Please Please Tell Me Now

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Doctor, Doctor, Gimme the News

February 17th, 2010
Hong Kong

Following a week of serious overeating, unrelenting jetlag and too many Tsing Taos to mention, it was time for a health check up. I was actually feeling pretty good thanks to the combo of walking Hong Kong's hilly landscape and the outstanding spa at our hotel. I don't remember a time when I willingly got up at 7AM, let alone got up at 7AM to swim laps. The old Sheung Wan area of HK houses a long row of Chinese medicine shops (adjacent to vendors touting exotic dried creatures of the sea. Did you know that scallops turn orange when they are dried? Now you do.). Lonely Planet recommended one of these shops that has doctors on site to diagnose your ailments and write a prescription to cure them. My walk in appointment went something like this:

ME: “I get headaches and have a weak stomach.”
DR: “Show me wrist.”
I handed over my wrist.
DR: “Pulse Weak. Show tongue.”
I stuck out my tongue, remembering that I have a giant permanent gash in the middle of it from an accident with my former tongue ring and biting into a pork chop the wrong way.
DR: “Hmph. Do you have thirst?”
ME: “Not chronic, why?”
DR: “You have no problem with appetite. Maybe eat too much.” (Now he was beginning to get somewhere. It was like he knew me.) “ Spicy food no good for you. Take this tea 2 times and you will never have headache again.” Considering I've had a headache of some form almost every day for 20 years, the doc had just dished out a tall order.

And with that, he wrote me a prescription that I'm sure included dried toad skin and deer testicle, among other things. We all handed the chemist our scrips and were told to return in an hour for the meds.

In keeping with the healthy theme of the day, the best way to pass the time while our prescriptions were being filled seemed obvious: foot reflexology. HK is almost polluted with neon signs of feet, so we picked what seemed to be the most reputable foot joint in the neighborhood (meaning they had the biggest sign and several floors of an office building). Lucky for us, they had a private room for 4 at the ready. Unlucky for us, the air conditioner was blasting (HK was freezing and I was not dressed properly) and my foot masseuse had ice cold bony little hands. I knew I was not exactly in for a treat.

So dug in they did, and quite literally. We suffered through 50 excruciating minutes of foot torture. Knuckles were ground into my heel, thumbs pinching my toes, too much pressure releasing what must have been gallons of toxins considering the extreme pain they caused on their way out. At one point the pain was so bad I got nauseous and almost puked. Once it was over, though, I felt like I was walking on pillows. My sinuses were clear and I was ready to go take my medicine.

What the doctor ordered, exactly, I can't tell you. It was written in some ancient form of medical Cantonese. What I can tell you is that it was not two asprin and a bowl of chicken soup. Instead, out of the thermos was poured a thick murky dark brown brew, almost the color of Guinness but with none of the appeal. It was piping hot, and tasted like I was drinking a mix of sewage water and leather tanning chemicals. They gave us these candies to ease the intake process which barely helped us gulp the tonics down. I was sick to my stomach for the next 2 hours. Gio almost thew up. Veronica got an instant headache. Michelle, who was actually sick with flu like symptoms, felt instantly better. Maybe that's the ticket – go see these guys when you're actually under the weather.

We all got a dose of goods to take away, said to be drank the next day. While the prospect of never having a headache again was intriguing, I was filled with relief when one of the teas spilled and we were forced to toss them. A hot toddie and two lychee martinis was my prescription for eradicating the muck taste from my mouth. Sometimes, self medication works wonders.

The next day, as I was walking around Saigon in the blazing heat, I was hit with a crippling headache.

What's Mine Is Mine and Not Yours

February 14, 2010
Hong Kong

That is, except when you and your gangster cronies take it from me and make it yours.

Chinese New Year coincided with Valentines Day this year, and Hong Kong was ablaze with hearts and flowers and young kissing couples as well as lanterns, dragons, firecrackers, babies dressed in red, kids with furry tiger hats and lots and lots of people out for the holiday. Perhaps most crowded were the malls. Hong Kong is littered with malls: multi-level, on top floors of high rises, in the subway. Food courts are a cheap and easy way to feed the masses, and man, do the locals congregate there.

One such mall was the passageway supposedly leading to the metro stop near the famed Peninsula hotel. On the first day of the new year, we had walked down to the southern part of Kowloon, near the water, to scope out a spot for the evening's parade. Streets were blocked off with barricades along the route, which made crossing particularly challenging. One thing to be said of the Chinese – these folks don't have much concept of personal space and they have no qualms about pushing and shoving to get wherever it is they are going. I was getting used to it, so I thought nothing of it when a group of well dressed young thugs got in our way at a crosswalk. Their rudeness was maybe a notch higher than the norm, but I just assumed they were being obnoxious idiots, as packs of teenage boys often are. The crossing of that intersection led not to the subway, but into an underground shopping center maze, whereby we stopped to watch an impromptu lion dance. I spotted the boys from the street also watching the dance, and assumed they were tourists just like us. Quickly realizing that this mall did not, in fact, lead to the tube stop, we ascended the stairs. Lo and behold, the same group of boys were again seemingly going the same way we were. I know one of us got shoved walking up the stairs and we were all commenting under our breath about what brazen assholes these kids were. 20 seconds later, we were on the street and my little purse had been de-velcroed and unzipped and my blackberry was gone. My friend's bag was also unzipped, but nothing had been taken. The luck of the tiger was with her. He obviously forgot about me.

In that instant I wanted to run down the street with a machete chopping off the faces of anyone with spiky hair, and had rage fantasies of finding and kicking in the teeth of each of those 4 little shits. In fact, if I think about it long enough I still hope they all get run over by a bus or stabbed in the throat. Save for a bug net in Thailand, I've never been robbed before. It is an awful feeling. Hopefully the Mongkok Acid Man gets them (incidentally, there is a madman running around the area of town we stayed in throwing acid on people from the high rises above).

But of course, they were long gone before I could do anything about it. So a day that had started off with some exquisite dim sum and a great mood detoured into the Tsim Sha Tsui police station. I assume this kind of thing happens often as there was a designated theft desk. Not only did the police not need to see my passport (I didn't have it with me, so that was a good thing), they didn't even ask for a description of the culprits. 15 minutes later and I was less one Blackberry, out of all my contacts and personal information, and in possession of a Hong Kong police report. Funny how an hour earlier I was commenting about that being one part of the city I hoped never to see. Not as auspicious of a start to this trip as I'd hoped. In fact, quite the opposite.

Hopefully my insurance will cover the loss of the phone. The years of contacts and lack of technology unfortunately cannot be so easily replaced. (I'm writing this in Vietnam, where Facebook is illegal. If I had my blackberry, I'd be able to access it. No such luck on a laptop.) Somewhere out there, somebody in Hong Kong has a list of all my friends and colleagues. If they are looking for even a little retribution, they have my blessing to start by prank calling Dave Mustaine.

Friday, February 12, 2010

VACATION, ALL I EVER WANTED

How does one embark on a four month trip around the Asian continent? In my case, the answer is this: with a blizzard. Following a week of loose ends, tipsy goodbyes and frantic last minute packing, the departure date for my grand adventure coincided with a healthy dose of February snow. Naturally, since my travel plans were at stake, this was no meager dusting. Instead the weather gods (though I personally blame Al Roker, just because I can't stand his post gastric bypass face) decided to unleash a massive nor'easter, complete with blizzard conditions and hurricane force winds.

News of this storm broke on Monday, with my flight scheduled to leave on Wednesday afternoon, the predicted thick of it. By midday Tuesday, Bloomberg had closed NYC schools. The UN shut down. Newark Airport closed. Airlines were canceling flights left and right at JFK. My friends' flights were already canceled and rebooked for the next day. Cathay Pacific, however, merely bumped my flight by 2 hours and left it on the boards for a Wednesday 16:00 departure.

It was a curious predicament, but over the river and through the slushy Belt parkway to JFK we drove. The airport was a veritable ghost town, with only 3 flights scheduled for takeoff that day. Checked in, hugs exchanged, security screened, snacks purchased, celebrity flight companions noted (NJ hip hoppers Naughty by Nature), and it was time for boarding. The snow was so thick we could barely detect an outline of the 777 behemoth from the window, but onto the Jetway abyss we all marched, got situated in our seats and waited to pull back from the gate.

4PM departure time came and went. We waited for an announcement. My watch read 4:45 when we were told the pilots were “trying to figure out their options.” We waited a bit longer for clarification of that statement, though I suspected that just maybe the raging blizzard outside could possibly be a factor. We were shown dinner menus and given some water, and still we waited. 'Round about 5:45, we were told there was a fuel issue and something about the JFK grounds crew being ill prepared. We waited more, somewhat befuddled, in silence after that masterful tidbit of nebulousness. 6:30 rolled around and we were informed we did not have enough fuel to reach Hong Kong and would now be diverting to South Korea (!), where we'd refuel and get a new crew. That flight time would be about 13 hours, plus 2-3 on the ground (during which we were forbidden to disembark the aircraft) and there was no set departure scheduled from Seoul to Hong Kong. Speculations began on the fuel scenario (I found it highly suspect), babies began to cry, I tore into my salami and provolone sandwich and wrestled with a piece of fat lodged between my two front teeth for a bit. Some apple juice surfaced from the rear of the plane, the Naughty by Nature dudes in coach ran interference with Treach (NBN frontman and star) up in business class, but in all we were just relieved to know we'd be getting away from the gate and up in the air.

At 7:20 or so, the pilot told us that the delay had been caused by negotiating the airspace fees with Russia and North Korea, but assured us it had been settled and there was but one bit of paperwork to go. We pulled back from the gate and the deicing of the plane started, which should have lasted 20 minutes. After an hour and deicing completed, we were stopped yet again by an unruly passenger who wished to deboard due to inclement and unsafe weather. (Guess he was in a blind coma when he left his house, drove to the airport and boarded the plane in said inclement weather.) Pilot made a generic “weather is safe to fly in” announcement, copilot soothed the surly traveler and we were just...about...off...

But then we weren't.

Cathay fed us some more bullshit about China (now I know Hong Kong is still technically autonomous and likes us Americans, but Cathay flies all over mainland China every day.) rejecting our request to fly over their airspace AND JFK closing the necessary runway due to snow (snow? Really?) AND the crew having exceeded their workable hours limit. All at once. It was after 9PM. We had been sitting on the plane for over 5 hours.

They held us lowly coach people on the plane for at least another half hour, while preferential treatment was given to the folks up front. They were vacated from the terminal before we even deplaned. A minor uprising was narrowly averted when the crew tried to get the NBN posse out from the back of economy class before the rest of us. Sorry boys, but we were down with NO P.P. by then.

One stale turkey sandwich and treacherous bus ride back into Manhattan later, and I was sitting in a room at the Grand Hyatt with no info on my rescheduled flight at 1:30 AM. The traveler in me was understandably cranky and frustrated. The hotel bar was closed. So, instead of braving the streets around Grand Central in the middle of the night to find a martini bar, the publicist in me perked up. I called the news.

Today during flight check in, I gave the NY Post a story and got my fellow travelers to dish as well. You can read it all here. (Now I know how my artists have felt all these years when they called me freaking out “I was on the phone for 20 minutes and they ran one line!” ) Genius word twisters, maybe, but hey, at least I caused the airline some embarrassment and hopefully some hefty fines. More importantly, I kept my temper in check long enough to chronicle my first day of adventure while cruising over the polar ice cap at 37,000 feet, onto what I hope proves to be a most auspicious start of the year of the tiger.