Hong Kong

Flying into to a new Country at night is never very comforting, so as we landed at 9 pm in Hong Kong, we decided to book a room in advance. We chose the Maple Leaf Guesthouse, mostly because of the name (it turns out, that other than stealing the maple leaf meats logo, it had nothing to do with Canada). The directions to our new home were long and confusing but we succeeded in the first step: finding the right bus at the airport. The Maple Leaf was located in a converted office building that now housed hundreds of hostels and guesthouses, so our search really began once we reached the right address.

Getting off the bus in a new country, especially in an area known for cheap accommodation, is always fairly stressful. People are always hassling you to get you to choose their hotel or to get in their cab. We are more or less used to this routine now, but nothing prepared us for the Tsim Sha Tsui region of Hong Kong. People were literally coming into the bus so they could be the first to yell at us: "you need accommodation!?!" We did our best to ignore everyone and march off in any direction, just to get away. As business cards were repeatedly shoved towards us, I plowed through the crowd with Miranda close behind. Just as I started to see some space open up through the crowd a very persistent man blocked my way and shoved a full page within inches of my face. In frustration and anger, I pushed away the mans hands and shuffled by him only to realize half a second later that the paper had my name on it. My name! Mike Donald! This guy was our host at the Maple Leaf and he was waiting outside for us... that has never happened! He had our flight number, but he didn't even really know if we would take the bus, subway or a cab! After a lot of apologizing, we learned his name was John and he showed us the way through the maze to our room. It was definitely the smallest and most efficient room we have had, complete with 2 custom made beds that fit exactly into the nooks and crannies. We had about 4 square feet of floor space and a tiny bathroom with the shower over the toilet. Real estate is valuable in Hong Kong!