Hong Kong,
China
Saturday, December 20, 2008
My trip home began upon arrival back in Bali after a very bumpy Gili Cat ride. Luckily my last night in Asia would not be spent going to bed early with the parents...I was saved by the Irish! After completing the rest of my shopping and packing I was whisked away by my Gili T Irishmen. We had a great dinner and then spent the rest of the night bar hopping around Kuta. We stopped off at some small bar and heard Indonesian interpretations of famous classic rock songs. The Irish loved it when one singer murdered Bryan Adams Summer of 69...but Canada had their revenge, when sure enough the next song up was by the Cranberries. An Indonesian doing a very Irish song is quite the musical experience. From there we headed to the king of southeast Asia nightlife...the club strip in Kuta. This is where the 2002 bombings killed over 200 partygoers. A few weeks earlier the bomber behind it all was executed by Indonesian officials. Threats of retaliation were whispered, but all was safe and sound on this night. Nothing like a bit of danger to finish off your South East Asian trip! From this point on well into the next morning we hit all the main spots and had a great time exchanging favourite dance moves and dodging prostitutes. As the sun rose on my last morning, I bid farewell to Team Ireland and headed back to the hotel. I was soon in a Taxi to the airport and suddenly found myself in the air.
My trip home was quite uneventful as one would guess it would be spending almost 36 hours in airports and planes. I flew Bali to Singapore (Singapore Airlines which I highly recommend), cruised the airport for 5 hours, flew Singapore to Hong Kong, spent 14 hours in HK (which included a sleep tied to my backpack, only to be woken up by someone rubbing my leg...yikes, the longest breakfast ever, some shopping, a flight delay, and the biggest bowl of Hagen Daz I could find), flew HK to Vancouver (no sleep...too many good movies on), a freezing wait in the domestic lounge at YVR (I suddenly realized what I thought were warm clothes in Asia, were not in Vancouver. I mind as well been wearing my bikini), flew YVR to Nanaimo, and concluded my trip with a great re-union with my best friends. Asian Persuasion 2008 was complete!
