A new journey begins...

I feel as if one part of my trip is ending and that a completely different journey lies ahead. It's exciting and actually a little bit scary as well. The new journey begins in a really good way, but also in a really bad way.

The good thing is Hong Kong - arriving in Hong Kong felt a bit like coming home to Sweden at first. The weather (it's winter here) is like Swedish summer - approximately 20 degrees and a bit overcast. This means I'm wearing my new hoodies - this is cold for me, compared to the last days in Bangkok with 40 degrees and a blazing sun. The second feeling after arriving in mid-Hong Kong with the bus from the airport was that I've been dropped in the middle of Manhattan. Hong Kong is a whole city looking like the famous Times Square on Manhattan, NY.

The other really good thing with Hong Kong is the two locals showing me around and giving me ideas for what to do. The first one is Carey (Clacke's girlfriend for you at home who knows Clacke). She has showed me two really nice Dim Sum places (really good food - it's like a collection name for different types of dumplings and springroll-ich things). She also gave me some maps and showed me where I could get my Chinese visa, etc. The other local would be Fifi, a Hong Kong-born kiwi and a friend of Kim (the kiwi I travelled with in Laos and Bangkok). Yesterday she took me to the pub area Lan Kwai Fong and a small place called Le Jardin, where Carey met up with us after a while. We had some wine (the first good wine I've had in two months - aaah) and ate some Indian food as well. After Le Jardin me and Fifi continued on to the next party area, Wan Chai (perhaps the correct spelling?), where we started by going to an aussie bar selling Long Island Ice Tea in huge bowls for only HK$100 (roughly 100 SEK). After realizing we couldn't finish it by ourselves we went to "the place to be" - Mes Amis, which was crowded, played good music and we ended up dancing the night away there.

The bad start of the new journey is a terrible headache that I got in Bangkok. It's located just above my right eye, so I suspect there's something wrong with my sinuses or so. The first time I felt it in Bangkok it wasn't that bad and it went away after some hours. Since then it has appeared every day to stay for a couple of hours and then to go away again. When it's there nothing seems to help. I've tried all the stuff you should - drinking loads of water, taking a hot shower, blowing my nose, rinsing the sinuses, eating, sleeping, resting, massage, drinking (not water) and taking painkillers/paracetamol. Today I woke up and the headache was there (no, I was not hungover, we didn't drink that much) and it was terrible! I could barely get out of bed, but I knew I needed water, food and perhaps a pharmacy. I've never felt a strong headache like that - tears just kept running due to the pain and my whole body was slightly trembling. I don't mind the pain that much - I can always block it out, but when it makes me cry and shake it's still hard to do stuff. After buying some painkillers and sitting down on McD for breakfast an old couple asked me if they could help me - I could hardly open the box of painkillers and I must have looked like I was in great pain (which I was). An hour after a double dose of painkillers I realized that they didn't help much, except that my whole body felt a bit numb and that I could actually fall asleep after 30 mins more (despite the still horrible pain). When I woke up the pain was more or less gone, but I reckon should go to the hospital if it returns tonight or tomorrow. Let's just hope it doesn't - that was a horrible experience, especially since I was all by myself and couldn't really get any help from anybody.

Anyway. Except for the headache everything is great and I'm really looking forward to seeing China now. First stop will probably be Guangzhou (spelling probably way wrong), the town formerly known as Canton. I don't know when I'll be going there, but probably tomorrow or the day after.