the end of HK and bali of love

so, after the last post, we went back into the city so tim could try out the subway system. the HK subway appears a lot like the san francisco muni--all bright and colorful and vaguely reminiscent of the 1970's with its color scheme. it is also very fast, very quiet and very clean. i think i like the subway. now that i think about it, everything in hong kong is very clean. everywhere we went, it seemed like someone was out sweeping something. and, i think i could probably ride the subway there in sandals and not come home with pitch black feet like in new york. always a good thing.

anyway, we went into central and found a noodle shop where we sat next to a very nice lady who informed us that her prawn noodles were delicious (v. true), and then gave us the lowdown on all the noodle shops in the area. ours was the best apparently (thanks, time out!), with a bowl only costing $2, as opposed to the place across the street which charged THREE! tim liked the man next to him better, though, since he was openly drinking from a hip flask. we then went down by the ferry port and wandered around, and then took the ferry across the harbor to kowloon. the ride was surprisingly rocky, but since it was so short, no one seemed to mind. when we got to kowloon, we looked for a satellite phone, with no luck. most of the people we asked about it looked at us like we were growing second heads before their very eyes, and then said, 'uh, no. we don't have satellite phones' as if we were asking for 300 grams of coke or something.

after that, we went to the peninsula and looked around. we contemplated having tea there, but after seeing the lobby and knowing a) what we looked like and b) how much money we had on us, it wasn't going to happen. instead, we fled and took a picture from outside. we went back on the ferry to wan chai, and then took another nap. napping was central to the first few days of this trip, if you didn't notice already.

we got up for dinner and tried to go back to the ferry area for dim sum, at another time out-endorsed eatery, but when we got there, it was full of people and the hostess yelled at us in a chinatown bus voice, 'NO DINNER!' so instead, we ran away to times square and had sweet and sour pork in a very americanized restaurant.

yesterday, the city had hoisted the level 3 cyclone warning for tropical storm damrey, which sounds much scarier than it was. the good news was that damrey broke the ungodly heat and humidity, and even started a nice breeze. we didn't have much time in the morning, so we went to a local hotel for lunch, which was half-fried, half-boiled noodles in a gelatinous sauce ( i can already see collette cringing at the mere mention of gelatin), which we ate while being closely inspected by the staff, who all stood about five feet from the table and openly stared at us.

then, we got the bus to the airport, and got a nice surprise when we got there! i am officially starting a list for the beautiful men of cathay pacific. #1 was thomas, the TV-fixer. #2 is sam tse, the check-in agent who GAVE US AN UPGRADE TO BUSINESS CLASS when we told him we were on honemoon! sweet classy molassy! o, sam tse, if i hadn't already married tim, i would marry you! so, we bought some postcards, and then got in our plane and had a very relaxing, enjoyable and delicious flight to bali (which also saved us money on dinner! hooray!) we had an adorable flight attendant named sally who kept calling tim mr. haley, which was just hilarious, as well. don't you all think he should change his name?

oh, one interesting thing happened at the airport. while we were getting ready to go into security, this african man with lots of bags stopped tim and told him he couldn't go through security with all his bags, and would tim take one through for him? uh, yeah, dude. i told tim he should have said, 'only if it's full of METH!' but he didn't. too bad.

so we got to bali, and everyone here is beautiful and lovely and it smells pretty and the flowers are gorgeous and our room is stunning and it's really hot. it's not too sunny, and the beach isn't great, but i don't even care because i am planning on lying like roadkill on a chair for the next two days until we go to ubud. i already finished the book i made tim buy me at the airport (on beauty, by zadie smith, whom i hate on principle because she is a year older than i am and has already published three wildly successful books, which makes me hate her even more because the books were actually pretty good and i just can't stop myself from buying them, which makes me hate her even more, and which ultimately just makes me hate myself, which is just no good to me), and i have already read the two tim is working on now, so it's just me and the ipod for the next two days. and if tim can teach me any card games apart from go fish, we can play cards, i GUESS.