HONG KONG -

We were absolutely thrilled to arrive in Hong Kong, where we would be staying for 6 whole days - finally a place to unpack our things and enjoy a slow pace to sight-seeing! We groggily wiped our eyes as our taxi dropped us at the doorway of the Mirador Mansion in Kowloon, where we had booked accommodations with none other than USA Hotel. WELL, the USA Hotel looks much different on hostelworld.com than it does in real life! The Mirador Mansion was perhaps once a mansion 300 years ago, but is much more like a shopping center with sketchy items ranging from post cards and silk to sex toys and fake Rolex watches. I showed a woman who looked somewhat authoritative my confirmation email with USA Hotel's address, and she shoved us into a tiny elevator that only serviced certain floors, and punched the 13 button. We practically exploded out of the elevator, pushed by everyone else and a foul stench, and found ourselves in what seemed like a very poor apartment building. A nice woman recognized our disbelief and beckoned us to a yellow door with a small tinted window, where we were to check in. Then a man took us down to the 10th floor, through 2 more yellow doors, and BOOM, we were in the USA Hotel! Only this place was the size of a shoebox - seriously: barely enough room for 2 twin "beds," and a bathroom the size of half of a small shower stall. The walls were covered with very thick, hideous, floral wallpaper and fake wood paneling. There were no windows, and an air conditioning unit that dripped onto Cam's bed and shot out hot air, but we had to keep it on for some sort of circulation. THANK GOODNESS for the tv, miraculously mounted in the corner above my bed, so that we could again have hot dates with Star World when trying to fall asleep each night. Without windows, or any sign of daylight, it was often difficult to tell what time of day it was!

Fret not, this was the only setback to the HK trip. After a much-needed nap, we ventured down to the waterfront on the Kowloon side, and had the most glorious first view of the Hong Kong skyline. Don't worry, we only took about 100 photos of the vista - complete with an old Chinese fishing junk, red sails and all, as it cruised slowly across the skyscrapers. We also posed with Jackie Chan and put our hands on Connie Chan and Bruce Lee's stars on the Avenue of Stars along the waterfront.

We wandered up to the Jade market, first of many outdoor markets in Kowloon, where we did some damage in the jade and pearl departments. On our way home we hit up the Temple Street night market, where Cam found a fabulous leather bag (to be seen in most photos to come!).

We were treated to TWO separate outings at the Peninsula Hotel, thanks to David Barrett. We got all gussied up in the cutest outfits to come out of our bags, and enjoyed high tea in the lobby, as well as cocktails up on the top floor. We felt quite posh the night we stepped foot in Felix, on the 28th floor, and were treated like princesses as we presented our gift certificate. Within minutes of being seated, the manager came over to ask if we would accept champagne sent from two gentlemen across the room! Tickled pink and feeling rather grown-up, we did as we'd seen in movies, and discretely accepted it, while figuring out who the men were (I would equate them to Bill Clinton and John Britten!)...

We took a day to ride the Star Ferry over to its brand new Hong Kong pier, opened while we were there, and took a bus, then a tram, up to the Peak. Since it was so hot, we were not dressed appropriately for the hurricane-force winds and cooler weather up there, but tried to enjoy the view nonetheless. Through smog and haze, we snapped a few quick photos and walked around as much as possible before nearly freezing to death. We'd planned on walking down, but it got dark very quickly and we were forced to join the masses back in the tram.

One of our favorite trips was to the Hong Kong Art Museum, where our art viewing experience was much more enjoyable than those in Europe. We were lucky enough to catch an exhibit of French artists from the Pompidou called "Artists and their Models," as well as some traditional Chinese art.

All in all we thoroughly enjoyed Hong Kong and all that it had to offer, but I was itching to get to Vietnam...

BAHRAIN -
Really nothing to write home about here. Thanks to Kim, we stayed at the Intercontinental, a necessary step up from where we had considered residing. Within minutes, we realized why everyone's response to "Where are you heading next?" ("Bahrain.") was "WHY in the world would you go THERE?!" Absolutely nothing to see, not even a good souq - trust us, we searched high and low and somehow managed to spend $$ in the one shop we found open with pashminas and jewelry! Other than that, we enjoyed the rooftop swimming pool and room service for breakfast. Night one was spent at the nasty Le Bistro Thai buffet inside the Intercon, where we were the only females in the company of a handful of American military men. Our second and final night, we ventured across the pool deck to the Lebanese place affiliated with our hotel, which was okay but not as scrumptious as what we ate in Dubai. We had planned to wander farther for Lebanese, but after scoping the possibilities with the concierge, we discovered that while we could have our pick of hotel restaurants, why not just stay within the safety of the trusty old Intercon?!
We also must admit that we fell in love with cable television. We found 2 English language channels, one of which was Star World and WONDERFUL. We enjoyed a few too many awful movies to help us fall asleep, including our new favorite, Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle and a couple of cheesy romances. Needless to say, we were ready to go when the time came to fly to Hong Kong!

DUBAI -
First of all, we apologize for the delay on these next few entries... the lack of updates is a sign that we have been kept busy since our time in Praha!
We were greeted at the Dubai airport at 2 am to lines of mostly Pakistani and Indian men, staring at those of us who had arrived in the stifling heat as we filtered out to find taxis. We immediately realized that we could no longer blend in as easily with "locals" as we had in Europe (we also learned that these men usually have no purpose to their visit to the airport!) The taxi to us to The Springs, where we were to stay with Sam, Heather (Cam's step-sister) and Rob's friend. At 4 Am when we arrived, we soon learned Sam had only just arrived home after a night out on the town (Thursday nights are our combined Friday and Saturday night, as Friday is the only day most have off for the weekend in Dubai). After only minutes of conversation, there was a knock at the door and little did we know, our entertainment for the night had arrived. Toby and Martin are Sam's German neighbors, basically the equivalent of Sam's Cosmo Kramer, who had also been out thoroughly enjoying themselves. Totally sober, we ended up dancing to "I've Had the Time of My Life," as well as belting out some David Hasselhoff classics. The night was topped off with Martin trying to the do "the lift" with Molly, while Toby kept adjusting my stance and pushing my chin up and making sure I was looking him straight in the eyes. Clearly, Tobs has seen Dirty Dancing a few too many times! To give you a fair description, Toby is a petit and very charming man, while Martin is taller and very German, and both quite proud to be German. (Martin couldn't stop talking about his little village in Germany, while Toby was ecstatic to return home for the holidays so he could meet some beautiful German women in the town Christmas fair over hot wine.) We went to bed with the rising sun and could only dread the heat we would wake up to. We took a taxi to Jumeriah Beach Club, the ultimate in private clubs, and left Sam contemplating if he was in any state to be driving his pick-up truck into the desert for an overnight and some dune-buggying and ATVing with 20 of his closest friends.
Thanks to Kim, Rob's business partner, we were treated to one of the nicest beaches either of us have either seen. It was perfect and just what the doctor ordered after leaving nice cold snow flurries in Prague and Vienna.
Kim's husband Cliff picked us up after our day of sunbathing and brought us to their lovely old "villa", really more like a palace, complete with wonderful staff and their 2 beautiful sons, Christopher 4 and Andrew 8 months.
The next day was our big desert safari, compliments of Alpha Tours, kindly suggested by our STA travel agent, Deirdre. A white Toyota Land Cruiser picked us up from a hotel location and we piled in with a British couple and a Greek couple. The 40 minute ride out to the desert was unbelievable, passing all the present and future construction sites of Dubailand and Sports City--these places the likes of Disney Land, times a million. The desert was amazing, just as we'd pictured it--tons of sand! Our excitement for our exotic desert safari soon fizzled, when our Land Cruiser pulled up next to 20 other identical 4WD units. We all got out to take pictures, beautiful photos with blue sky and red sandy dunes in the background and the sound of ATVs buzzing behind us. After 10 minutes, all the drivers started beeping their horns frantically and we all piled back in. People with weak stomachs would not enjoy the next part of our adventure, the sand "surfing" as they call it. The driver literally surfed down the dunes, following all the other little white Cruisers in front of us. He would quickly accelerate to the top of a dune and then side-slip down the other side, carefully avoiding the hazard lights of the trucks in front of us, also "surfing" the sands.
Our night ended at a Bedouin camp, with everything from camel rides to Henna tattoos and belly dancing. Molly and I found the perfect spot in a nice little corner, sitting on pillows, and dined on a fabulous traditional Lebanese meal of kebabs, hummus, babah-ganoush, pita bread, and a delicious salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, mint, and little pieces of toasted pita. Yum, yum.
All in all, we both agree Dubai is the most incredible city anyone can ever imagine - literally. It is truly indescribable, but if we had to we would compare it to Las Vegas and DisneyWorld on steroids, each new building bigger and better than the last. If you would like a honest answer, any and all of the latest articles (Vanity Fair) and news programs seems quite accurate in their description of this fast growing city!