Importing One Brother To Hong Kong

After just under one month of classes, our first 9-day holiday has already begun! United was having a really good seat sale, so my brother was able to get a cheap flight to Hong Kong to spend the break with us! This is our fourth year abroad, and only the first time someone has been able to come visit us, so we were really excited. There are just so many toilet restaurants and strangey beaches to share!

It wasn't that easy for Jason to get his tourist visa, though. On the application form, he wrote that he was coming to visit me so he had to provide my resident permit number... except I didn't have one yet. As a longshot, he applied anyway, but it got denied. The MINUTE I got my passport back, I scanned him the information he needed, and 3 short days before his plane left he got his passport back with a tourist visa for China inside. Yay!

So, Friday after work, we took the ferry to Hong Kong to meet him. I could see online that his flight was over 2 hours late (my class had been tracking his progress all day Friday- they cheered when he hit China) so we had time to check into the apartment we'd rented for the trip (it was SO HARD to find) before heading to the airport to eat Popeye's and meet Jason.  

We had a sign all ready for him.

We had lots of extra time to figure out which bus to take and where to catch it, so it was a pretty smooth trip back into the city. We got on a double decker, and this time we all had octopus cards and didn't wind up in a taxi to Disney Land.

 

He was surprisingly awake for having traveled 27 hours straight. 

In Hong Kong, cars pass you on the right, and it looks like no one's driving them since the driver is also on the right.

We got off the bus one stop too early and wound up dragging Jason's suitcases around for a while trying to find our apartment again. This was his room: a choice of 2 bunkbeds.

We went to a nearby Wellcome grocery store to get something for breakfast the next morning (which began a daily obsession with "Chiffon cake" breakfasts). Please note the name of the product left of the Klim: HORLICKS. Think about it.

It was time to get some sleep. Some people chose to hit the hay on a fire extinguisher; we just went back to our apartment.