Accompanying music: a quirky, industrial OST from the quirky, industrial game Machinarium

Hong Kong

Hong Kong was not only my first time in Asia, but my first time really traveling ie. staying in hotels and wrestling with the local public transportation system. It was the first stop on a trip that continued into China, but I liked HK far more than what I saw in China (I went to Shanghai and Beijing after HK).

It’s a very clean city, with amazing architecture. I love sky scrappers, and HK has the most in the world, by a huge margin. HK has huge, new skyscrapers and old skyscrapers that look too skinny to stand.

This was a common theme in HK, the clash between new and rich, and old and grimy and “authentic”. Imagine a marketplace where you can haggle for off-brand charging cables, next to not one, but TWO Rolex shops. Why would you have TWO Rolex shops next door to each other?? Now that I think about it one of them was probably literally a cheap Chinese knock-off store. Or maybe both.

Food is extremely important for me when I travel, I find it’s the best way to absorb a foreign culture. That being said, I can’t say much about the food in HK, I traveled with someone that didn’t care for food too much, so we stuck to “safe” aka boring places. The food was fine.

You can get by on English easily.

The thing that cemented HK for me as a world-class city is the fact that things HAPPEN there, all the time, always, be it a public wedding, or baby sitters gathering above highways on their one day off a week, or public interviews with movie stars. HK set a bar for “energy” that hasn’t been matched by any other cities I’ve been to since.

I much preferred it to Shanghai and Beijing, which I visited later on the trip. Shanghai was super polluted and ppl kept asking me if I wanted a “sex massage” like, no joke, every 100 metres. Beijing was just kinda boring, and you could NOT get by on English.

Chicago

What, not New York?! The thing about New York is that whatever view you’re picturing of New York right now, in your mind, you only see from the top of a skyscraper. You don’t get that awesome view of buildings lining central park by walking through the streets, which is where you’ll spend most of your time.

Chicago is me favourite American city by far, I much prefer it to New York, which feels oddly sterile

No matter where you walk in Chicago, it’s much easier to get a beautiful, spacious view of some big ass buildings. The roads are wider, meaning it’s easier to breathe, and the food is pretty great. I recommend the Purple Pig (the waiter was constantly rushing us, in USA waiters and restaurant staff basically live off of tips, so they need a high customer count).

The old skyscrapers are impressive, especially given that it’s easy to get a good view of them, since many line the Chicago river.

While I don’t recommend doing this, I had a somber experience visiting the University of Chicago, which, while beautiful, is right in the middle of one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Chicago (in case you didn’t know, Chicago has the highest number of murders in the USA, but if you look at it’s population, it isn’t that bad). The university is rich, it has an annual tuition of over 50k USD, and it was weird seeing boarded up businesses and a cop on every street corner in the adjacent neighborhood. I walked into the university library and asked where the bathroom was. The security guard (who was a senior?) said “this is a private institution”, that if I’m not a student I can’t use the facilities. I scrambled out and asked a student which directed me to a bathroom that didn’t require a student card to access.

This doesn’t sound like a pleasant experience, but it was a memorable one. I got a clear picture of what America is while in Chicago, from the waiter who rushed our meal, to the marginalized, dangerous neighborhoods, to the dickhead senior security guard. So I loved it!

Buenos Aires

The most fun cab ride I’ve ever been on was in Buenos Aires. There are hundreds of cars on the main avenue at night, but surprisingly little traffic! Or maybe I just got lucky. Still, that cab ride perfectly personified Buenos Aires’ energy. We even saw a mid-day robbery!!

Our trip was marred by an exchange rate fiasco, wherein the official exchange rate for the Argentine peso was actually HALF of the black market exchange rate (actually called the “blue” market exchange rate in Argentina’s case, but let’s keep things simple and call it the “black” market exchange rate from now on).

Basically, we exchanged Canadian dollars, in Canada, into Argentinian pesos before the trip. When we got to Argentina, we noticed prices were hella high. Like, 5 CAD for a small coffee, in a styrofoam cup? Something wasn’t adding up. The official exchange rate at the time was around 1 CAD = 6 Argentine pesos. But the black market exchange rate (the exchange rate you got if exchanging with locals, or shops, under the table) was around 1CAD = 11 Argentine pesos! Basically, everything was twice as expensive as it should have been. So we ran out of money with 4 days left in our trip. We were eating bread and sun dried tomatoes in our last few days in Argentina -__-

So heads up, if you’re going to Buenos Aires, look up if the blue market exchange rate is still a thing etc.

But otherwise, Buenos Aires was awesome! I remember visiting a venue that used to be a mansion, one half of the venue was a restaurant, and the other half was a laid back club, with a huge outdoor terrace. I ordered a mojito, which took 10 damn minutes to make, but is still, to this day, the best mojito I’ve ever had.

The food was great, lots of beef obviously, but the portions were too large. I know that sounds like a weird complaint, but I’m talking AMERICAN sized portions here. I couldn’t believe how much food they gave us at each meal. At first I was surprised at how fat the people weren’t, given how large the portions were, but then I noticed that people don’t really finish their plates?

What I mean to say is that Buenos Aires has a vibe that I can’t really explain, the people are very social eaters, loud and boisterous, so they barely touch their food (they always finish their wine though), and seniors enjoy coffee at restaurants at 11pm at night. Overall, I recommend Buenos Aires for the vibe it has, but be careful, it can be dangerous.

About that robbery we saw: it was the middle of the day, around 2pm (siesta time, so the streets were empty), and we were on a city bus tour, turning off of the main avenue.

An old couple was walking on the street, and this shitty motorcycle pulled up, driven by a skinny guy, but a huge guy was sitting in the back seat. The huge guy gets off the motorcycle, walks up to the couple, throws the old man on the ground and proceeds to rip his watch off, and his wallet. The victim’s wife was trying to kick the robber, and hit him with her purse, but the guy didn’t even notice. Then he lightly jogged to the motorcycle, got on the back seat, and they drove off. I was on the second floor of the tour bus (I hate tour buses but one of the ppl we were with insisted on doing it, so we did), so I got a pretty good view of the action. I made sure to take off all my jewelry after that encounter.

It’s still a cool city, with many pretty areas, and great food, and awesome night life, but yeah, stuff can still happen, so be careful.

Paris

I used to be a big Paris hater. I mean, I hate museums, and apparently French people are mean, so it definetly wasn’t for me. Then I watched Amelie, and in 2 hours and 9 minutes my opinion completely changed. Amelie mostly takes place in Montmartre, a particularly beautiful neighborhood in Paris, and I was floored at how Paris looked. It ended up as a 4 day stop on a European trip I took back in 2016.

Since then, it’s been my favourite European city, by far. Everywhere we walked we ran into beautiful, old churches, or giant, gorgeous parks, or cobbled streets lined with classic Parisian buildings.

If you’re under 25 and an EU citizen, most famous destinations are free of charge. My favourite destination was the Notre Dame cathedral, which was unfortunately damaged recently 😦 I hope they open it up again soon.

Also, Parisians were NEVER mean to us, though I did start every conversation with “Bonjour”, which is apparently a must-do if you want decent service.

We went to a really cool art exhibition at the Grand Palais, which I highly recommend visiting. I’m NOT a museum or art guy (I did NOT like the Louvre, but you know, you HAVE to see the Mona Lisa), but the Grand Palais is mostly hollow on the inside, and for some reason I’ve always loved large open spaces

I will say that food wasn’t that good, we tried lots of different restaurants, and I can safely say food in Toronto is better, for example.

Look, the point is we were never trying to go anywhere; all we’d do is wander around the city, our hostel was based in Montmartre (I highly recommend basing yourself there), and we would just walk towards the Eiffel Tower. By doing this we saw the Parthenon, Tuileries Garden, Marche des Enfants Rouges (highly recommend for some interesting food), Grand Palais etc.

Everywhere you walk, you’ll see glorious, beautiful structures, which is why it’s my favourite city in Europe: because you don’t need a destination to enjoy Paris.

Fanks for reading!