In this informal travel vlog, Evan Carmichael documents his first two days in Hong Kong with his companion Nina. The video opens at Hong Kong airport in the early morning, describing a sleepless flight, the chaotic bus station, and a missed bus that leads to a front‑row seat on a double‑decker bus with free Wi‑Fi. They locate their Airbnb—a compact 100 m² unit with basic amenities—and quickly settle in for a shower and nap. The vlog showcases a series of food experiences: curry chicken with rice, prawn noodle soup, a 7‑Eleven ham‑and‑egg sandwich, Hong Kong‑style milk tea, a dark caramel frappuccino, and world‑famous egg tarts. The duo explores the city’s waterfront, takes a ferry to Hong Kong Island, and visits the Peak after a last‑minute schedule change prompted by an old high‑school friend, Simon. Along the way, they ride streetcars, wander through the Western Market, and comment on the city’s heat, smells, and bustling atmosphere. Throughout the narrative, Evan draws a parallel between travel planning and entrepreneurship, emphasizing the importance of flexibility—plans should be adaptable like a business plan that evolves with reality. The video concludes with a call to subscribe to Evan’s weekly newsletter for entrepreneurial advice, followed by a brief testimonial from Jason J. Rosz praising the newsletter’s consistency and inspiration.
Chapters
We're here at the Hong Kong airport. It is close to 2 in the morning our time. We got up at 6 and it's almost 2 in the morning. Wow, it's pretty crazy. I did not sleep at all on the plane. Nina slept like— No, I mean like 1 hour here and there. Maybe 3. Total 3 hours altogether. 3 hours for Nina, 0 for me. How are you feeling? Tired. Tired. I'm tired. I'm a little smelly. What did I learn? I got some ideas. For my business that I totally forgot now. I'm gonna have to write down. I wrote down, I wrote down an email myself. I learned that Kevin Costner is in a lot of movies. Kevin Costner was in like half the movies I saw on the plane. I learned that you can go to the washroom once in 15 hours, right? That guy next to us went to the washroom once in 15 hours. It was crazy. I want that guy's life, man. I don't know how he slept that so easily. Oh, we discovered a new show called Silicon Valley on HBO that we're gonna have to go check out. We're looking for the bus station A22. A22, where is it? Airport turns into the bus stop, which is pretty cool. Oh, it's hot. Yeah, it's 32. For the American friends watching, I have no idea what that is, but it's hot. I'm sweating. Damn hot. Yeah, I'm gonna turn this off because we have to figure out how to buy our ticket, and then we're gonna go to our Airbnb place and maybe have a shower and then head out and explore the city. So I'm on the bus. I just had some terrible Chinese customer service where I'm standing in line and And they're just sitting there at the counter. I'm telling Nina too. And there's like this lineup of 30 people just waiting in line. And they don't care. The woman's like— she has this little mirror and she's checking her mouth. Are you serious? Serve your customers! And we missed the bus. We missed the first bus. But the pro is we get front seat. It's a double-decker bus. It's designed for tall people. Look at me. Yeah, you're a little person. That's okay. You're cute. And we got front row seats so we can see all of Hong Kong. We get free Wi-Fi here on the bus. What up? And I'm talking to an old high school buddy of mine, Simon, and we're gonna try to figure out a time to meet up either tonight or tomorrow or whatever. All I know is I need a nap and a shower. I can't open my eyes. I'm gonna fall asleep too. I might have to carry Nina and the luggage everywhere. We're trying to find our Airbnb hotel/apartment right now. First impressions of Hong Kong? Hot right now. Very hot. Stinky. Yeah, it's kind of smelly. It's kind of stinky. All right, is that where we're staying? I think so. Oh my God. All right, Airbnb delivers the win. Look at this. Wow, this place is tiny. It's only 100 square meters. Wow, this is a tiny bed. Wow. Oh my God, look at this. Do I fit? No, no, it's okay. These are the bare basics of our place here in Hong Kong. We've got our nice bed. We've got a beautiful girl. Comes with the place. We've got kitchenette. Oh, we have washer-dryer, fridge, microwave, bathroom. Hey, we have everything we need for one night, and we're in a great part of the city. So we are gonna shower up, try to have a quick nap, and then go explore Hong Kong. We just woke up, and it's— what time is it? 8:30, 9 o'clock, something like that. So we overslept. On the little bed, so it works. When you're really tired, you can sleep on anything. We're going to go explore the nightlife here in Hong Kong and look at the temple night market and enjoy the streets and see what happens. And hopefully we can still come back and sleep later tonight. You can look at how tired I am, so I think I'll sleep later tonight. We're having our first meal. Here's Nina. Nina's already eating. We couldn't wait We're starving because it's like 9:30 or something. We haven't had anything. We're having curry chicken with rice. The curry is very good. It's a little spicier than the other ones, but I like it. It's good. And then what's that? Prawn noodle soup. Okay, yum. Time to eat. What are we drinking, babe? Um, I don't know. I like this type. So I take it I'm taking the other one. Okay, Great! Enjoy! Yay! Okay, we just got back. It is 11:20 PM Hong Kong time, which means it's 11:20 AM our time. That means we've slept how much? We've slept like 3 hours in the past 30 hours? I don't know, my brain is fried. We're gonna have another shower because it was crazy hot and sticky, and then sleep, and then start a new day tomorrow. Okay, day 2! First video! Nina, say hi. Hi! What is it? It's 5:45 in the morning. I woke up about an hour ago. Nina woke up about 2 hours ago. So we didn't sleep that much, but we're ready to start the day and go explore. First stop, probably breakfast. Okay, we're out on the street and it is still dark outside. We are up before the sunrise. Why don't you stand in front of the orchids and see? Oh man, where's Nina? So we're in an expensive area. We've got Armani, we've got Hugo Boss and Ports, but everything is closed because it's still night. This is strange for us. We're not usually like mega early morning people, but we're kicking off the day. We might have to come back to do some shopping. Anyway, we'll see. So nothing is open yet. Nina is getting angry. We can't have a hangry Nina. So the only thing we found that was open is this 7-Eleven. So we got a yummy— what are we eating? Um, ham and egg salad sandwich. All right, here we go. Yummy, yummy. Ready? Oh yeah, sure, try it. Let's see. Oh, look at that. That is some white bread. Oh, there's no crust on it, eh? Crustless bread. That's cool. And— ooh, yummy breakfast. No, that's okay. Okay, let's find a real place to eat as things open up. Sun is coming up. Sun is rising. So we managed to find our way to the waterfront. Nina's eating her sandwich. Hey, Nina, pose, pose with the thing. Put the sandwich up. Be proud of the sandwich. Here's our Hong Kong waterfront. That's Hong Kong Island. And that's the peak behind that tall building. We're going to be there. We're meeting up with my old high school buddy. I haven't seen him in 16 years. Should be fun. We found an underground place that is open serving breakfast. They don't have a lot of stuff because they're still cooking, but Nina ordered some few things as a surprise, and we'll see what it comes back as. And they have a Starbucks here, which isn't open yet, but by the time we finish eating here, we can grab our Starbucks. We need coffee in the morning. Here's our breakfast Nina's having. What do you have in there? What is this? The shredded pork with, um, vinaigrette. It came with the ham too. What am I having? Pork chop salad with toast and eggs, and looks like that's mayo or something. Oh, and we have coffee. This is milk tea, not coffee. Oh, milk tea. It's a famous Hong Kong milk tea. Famous. Not famous, like Hong Kong's famous for milk tea. All right, Hong Kong famous milk tea. Here we go. Cheers! It's breakfast time. We made it to our Starbucks and we're trying the new dark caramel frappuccino. And there's free Wi-Fi, yay! Half an hour of Wi-Fi to check email and do stuff. Must-see thing to do in Hong Kong is to take the ferry over to Hong Kong Island. My advice is watch your step, this thing is moving. Whoa! Whoa, jeez! This is a really rocky boat. So we're about halfway now between Hong Kong and Hong Kong Island. So this is, this is Hong Kong. That's where we're coming from. It's the downtown with the big skyscrapers. And this is where we're going to Hong Kong Island, and we're going to go up the peak. Today's lesson is be flexible. You know, initially I was going to do the peak on the third day we were here, and I like to plan everything out. You come travel with me, everything will be planned to the day so you can see all of the stuff that you can come seen the city. And initially I was supposed to go to the peak on the third day. I had it all scheduled out, but then my buddy Simon here in Hong Kong, I haven't seen for a while, said, hey, can you go to the peak tomorrow? And so we're changing around all the plans and we're gonna go to the peak today. So, you know, make sure you're flexible. Have a schedule but be willing to change it because that's what happens to a lot of entrepreneurs. You know, you have your business plan, but it changes the minute you start your business. So today we're being flexible. One last quick tour of Hong Kong Island. We're gonna be there. Look at these streetcars, so skinny and tall. Everything is double-decker here, and look at these awesome streetcars coming by. We are at the Western Market, which is a local place here famous for all the food, so hopefully it's open and we're gonna go check it out. Okay, so we're inside Western Market. Kind of a bust. There's only one place that has food. I don't know why I was thrown at this big food This whole place is one place that has food and it's all— it's closed. So the ground floor has little knickknacks and stuff we went around. Second floor is all fabric. And here's Nina. Hi. Hi. Okay, we grabbed a cab. Here's Nina in the cab. Oh, there's Simon up front. He grabbed us a cab. You can say hi, Simon. We talked about you. Simon's gonna be famous now. We're taking a cab to go to the peak. We are at the peak. This is Simon. Where's the best city in the world, Simon? I don't know. What do you say, Simon? You've been around everywhere. I'm still looking for it. You're still looking for it? I'm still looking for it. Toronto, my friend. Toronto. N-City. Yeah. We came back from the peak and we hiked around and we're super tired and we came inside the mall and have to try these world-famous egg tarts. So Nina and Simon are getting egg tarts. The world-famous egg tarts from— well, I can't read that. Mmm, that's good. Yum. Okay, we're done with the Peak and we're heading back to our apartment to pick up our stuff and get some food. So we're at the subway about to head back, and the cool thing about the subway is everything's behind glass, so there's no way to jump out, and it's pretty easy to figure out the lines and everything. So we're going home, get some food, pack up, bye-bye, go to the cruise ship. If you want the real goods, I share my best advice for entrepreneurs every week in my newsletter. Click the link below to check it out. It's free. Hi, I'm Jason J. Rosz Fonsica of RoszOnline.com, and I want to say Evan Carmichael's newsletter is consistent, fun, inspiring, and it's the only newsletter I prioritize and look forward to, period.
