Walking out of customs and into the arrival area, I was met with scores of eager families with signs in Chinese. Most probably names of their loved ones. Little kids ran up to uncles and aunts. Friends waved at friends. Boyfriends hugged and kissed girlfriends.

I smiled at the sight and walked on by. I wondered if any of them has SARS. Then I walked a little faster.

There were more signs in the airport. All had English counterparts, which was lucky for me because I can't read Chinese. They were a typographical meeting of East and West. I followed the directions over to the Airport Shuttle, the subway line that would take me to my hotel.

The terminal was surprisingly crowded. I maneuvered through the masses and found a subway ticketing machine. My aunt had given me her Octopus card — an extremely useful card for traveling through the subways. It's a magnetized card that you just have to wave over a reader; you don't even have to take it out of your wallet or purse. Even better, some stores accept payment via Octopus too.

I shuffled through the coins in my pocket. Not being familiar with the coins' values, I had to carefully pick and choose the ones I wanted. In my hands were a sea of silver, copper, and gold. I took a mental snapshot of each one to commit it to memory.

After I added money to the card, I walked over to the subway platform. A glass wall separated the subway tracks from the platform. To protect people from falling in, I guessed. Like a big subway condom. The glass doors only opened when a subway train was present. Like… um, nevermind, there's no good analogy for that.

The train was clean and well lit. There was a diagram showing the subway's stops, including an arrow showing which direction we were headed. A television embedded in the wall showed commercials in Cantonese and English. Print ads were in both languages too.

A guy in a business suit sat in front of me. I heard him speak fluent Cantonese and French on his mobile phone. Then he took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and fell asleep. I wondered what Cantonese sounded like with a French accent.

Since it was late in the evening, I didn't see much outside the window. We stayed underground for a bit then emerged to a few lighted signs in Chinese and English. The world around me looked urban; there were lots of industrial-looking buildings along around us.

I don't remember how long the ride was, but it was quite some time. I might have fallen asleep too, had I not been so excited about my trip. We finally arrived at the last stop and I hustled out with the crowd.

It was hot outside. Very hot. Tall buildings surrounded me, like in New York City. I looked up and marveled at the skyscrapers, then looked down to make sure there were no rats or cockroaches around me. There weren't. Whew.

A street full of speeding cars whizzed by me. They drove on the left side of the street, same as in the UK. A stream of red taxis raced out of the subway station, full of sleepy passengers.

Then I took a deep breath. And promptly started coughing. Bad idea. The air was full of exhaust, pollution, and who knows what else. I wondered if there was going to be any air pollution warnings while I was here this week.

A family walked by. I heard the mother speaking to her kids in Cantonese. I caught bits and pieces of what they were saying and strained to understand the rest.

"Welcome to Hong Kong" I told myself. I was finally here. Then I smiled and began walking towards my hotel.

. . .

Have you ever been to Hong Kong?