Travel Talk

China to Hong Kong to Amsterdam

shenzhen city sky scrapers china

Happy Hump Day TO YA,

So yeah, I blogged like a mad man this morning and now that I write this, I’m going to Hong Kong tomorrow then flying to Amsterdam, Netherlands on Friday. After blogging I went for a MUCH NEEDED hair cut. I was starting to look like I blended / belonged on Khao San Road and it was so long, had I been a homo thug, I could of put it in a mini pony tail, I feel dirty writing this.

I just walked down the street and into the first one I found. There was like a 15 women just playing cards and staring at me. It’s also a massage parlor of questionable standards wink wink hint hint. I politely refused their advances of offers for a massage and got my haircut.

Dare I say, they did a good job and I don’t think they have many foreign dudes coming in. What’s weird is there was like 15 ladies and some dude in studded metallic pants with boots and an emo do did the work. Considering they spoke almost no English actually that is pretentious, I’m in CHINA. Considering *I* spoke no Chinese, I just kinda said “go for it” in some form of charades.

After that I did what all sane people do after having their mop chopped, I passed out with the A/C cranked until I woke up freezing cold and shivering. Ok I wasn’t shivering but man, it was cold. What a difference from waking up sweating ~8 hours previously!? It’s crazy what a good haircut and shave can do for a gentleman’s psyche.

shoe paradise luohu china

Why the !#@$! am I talking about a haircut with other pressing issues to discuss. I needed socks, so I went back to the shopping behemoth. I ran into a lady from Australia, a real old school aristocratic vibe she had. I said “Good evening” she said “how do you do laddie” minus the laddie part, of course. I said most of the stuff here is pure bull0cks and she said, I do agree. She then said, you need to visit the stores behind the stores, I was like WTF? I was also intrigued…

She said do you see that linen shop over there with the gent having a smoke out front, I said “yes”. She said go in and say I want to look at shoes, there is a room in the back, I said thanks and was on my way. I get there and sure enough there is a door behind a pile of boxes, you’d NEVER SEE IT. Inside it was like the holy grail of all designer goods. Even though I despise them, I love good deals. Purses, mens leather shoes, women’s shoes just stacked… Suffice to say it opened my eyes and I spent some time there. It was like going through the Rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland, kinda.

Bought 2 shirts and some socks, I couldn’t find ANYWHERE to do laundry so I’m throwing a bunch of stuff out, aka putting it in a bag and leaving it on a street corner. Someone will find it and put it to good use, I’m sure of that. I figured yellowed armpit “undershirts” aren’t the most appropriate attire for Europe or are they? Also once I land in Europe EVERYTHING is going to be through the roof and I’m sure I will be like, I should have bought more, more more!!

sky scrapers shenzhen

My friend from Manila has a big workload and I kinda sprung this on him last minute so I totally understand that he can’t free up some time. When you have no plans and you make plans with people who have plans, it’s tough, you need to give them some head way, that said since you have no plans and you hate planning its tough to do. I kinda figured such so I booked a flight to Amsterdam from Hong Kong.

I would like to stay in Hong Kong longer but on the weekend flights are like double and same with early next week. I got a 1 way ticket for ~$515US. Also I really have nothing to do in Shenzhen besides sleep during the day and walk around aimlessly fighting the urge to just buy things because I’m in the eye of the storm when it comes to cheap clothing and everything. I’m traveling, I have 58L back pack, that’s it.

I think I’m kinda screwed, I just found out there is like mad public holidays in Amsterdam right now, great. Therefor hotels will be expensive (even more so) and yah… I hate holidays they keep putting monkey wrenches in my travel plans. What a $#!$ing buzz kill.

Anyways the plan as of now is to find an apartment and just “chill out” so to speak in Amsterdam for a month and then I may return home for some festivities of the summer. Had I known it was this holiday and stuff, I probably would have just booked home. That being said, don’t be surprised if I don’t go home at all and spend the whole summer in Europe, for that matter I probably won’t even get an apartment… I’m much too impulsive to make any plans, but we already knew that ya?

eating dog meat for dinner, Shenzhen, China

Had dinner at the “same old place” then found out that next door they got a sick deal on pad thai, oh well. Hey, they serve dog there, I can’t believe I didn’t notice it earlier, there are like dog parts hanging from this little station. I asked if it was dog they said no, but they just say that when they don’t’ know what you’re talking about. Some business men seemed to be enjoying it. Then again, how do I know I haven’t been eating dog all week!? Dog skull soup anyone!?!?

Dog skull soup, Shenzhen, China

I’m going to miss Asia and I’ll be back, I love it over here but my goal was to enjoy coffee or whatever just chill out and see whats happening in different places all around the world. I think I will enjoy my coffee in Amsterdam, very much so, very much so indeed.

On second thoughts, now that the reality of I’m leaving in 2 days has sunk in, I’m not ready to leave. I just went out and hit up that pad thai stop, delicious and ~$0.70 for the works, ~$0.35 for just egg. Where else in the world can you do that? Let alone at 1am!? I will note that if I was a rational human being, I’d of gone just egg, chicken can be sketchy from street vendors and I have a lot of traveling to do. There is that and I love this room, I could live here forever, I’d say “I could raise a family here” and you’d laugh but the reality is, many rooms this size are used by ~5+ people throughout most of the world, seriously.

Tips hat,

P.S: I arrive in Amsterdam at ~10PM on Friday night so this should be “interesting” and I’ll be sweating like a Moroccan mule as I have no room in my pack so I”ll have my parka on, haha. Considering the parka cost me less than a night out of drinking, I should just ditch it but I can’t for some strange reason it is almost as though it owns me now, weird.

P.P.S: Search Query Du Jour : wife left and I live a boring life

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