california dreaming

Once again, we have fallen woefully behind in our updates.  Being a sucker for posterity, I feel compelled to put something in the record about our trip to California from Hong Kong last month.  But, for the sake of picking up the pace, I will let the pictures do most of the talking on this one.  Here’s a quick recap.

After five fascinating months in Asia and 70,000+ kilometers traveled… over land, air and sea… via train, car, bus, motorcycle, motorcycle sidecar, scooter, bike, plane, boat, canoe, camel and elephant… Aman and I boarded a late night flight to Los Angeles in early May.  With the reality of being stateside imminently before us, various feelings were astir.  Not least of all, apprehension.  As you might imagine, despite all those kilometers traveled, neither of us was looking forward to a 13 plus hour flight.  You can furthermore imagine our faces when we were told that it was a full flight, and that we would be seated in two center seats.  No window, no aisle, not for either of us…  We looked at each other in horror.  How could we have let this happen???  We couldn’t believe it.  Amazingly, however, the flight was really comfortable and we slept for most of our trip across the Pacific Ocean.  Go figure, we couldn’t believe that one either.

Just as it had taken off 13 hours earlier, our flight landed late on a Tuesday night.  As we waited patiently in line to clear through immigration, a montage of patriotic images flickered on TV screens mounted above the immigration officers’ desk counters.  It felt really good to be coming back to the U.S. for a short while, a nice transition between our recent adventures in Asia and our upcoming summer in Europe. 

We were stopping in California for two weeks, primarily to obtain some additional travel visas.  Aman needed his Schengen tourist visa in order to visit Europe over the summer, and I had to get a tourist visa to visit Brazil, where we plan to be later this year.  In our downtime, we hoped to discover what the Golden State had to offer.

So, after a few initial days in Santa Monica (a neighborhood favorite of mine) preparing our visa applications, running from embassy to embassy, and dealing with the culture shock of being in the U.S. for the first time in five months, we hit the road for a weekend drive up the coast through the sparsely populated region of Big Sur.  This is something that I had wanted to do for years, and I knew it would be an idyllic experience, but WOW.  It was probably the highlight of our time in California.  An absolutely spectacular ride along the rugged coast of the Pacific Ocean, and all we kept saying to each other was WOW.

We got to Monterey (where we were staying for the weekend) in the early evening and then it hit us: jetlag.  Doh!!  It hit us hard too.  As a result, we took it easy the next couple of days, which included a scenic ride along 17-Mile Drive through Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach on the Monterey peninsula.  A “must do” for anyone visiting the Monterey area, which (incidentally) we would have missed had one of Aman’s friends not told us about it when he heard that we were there. (Thanks Ben!)

The drive back to southern California was as breathtaking and relaxing as the ride north.  Just before we hit San Simeon, we stopped for awhile to check out thousands of elephant seals in their rookery, or natural land based habitat.  It was pretty good timing, since they only stop in this area twice a year (they are at sea for 10 months or more a year).  We caught them (the juveniles and females) during the annual molting season (when they shed, and then grow new hair and skin), so they were all different shades of gray, silver and beige.

Back in Santa Monica, we were in striking distance of some great beaches, which we sampled aplenty.  We loved the chill vibe and how much activity – surfing, volleyball, skateboarding – was going on, everywhere we went.

Santa Monica Beach:

Malibu:

Laguna Beach:

Venice Beach:

Hermosa Beach:

After we had exhausted the local beaches, we made a long haul one day and visited Joshua Tree National Park, which sits in the Mojave Desert, three hours east of the Los Angeles area.  Not sure what we were expecting to find out there, but it was so interesting and definitely worth the trip.  A friend of ours likened the experience to walking through a place created by Dr. Seuss and, after seeing it, we would agree with you Les.  Crazy-looking vegetation and huge piles of massive red boulders scattered about in an otherwise barren land.  It was wildly surreal.

We spent our last days attending to all of the little things that would become infinitely more difficult to accomplish once we were back on the road (e.g., dry cleaning, laundry, getting haircuts).  We packed and shipped a 30-pound box of excess stuff that we had acquired back to a friend in New York.  We had brunch and spent the day with a good friend who happened to be in California on business.  Most importantly, we picked up our passports containing the travel visas that we needed to continue on this journey.

And, like that, two more weeks flew by.

hong kong

With the Chinese mainland behind us, Aman and I made a quick stopover in Hong Kong.  I had never been to HK before this journey, but Aman had visited last year.  He had come home after that trip favorably impressed that Hong Kong was a dynamic, diverse and all round happening place.  Thus, we added it to the itinerary for our adventure so that I could check it out and Aman could get to know the area a little better. 

Stopping in HK was also a brilliant excuse to see two dear friends, Kismet and Vineet.  By the time we got there, it had been 79 days on the road since Aman and I had left India and stayed in the company of family and friends.  Although we had met some fabulous people since then and made lots of new friends along the way, there was something special about seeing two familiar faces.  We hadn’t seen Kismet and Vineet since they visited us last summer in New York.  And, like it always is to spend time with old friends, our visit with them went by too fast! 

Aman and I arrived in Hong Kong on a Thursday evening.  Technically, this was our second pass through HK, because we had stopped for two nights on our way to the China mainland.  Kismet and Vineet were out of town then, but kind enough to leave behind a set of keys so we could stay at their place.  We used the same keys to let ourselves back in to their apartment when we arrived that Thursday night where we found Kismet, Vineet being still at work.  The conversation that ensued with Kismet upon our arrival was the non-stop type that you have with a good friend whom you haven’t seen in way too long.  There was so much to catch up on and we jabbered on for hours about everything that had been happening on our respective ends.  Eventually, Vineet freed up at work so we all met for a relaxing dinner at a nearby waterfront restaurant on Stanley Main Street.

Stanley, the town in which Kismet and Vineet live, is located in the southeastern part of Hong Kong Island, east of Repulse Bay.  Aman and I really liked this area, and it was not hard for us to see why Kismet and Vineet live there rather than the “Midlevels” neighborhood, where many ex-pats initially choose to live when they move to HK.  Stanley is a little further out from the business and commercial district of Central.  It has a nice beach, a developed waterfront street chock full of restaurants and bars, and the famous Stanley Market, which is a delightfully chaotic array of small shops, street stalls, and fascinating people.

After a night of proper catching up with Kismet and Vineet, Aman and I spent a quiet day in.  There was much to do – laundry, bills, planning the next leg of our trip, organizing our photos from China, touching base with various family members now that we could communicate by phone with the outside world again, etc. – and it took pretty much the whole day to accomplish everything on our “to-do” lists.  In the evening, we met Kismet and Vineet for dinner and drinks at Cicada, a trendy fusion-Asian tapas restaurant located in the Soho neighborhood.  It was raining out, and the night-crawlers moved about under the safety of their umbrellas.

The weather did not improve much the next day, but that did not stop Aman and I from getting out to explore HK’s Central a bit more.  Walking around, I was amazed (but not surprised) at the towering views of the surrounding skyscrapers everywhere – Aman had told me before we arrived that, in visiting HK, I would see one of the most vertical cities in the world and I did.  

Later that night, we met Kismet, Vineet and another lovely couple of friends (Maansi and Rohit) for dinner at a Sichuan restaurant that Aman had tried the year before when he visited HK and came home raving about.  He insisted that I try this restaurant too, because it not only had delicious, fiery Sichuan cuisine but also, one of its owners, a former Chinese opera singer, is known for her soprano voice and singing a Chinese aria for everyone at the end of the night.  The food was well balanced (no menu, everyone gets served a standard sequence of dishes that alternate between spicy and non-spicy), and the aria was beautiful.  It was a very unique experience.  Then, after dinner, we all walked over to Lan Kwai Fong, or LKF, a hip and vibrant area in Central known for its electrifying nightlife.  There, the fun continued.  Great area to experience HK nightlife.  I was impressed by how packed the bars were – with people spilling into the streets everywhere.

The next day, we drove into Central for brunch.  It was Sunday, which meant that all of the housemaids had the day off…  Aman had prepared me for this little phenomenon – generally speaking, most families in HK have maids to help with the housework.  Most of the maids are foreigners (principally from Indonesia or the Philippines), and they typically live with the family for whom they work.  Naturally, they spend most of the time in and around the house, except for Sundays when they all get out for their day off.  Perhaps for lack of anywhere else to go, groups of housemaids congregate on sidewalks and in other public areas - to socialize, listen to music, dance, read books, have picnics, paint each other’s fingernails, and generally let the day pass.  From a sociocultural perspective, it was quite an interesting sight.  This was just one small group out of many that we passed that afternoon.

After brunch, we drove to Kowloon to check one of the world’s most densely populated urban neighborhoods.  The place makes Manhattan look like a relative ghost town.  It was mind-boggling how many people were in the crowded streets.

It also boggled our minds how so many people could stand the acrid smell of durian (revered in southeast Asia as the “king of fruits”), which permeated the air at times.  The four of us literally held our breath and walked as fast as possible whenever we got a whiff of it coming from one of the street vendors.

We rounded out the day with a brief stop at the driving range followed by a great meal at one of Aman’s favorite pizza restaurants outside of New York, Pizza Express.

At Kismet’s helpful suggestion, Aman and I decided to go hiking the next morning.  Neither of us had any idea that Hong Kong has so many great places to go for a nature walk, but it does.  The trails are plentiful, and vary in terms of length and difficulty.  We picked a slightly difficult 5.2 km trail (the Tai Tam Country Trail) that roughly took us two and a half hours to complete.  The trail winds up and then down a steep hill, around a reservoir and then along a path that winds through some points of historical significance.  (The area was the scene of heavy fighting between the Commonwealth and Japanese forces in 1941.)  It was a damp and humid day, and given our altitude, we walked at times in a shroud of clouds and fog.  Not the greatest day for a view of HK Island, but still, a quiet hike in the woods was a nice break after walking the crowded city streets for so many days.

The following day, it was time to pack and move on.  After five amazing months, was this really our last day in Asia?  Wow!  The time had gone so fast and, at the same time, it felt like we had been away from home for such a long time.

We spent the morning packing our bags, and then took a short walk down to nearby Stanley Beach.  Despite the overcast sky, it was a hot and sticky day (common in HK). It was also a national holiday so lots of people had the day off, and the beach was full of activity.

Aman and I sat on a low concrete wall separating the sandy beach from the picnic area, taking it all in.  What struck us about the scenes that flashed around us - parents playing with their children at the water's edge, a group of friends having a cookout, a church group on an outing - did not seem all that foreign, even though we were in a very foreign land.  True, we had been in several foreign lands since starting our year-long epic adventure.  The point is that we could've been anywhere in the world, it seemed.  It's amazing how similar people are sometimes, given all of our cultural differences.

So, in short, thank you Asia.  It was a wild ride that we will never forget.