Ohmygod, I completely fell in love with this place. From the moment I bought myself dim sum between flights at the airport I was hooked. Sadly, I only had two days to spend in this glorious town, and after weeks of travelling, I was exhausted. I resolved that after scrimping and saving for the previous weeks, I would splurge, so I found myself a superfancy hotel for $120 a night (The Hong Kong Hotel, highly recommended if you're looking for absurd elegance without blowing your _entire_ savings account in the process,) and ended up generally treating myself for the brief stay. After the intense heat in Bangkok, HK's temperate atmosphere was a godsend, and after the pollution in Thailand and Korea, I was amazed and deeply appreciative of the clean air.

My mission in Hong Kong was threefold:

#1 Obtain _real_ dim sum.

#2 Shop for electronics, lots of electronics.

#3 Find a contemporary art museum.

I accomplished two of these three, with a pathetic comedy of errors keeping me from the museums. As it turned out, my hotel was only a short walk from the museums, and from a truly amazingly gorgeous park. When I got to the art museum, there was a banner advertising a really fascinating-sounding show about the history of Chinese invention, but it was at the history museum, in the park. So, I walked over to the park, found the history museum, which was shut down permanently, and relocated to an entirely differnet part of the island. From that point, I entered into a fruitless attempt to get to the new location, and after failing, my energy was drained, and the art museum was closed. Serves me right for trusting my guidebooks.

BUT, that's ok, because I was loving the city enough that I knew no matter what, I need to come back, and soon. I found amazing foods, dim sum and otherwise, I found all sorts of extremely cool toys , I drooled over hideously expensive electronics and cameras (my willpower prevailed,) and I was utterly amazed by their subway system (though, let me just say that I hate the bus system, at least the part of that system that tells busdrivers to drive right past foreigners if they're standing six inches away from the bus stop pole rather than physically touching it.) I really really wish I had had more time to explore the city, and I need to go back as soon as I can, either this summer or next.