One of the most difficult things for me so far in traveling is dealing with the language barriers at times, and it has been fortunate for me that English is the langua franca of the world. And I’ve come to realize how essential knowing English is to being able to operate globally. For example, in Hong Kong, you can always count on an English speaker maning the counter at Starbucks, cause how in the world do you say “venti drip vanilla double soy espresso macchiato with room con pana” in Chinese? (actually I don’t even know what I just said in English?)

As promised, here are the photos from the video posted earlier called Hong Kong: Places. These photos also contain captions! This collection is of photos shot in Hong Kong to give you a sense of what the city’s spaces feel like and to show you the diversity of landscapes.

Today I’ve posted a set of photos called Hong Kong: Places, and its meant to help you see what Hong Kong feels like. As you’ll see Hong Kong truly is a collision of East and West, of modern skyscrapers mixed with open air food markets and peppered with traditional Chinese temples and shrines. Hong Kong isn’t all hustle and bustle, big city either, its got long beautiful beaches, massive forest reserves, and quite little harbors.

Many foods in China translation into English in the form of “body part” of “animal.”

I was the only apparent foreigner in the room, fresh off the plane, and feeling out of place swimming in the unfamiliar sea of Cantonese inflections, chops sticks, and exotic culinary smells. And that’s when the day’s second surprise occurred to me…

Rule #1 in travel writing, according to the cliché, is to never use clichés. But, for my first entry in my efforts to write my way around the world, I am going to be cliché and break rule #1. But, its not my fault, I’ll blame John Denver for this one.