back in HK

I had this great post planned about snot rockets, but that'll have to wait til next time. So I mentioned I believe that I had been coming down with a cold starting around the giant waterfall at Huangguoshu, and that didn't really improve a whole lot and in fact seemed to be getting worse over about a week in Kunming. The first half of the week I'd been going out and doing things, but I'd been getting increasingly tired and not feeling well and the doctor there wasn't really giving me a whole lot of encouraging news, or at least I couldn't understand all that much since she spoke no English and my medical vocabulary in Chinese is kinda limited, so I ended up catching a flight back to Hong Kong to seek out further medical advice. I arrived last night and saw a doctor who told me that I have a bad upper respiratory infection which is viral and was exacerbated by the high altitude and dry climate of Kunming, and now that I'm back at sea level in a warmer more humid climate I should start to feel better in 2-4 days. I had been drinking tons of water in Kunming but always felt dry no matter what. It was great to get off the plane in HK and get hit in the face with some actual humidity. Also, because of the cold and the high altitude together, it had been kind of hard to breath over there which of course had concerned me. It's definitely a whole lot easier here and I already feel better though I still have cold symptoms. I think my deep chesty cough has improved and my nose is running slightly less. This morning I walked out for lunch totally overdressed. It's in the mid-70s here and though the sun isn't out, with the humidity it is very comfortable. Anyway, bottom line is I'm ok and in a few days should be feeling better. The last few days I couldn't really go out and do anything in Kunming without feeling totally exhausted, so I really needed to get better before I do anything else and HK is well known for being the best source of medical help in the region. It's actually interesting being back here now after my 5 weeks or so in the mainland. When I had first arrived in Hong Kong from the US, it seemed so foreign and Chinese to me, but now I see westerners wherever I go and it seems like it could be pretty much another US city compared to all of the places I'd been. When I was on the plane from Kunming to HK (2 hours btw) a Chinese guy struck up a conversation with me. He turned out to be from Toronto and his son works in NYC. He said it looked like I was the only caucasian on the plane. He was right, though I hadn't actually noticed. I told him after 5 or so weeks in China I was used to being the only one.

So I'm staying in a nice hotel in HK for two nights which called a doctor for me, and tomorrow I'll probably switch to the hostel I stayed in when I was here the first time. Although HK was cheap compared to the US, now the prices seem exorbitant after spending all that time in China. I had been increasingly spoiled each place we went. Sofia and I had been spending maybe 10-20RMB on our meals for two people. I just had to spend 20HKD on a bottle of orange juice, though I'm happy I can at least get orange juice again. In the mainland all I could find was Orange Drink. Everything there seemed to be artifically sweetened. I did find a few bottles of real juice in Guangzhou I think, but by and large it was hard to come by real juice. A few of the vegetarian restaurants had stuff that they made out of fresh fruit, but in those middle 3-4 weeks that was hard to come by. I uploaded a lot of pictures finally, though I have to go through and caption them at some point so you know what you're looking at. Feel free to click the pictures link on the right if you can't wait, otherwise hopefully in the next day or so I will get around to labeling them and post a proper link in my next update. I will probably be in HK for a while now and then head to Taiwan soon to meet up with Joy in Taipei. The current goal is to get better. It should be easier to do here, the weather is really nice and I already had Indian food once last night which was absolutely amazing. I'll probably be doing that quite a bit before I leave here for my next destination.