Greetings my fellow Americans and Happy 4th of July! :-) I am currently in Hong Kong after finishing up another Hanoi > HK trip. I have one more on this route before I go to Beijing at the end of the month!
My pax and I arrived in Hong Kong just in time for the 10th Anniversary Celebration of Hong Kong's return to China. What an amazing fireworks spectacular! Supposedly $4 MILLION USD worth of fireworks, and it went on for a half an hour! We couldn't see much from where we were cuz there were millions of people there, but the sound alone was awesome -- like heavy artillery! If it didn't make it onto your news check it out on youtube: http://youtube.com/watch?v=bB0ddxcIvvE . It was fun for me because I was pretending to celebrate 4th of July with all the fireworks :-)
Saying goodbye to these pax was an Independence Day for me; they were a bit of an annoying group, but generally harmless. A few of them just complained about everything! I became much more familiar with what the Aussies call "wingeing Poms" -- Poms are Brits and 'wingeing' (with a J sound) is bitching and complaining. I had 8 Brits on this trip, 4 of whom were wingers, one of whom would do so loudly and swearing. Grrr. I wasnt too "fussed" to see him go.
On the polar opposite side, I had my first two Americans on this trip and they were fantastic! A mother-son duo travelling together and they were an absolute delight ~ they give American travellers a good name. The son was an interesting kid who would say funny things, like when we were playing cards and he laid down a good hand he would call out "Shazam!" I kid you not!! LOL. He also spoke a bit of Chinese and he had a very Chinese way of responding to everything with an "Agh" sound, a very nasaly, back of your throat kind of "ung" sound. It was really funny, everyone on the trip started picking it up. Funny thing, I've actually met several people this week who have asked me where I'm from... I seem to have assimilated so many accents and slang from my pax that I have a multinational accent! :-)
Despite my wingeing pax we had plenty of good times on this trip. My favorite moment hands down was when one of the young British guys, Simon, tried to convince us that he could put his finger on the tennis racket shaped bug zapper because the electrical wires are inside the frame.... yeah, he got so zapped! He told me it hurt worse than when he used to touch electric fences..... really??? LOL!!
So I've got one more Hanoi > HK trip before I head up to Beijing. This next one I've only got 3 pax; should be interesting considering they're all 50-ish yr old men... I'll let you know how that works out.
Happy 4th of July! Have a corn on the cob for me ;-)
PS. This is why I never give my pax my blog address, only access to photos, so that I can tell you all the real stories here!
Currently Reading: Empress Orchid
Current Injury: NONE!! knock on wood...
