Hong Kong, Fuck Yeah!

We're here to have a motherfuckin' good time!

That was pretty much the theme for last weekend's trip to Hong Kong, as my friends and I were constantly singing the Team America song. Great movie, and a great little vacation.

Where do I start with my whirlwind city tour? The first thing you'd notice when you leave the airport and pull into the city is that it's big. I mean, really, really big. I've never seen so many skyscrapers in one city. My guides were saying that since the city is so small but growing so rapidly, new building laws hold that construction must maximize land use. So now, the minimum height for new buildings is something like twenty stories and they have to be built in groups. When you drive around, you see clusters of identical towers crowding around the bay and climbing up cliffs. It's amazing to see a twenty-plus story skycraper on the water, and behind it, another one on the mountain above. They also use bamboo scaffolding on everything, which seems so outdated with modern building techniques.

I went with my friends from capoeria. My instructor, Simon (Espeto), is on a tourist visa, so he has to leave the country every 3 months. My other instructor, Casulo, just wanted to take a vacation. We stayed with Daniel (Chumbinho) who runs capoeira classes in the city. Simon is a stuntman and runs the gym here in Osaka, called Powerarts. While in Hong Kong, he put together a Powerarts stunt workshop which I helped/participated in.

The students in Hong Kong were all very friendly and fun. They took us out every night and hung out with us during the day. I was suprised how many of them spoke English, even though it was a former British colony. A few of them have visited Japan and hopefully more will come out here soon.

Most of the trip was spent gorging myself on the local cuisine. Eating tons of Chinese food was half the reason I went there in the first place. It was indeed good. I ate duck every chance I got, dug into a wide variety of dim sum, and tried as many different kinds of noodles as I could. I think I ended up in a restaurant at least 4 times a day. And it was no problem since I was doing fitness classes and walking the rest of the time.

An interesting note, while we were there, the World Trade Organization was meeting. This group is not very popular, it seems. As such, the city was in riot-ready mode. Emergency vehicles were equipped with window screens and transportation and nightlife were occasionally restricted. We weren't in the vicinity of the protests, but I tried to get someone to take me to that side of town.

So Hong Kong was great and I hope I can make it back soon. There's already talk of opening another Powerarts gym there in a few years. It seems that for a city of about 6 million people, which produces some of the best action films in the world, there's only one place to go for gymnastics. Since my buddies here specialize in gymnastics and stunts, it seems like a natural direction. I'm hoping to go along for the ride.