First of all, I'd like to mention that this picture was supposed to immediately follow the picture below. Same night, both pictures shot with my little tiny Canon camera.

Today's story begins yesterday at about 7:00 p.m. with some massive frustration aboard this little ship. Busier than busy can get, doing my job and 10 others (when the photographer is booking tickets for the entire ship, you've got a problem) and having slept about 10 hours over the past three days, I was not so enamored when the IT guy (unfortunately for him) walked in after a crowd with 50 demands involving the internet had just walked out.


Me: "What's the problem?"
IT Guy: "Well, as ze ship,(makes tilting motion with his hand), mast block signal, so not much internet."
Me: "How much is not much?"
IT Guy: (shrugs his shoulders) "Eh, here and there."

Poor guy.

With more curse words in more languages than have ever been uttered at a computer in one moment, I slammed my laptop shut, grabbed my backpack and made my way to the tender to take me ashore in a vain attempt to get some work done. Being that I had no internet to research wifi spots, I got into a cab and asked to be taken to Hong Kong's public library, hoping that it was close, but if it wasn't, I really didn't care.

Well, the fact that it ended up being close was too good to be true, because when I got there and tried to connect, I quickly found out that the library had blocked all sites not to be used for intellectual gain. No email + no FTP server = no good.

I stared at my screen for a bit, realized that that wasn't going to help, threw my backpack on and started walking. I found two of three wifi spots I had looked up at the library by foot, but of course, one was closed and the other was having server issues.

This is when I said, to hell with it, I'm going to buy shampoo.

Walking around Hong Kong alone, particularly at night, is always an interesting experience for me, particularly this time. The American with jeans, flip-flops, backpack, hoodie and half-brushed hair sticks out just a little in the massive crowd of impeccably well-dressed, stylish, perfectly groomed Asians in Hong Kong.

I don't kid when I say that everyone looks like they stepped out of a fashion magazine. To quote my boss, "it's like everyone has their own salon in their basement." From their boots to their hair, I think these people are just born with undeniable fashion sense.

But enough of that... by the time midnight rolled around, I headed back to the pier to catch the tender, completely ignoring the fact that the tenders only come back to shore on every hour. As I pulled up to Pier 9, I watched the tender pull away.

Crap.

I did realize that I had my little consumer camera though, so I decided to kill the time by exploring all of the sky-walks (open walk-ways over the street) by the pier... which is where I found this lovely little sign. There are two things I consistently love about each place I go to in Asia: 1) the brooms and 2) the English signs. For some reason all the signs I find usual accompany a good story, so maybe that's why I like them.

Anyway, I never really thought about how one would spell the word "hawking," but I suppose that's it. It would have been a better picture if I caught someone disobeying, but life isn't always perfect. I like how the quadrants of this picture go from light to dark - the sign in the upper left, the city through the open window, bottom right.

Ok, so, 12:40 I went back to the pier, no one around. The wind was blowing and holy cow was it cold. I watched a couple stroll down to the end of the pier and embrace. My thought was somewhere in between: are you guys nuts? and that's really sweet.

I put my backpack on the bench and lay back, just thinking, thinking about how crazy it is to be in a different place and entirely on your own. About how little effort it took to make this all happen. I suppose some of the best things can only come that way.

10 to 1, some of the Vietnamese waitresses showed up. I like these girls because, despite the wide language gap, there's this cool, yet distant understanding between us. Maybe it's because, irritatingly enough, I'm the only person on the ship who will never let them take my dishes back to the kitchen, but who knows.

To conclude this epic entry, the wind continued to blow, and I progressively got visibly colder. Yes, shaking. Unexpectedly, the smallest of the girls came over to me and wrapped her tiny arms around me. I can't say that it helped much, but it was the kindest thing I had experienced since the old fisherwoman in Bantayan in the Philippines. Of the four Vietnamese girls there, she was the only one whom I didn't know.

There's a lot of shit that comes with this job, but when you have awesome moments, let me tell you, they. are. priceless.