu I saw the prices and saw the dollar symbol. I thought it was in U.S dollars and was like crap things here are expensive, but in HK they use the same dollar symbol so prices were in HK. What a relief. Once again divide the price by 8.

Nelson and Son. We hadn't seen Nelson in 11yrs. This was long past due.

So we ended up calling it a night around midnight. We wanted to get some sleep so we could adjust to the time here in HK. HK is 15hrs a head of California. So it's quite a difference, but it only took about a day to adjust to it. This was barely our first night. It was a great start to a great trip.