Days 80-81: To Hong Kong

At $15 to go 3 or 4 stops from Central Station to the airport, the train is a real price gouge. It's actually fairly easy to circumvent the excessive fare due to the way the fare system is set up. On the trains, your OPAL card isn't charged until you tap off at your destination station. If you don't have enough balance on your card, your card will take on a negative balance -- meaning you can't use your card again until you've paid off the credit and topped up with a sufficient balance for another fare. But this is the only consequence of not carrying enough balance on your card, and you'll be able to depart from your destination station without a problem. So to pay a normal fare, rather than the inflated airport line fare, simply tap on at any station this side of the airport with $4 or $5 left on your card, tap off at the airport, and say "see ya" on your way out. If you have a return flight, you may be able to get a new OPAL card for free on your way back from the airport,  but unfortunately you'll probably have to pay the full fare this time because the minimum top-up is $10 and the machines will already know that one of your endpoints is the airport. If you have a departing one-way ticket, this can save you $10, assuming you've hit the $4-5 sweet spot on your card by the time you leave, but otherwise you're going to lose whatever money you have left on your card anyways, so perhaps you shouldn't care what they charge to get to the airport. So despite the initial promise, this "hack" will only save you about 10 AUD at most, which is how much NSW Trainlink is overcharging by in the first place.

The first leg of the journey was a 7 or so hour flight to Kuala Lumpur, where I had another overnight layover. Overnight layovers are quickly becoming my favorite form of travel to far away destinations. Usually you can find overnight layover flights for much cheaper than all-in-one-go flights, and you get to break your journey up into manageable 8 or so hour chunks, rather than one continuous 16-20 hour marathon. You might think that the lower flight prices would be offset by accommodation, airport transfers, and food costs, but when the price difference is often 100-200 USD, you can save big bucks by taking public transportation to/from the airport and booking a hostel for the night (for example, I swapped a 20 AUD note at the currency exchange counter after arriving from Sydney and was able to cover the cost of transfers, accommodation, and both breakfast and dinner).

20 minutes into KUL to HKG

The flight from Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong went quickly, despite my row being filled with toddlers. As we descended into Hong Kong International Airport, I could see the amazing, 50km long Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge being constructed. Next to the bridge was a brigade of boats equidistant apart from another driving in a circle (I wasn't totally sure what they thought they were accomplishing, but it looked nice from above). The airport itself looks like it was transplanted atop the sea, rather than built on preexisting land.

Seconds away from landing in Hong Kong

Immigration and bussing to Rainbow Lodge Hostel was straightforward.

I met a guy that had graduated from West Virginia University and now worked abroad for a US lumber company in mainland China for stints at a time, and we decided to do some sightseeing by foot. It had been an overcast day, and the pollution made visibility poor (about 3km) , but it was still nice to see the city and get something to eat. It turns out my friend speaks conversational Chinese, which was the last thing I expected from someone who graduated from WVU (but it's never too late in life to have your stereotypes shattered). 

At the Hong Kong Space Museum there is a photo of the LIGO Hanford Observatory (bottom left). Weird!

Back at the hostel I met my first ever fellow Seattleite traveler. As chance would have it, she was flying back to the States the very next morning, so we took a selfie to commemorate this rare moment.

Whoo Seattle!

There was also a trucker who had lived in Puyallup and was visiting Mongolia (he was Mongolian) for a few months, but I didn't take a picture with him. He was kind of scary.

Although I was tired from my flights and don't usually participate in these kinds of things, the hostel (in association with quite a few other hostels) was doing a pub crawl that night and I bought a ticket for 100 HKD. It was fun to get out and experience a slice of HK nightlife, but the only drinks included in the ticket were watered down shots at each bar, though we did get deals on mediocre cocktails and the cheapest bottle beer. I missed the last train home, so yet another new friend of mine and I ended up taking a taxi back to the hostel to bring a long day to a close.