Hong Kong

My visit to hong kong. It was hot, crowded, vertical, cheaply confusing and short.
Hot - Holy cow the humidity here is crazy. I had a 12hour a-gunner watch on the flight deck on the 2nd day in port (why yes the flight deck is made of solid steel and has no protection from the sun). I was dumping water on my head pretty much all the time. Had a pair of binoculars watching boats in the water and making sure they had authorization to come within a certian radius of the ship. Had a 240 machine gun mounted next to me in case they didn't. In the city was much better, but was still extremely hot.
Crowded - Ok there are tons of people here. The roads are narrow and the cars drive on the wrong side of the road, and go FAST. It's amazing people don't die by the thousands everyday just from being plowed by vehicles. It was wierd being the minority in such a crowd, that was a unique experience and it was rather neat.
Verical - So Hong Kong is pretty much claimed on every square inch. Everything has been built on from coast to coast (yes Hong Kong is an island). So what does that mean? Well that means there is no room for expansion, except for up. And up they go, the skyline is nothing but buildings the size of the Sears Tower back home and higher. It's crazy. All the shops lined up allong the streets are about the size of a public restroom at your local Outback Steakhouse, but there are shops back to back to back to back for ever and ever. The city is also rather dirty and crammed together. I remember we cut through a back alley that was extremely, extermely poor, and then coming out of the alley on the other side into Plaza Towers Square with the nicest buildings i've ever seen. The contrast all around you is really odd.
Cheaply Confusing - I never got used to the money. The converstion rate is 1 to 7.75 which means 1000 Hong Kong dollars is 128 bucks american. It was wierd having 10dollar coins, and paying for one beer with a 20dollar bill and getting no change. That was another thing, no taxes added on to sticker price. If a candy bar says 5dollars on the shelf, you give the cashier a 5dollar coin. Easy peasy. Everything is up for barter, don't want to pay 300 Hong Kong dollars for those binoculars, just walk away and listen to the price drop then haggle. It's amazing how cheap you can get things here, but I just never got a feel for how much I was actually spending without constantly looking at a conversion chart.
Short - *sigh* SO because i'm in security, I worked the first 2 days in port, which meant I had the 3rd and 4th day off. Well the 3rd day was awesome. The 4th day I never got to leave the ship. They secured liberty and put out a recall. We got underway that afternoon early because of an incoming typhoon, so I only got one day. I had planned on using my 2nd day for buying gifts for everyone and post cards and what not, so I didn't manage to get a single thing for anyone. I was SO bummed I couldn't believe it. They had some really cool stuff there, and I just didn't have the room to get stuff the first day out. MAN i still can't believe it. Oh well, i'll be back eventually i'm sure.
That's about it for my report from hong kong for now. I took plenty of pictures, and will make them available as soon as I can manage it. Much love from China.
TKW

ugh

Allow me to complain a little.
well since we are going overseas, we have to make sure that all out missile launchers are fully loaded and ready to fire. Who loads the missiles into the launhcers you asK. Well, that's my division of course. We own all of the ships self defense systems. But i'm getting ahead of myself.
About a week ago, everyone had to be innoculated with the smallpox vaccine. It is a wonderfully painful series of about 15 consecutive punctures, much like a slow tattoo. It hurt, but wasn't all that bad. After about a week, a nice large smallpox blister appears on the skin, stays there for awhile, slowly dries and then falls off, leaving a permanent scar. Well it's been about a week now, and the lymph node in my armpit on that arm has swollen and hurts quite a bit. This is normal, but it really is quite an annoying place for pain, especially when combined with the large blister on my arm that itches like mad and can't be touched lest I spread smallpox all over my body. While dealing with that, yesterday I had to get my 2nd anthrax shot in a series of 3 on my other arm. That shot is really no big deal but it does burn brightly from time to time seemingly at random times. Also yesterday was the first day of missile loading on my system. I was handling missiles all day, and after we were finished, I stressed my back quite thoroughly. So, while lying in my rack last night, I was in complete misery let me tell you. A throbbing, itching smallpox blister on one shoulder with a swollen and painful armpit, a burning athrax wound on the other shoulder and muscle spasms deep in my back twisting pain through my spine everytime I moved even a little. My back still hurts a lot today. I love the NAVY!
well sheesh Wilson life sucks! ohhh not really there's good stuff too. It was a gorgeous day yesterday and it was good work on the flightdeck of this massive carrier cutting through the ocean and I got some great pictures of the day's work. I'll be sure to upload them here when I can. We are in more tropical waters now as the temp of the ocean here is close to 75degrees. It's really cool how the water changes colors dependsing on where we sail. The other day I saw a school of flying fish off my deck the other day. We were doing radar maintenance and one of my friends pointed them out. They were about the size of small cats, and there were about 30 of them. They all just come out of the water all at the same time and glide like one animal allong the surface of the water for a pretty good distance before all diving back in and repetaing. it was really cool.
That's all from Wilson for now, gotta get back to the deckplates. Love to all.