Adventures on the Metro

Hey - here's something funny that I learned yesterday - when the announcement says "stand clear of the doors," you'd better damn well stand clear. Kelly was running for the train (I'd already alighted gracefully, of course) and the doors slammed on him. He made me proud, though. As people looked on in horror, he held his ground and refused to move while the doors slammed, then slammed again, then slammed one more time for good measure, then finally opened so he could squeeze in. He’s bruised and battered, but a better man for it. And I'm so proud of my hubby – he’s showing Hong Kong metros what’s what.

In other metro news, I was standing on the train flipping through my HK guidebook when the car lurched forward. I grabbed for the pole and accidentally poked a small girl in the eye. She started to cry so I looked away really fast. Luckily her mother was distracted and didn't see what happened, and the child was too distraught to tell her. I jumped off at the next stop and ran for it.

Lunch was spicy chu-sha ramen at Ajisen Ramen - a Japanese chain that's crazy popular here. You go there, you're rushed to a table (which you share with people you don't know, who you suspect spend the entire meal snickering at your use of chopsticks, but which, since you don't understand snickering in Cantonese, you're not entirely sure about, so you can't get offended, and anyway, they have a point, because you suck at using chopsticks), your food is rushed to you, you slurp it down, and you're out the door before you know what happened. We also had Japanese style dumplings and deep-fried bean curd. All good.

We walked around a bit in Wan Chai, but it was raining like mad (monsoon season, remember), so we decided to head back to the metro. Oh, did I mention that we were in Wan Chai because we had to go to the Immigration Building to apply for our Hong Kong identity cards? Just so you know, bureaucratic buildings are the same all over - lots of going to a window, waiting for your number to be called, going to another window, lots of children crying, lots of irritating people on cell phones... Anyway, on the way to the metro station we passed a specialty food import store. We stepped in and discovered, glory of glories, a whole shelf of Old El Paso taco kits, cans of refried beans, salsa, etc. There was much rejoicing. Dinner was a beautiful affair last night.