Manila and Hong Kong

The plan for my 3 days in Manila had to be adjusted because of the weather. A typhoon had passed by a few days before I arrived and was still affecting the weather in the region and officially started the rainy season. I'd hoped to meet up with Nikki, get out of town and go camping for a few days before leaving the Philippines. I met up with Nikki without any difficulty but the weather was still so bad that we ended up cancelling the outdoor activities and basically spent the entire weekend lounging around watching movies. We had our traditional Wendy's frosty and went out for a few meals but it was actually quite nice to relax and be lazy. I had stayed with Nikki exactly 1 year before when I was leaving last time and had forgotten the book I was reading at the time so I was reunited with it but ironically ended up leaving something else instead. The only place in all my travels I've left something behind accidentally and now I've done it twice in the same place...
I had an evening flight out of Manila to Hong Kong where I had an overnight stop over. I was not really thinking when I'd booked the flights because I should've arranged it to stay in Hong Kong for a couple days I think. I was able to meet up with Kerry though. The Kerry from the African convoy 3 years ago. Crazy to think it's been that long. He's still super cool and had given me directions to his place from the airport but he lives on the other side of Hong Kong so it was midnight when I finally got to his place. How do you catch up and hang out when you have an 11am flight the next day? You skip the sleeping part of the night.
Fortunately Hong Kong is up pretty late so we went to a restaurant across the street and ate until almost 3am before returning to his apartment to chat the rest of the night away.


He came with me to the airport and saw me off as well so we could maximize the visitation time. In his apartment I couldn't help but think of Singapore. I suppose it's natural to compare the 2 cities as they have so many similarities but driving across Hong Kong on the airport bus sort of killed that because geographically they look so different. I hadn't realized how hilly Hong Kong was before. I still think Hong Kong has the best cityscape in the world when looking at it from across the water from Kowloon. I was only able to catch a glimpse from the bus but was happy to get that much this time. Apparently I was lucky to see it because despite the strong haze of the day, I'm told that the air was actually quite clear. Being so close to China has its disadvantages.
Put Hong Kong on the list of places to visit again...
Ammon