Saturday

I arrived in Hong Kong after a 16 hour flight from Chicago. Andre did not travel with me, he had already been there for 2 weeks, so I just met him there. As a result, I was petrified he would not be at the airport to pick me up and I would be stranded in a place I had never been with no knowledge whatsoever of the Chinese language. I called him from the plane just to verify he would be waiting for me just outside customs, and he did NOT answer my phone call. I must have tried him 10 times as I sat there and my heart began to beat double-time as I worried even more about this situation. Finally, I called my Mom and began sobbing, convinced that I was going to end-up stranded. She reassured me that he would be there & that she would call him for me later when I was on my flight to be sure. I later found out that she called him & read him the riot-act for not answering my call and causing me to freak-out. Ha! :) Anyway, he WAS there to pick me up and all was well...even though I had a rocky start.
We took the subway from the airport to our hotel in Kowloon, which is very nice. I got settled in and then we went to dinner. After the crap airplane food, I told Andre I wasn't quite ready to start eating lots of crazy Chinese food. One of my biggest fears about moving to China was the food...I am a slightly picky eater by some peoples standards. He reassured me that we would have plenty of time for authentic Chinese and that while we were in Hong Kong we should eat Western food. We went to TGI Friday's. Doesn't get much more American than that, huh? I was struck by the fact that most of the people in Hong Kong spoke English. We didn't really have much trouble communicating at all.
After dinner, we walked back to the hotel. I was a little taken aback by all the people mobbing us on the street, wanting us to come in and check out there knock-off suits, watches, handbags & sunglasses. Many were SO pushy that I felt uncomfortable. They were especially pushy with us because we are American, and they think we have loads of money! :)
We went back to the hotel after dinner and went to bed. I was exhausted from my long 2 days of travel!