Hayley Williams agreed to write a special series of tour diary parts especially for Paper Magazine. In the first part Hayley wrote about the Warped Tour. In the second part (available now) Hayley writes about being at The Pacific Rim Tour in Hong Kong. Together with the entry, ‘Hayley Williams’ Tour Diary Part 2: Hong Kong!’ four photos taken by Lindsey Byrnes in China were made available. Click “read more” to read the entry and click on the pics below to see them bigger!
Hong Kong, China. August 11-14th
We kicked off our shortest tour ever in Hong Kong a few days ago. It quickly became one of my favorite cities on my admittedly long list of favorite cities. After 14 hours sucking in recycled airplane air, I figured I’d be worthless once we’d arrived but we all slept good and were ready to party after we landed. A big group of us walked around the city and found this really rad Thai food joint. We stood at the entrance for about 10 minutes deciding on whether or not our first meal in China was really going to be Thai. Everyone finally agreed that China is closer to Thailand than America and therefore was going to be MUCH better than what we were accustomed to. It totally was and we were pretty pleased with ourselves. We left and walked around a little more. I had a Pineapple-mango boba tea and then, of course, I found a little dress shop. I happened upon the cheapest greatest tank dress with a rib cage on it. I had the guys talk me into buying it so I wouldn’t feel as guilty about buying something for me before finding souvenirs for friends and family. They were very supportive and I was like, “Yay.”The next day was full-on adventure time. (Speaking of, does anyone else watch Adventure Time With Finn and Jake? Yes? Amazing). The guys and I and some of our tour family set out to find the cable cars that go up to the enormous Tian Tan Buddha in Ngong Ping. We walked a couple miles, rode the train for about a half hour and made it to the Ngong Ping 360. We chose to ride a car with a glass floor which, if you ask me, was just an incredibly reckless decision. It was one of the most breathtaking views I’ve ever seen…but then we started hearing a scratchy, stalling sound coming from our car and I was pretty sure I was a goner. Spoiler alert: We’re still alive so it was all good. There were waterfalls below our feet and the forests and the mountains were so green it was like something out of Lord of the Rings! If the thought of hanging by a thread from the sky didn’t make me want to cry then I’d never have wanted to leave that car.We finally got to the entrance of the Po Lin Monastery and the Big Buddha. While most of the guys hightailed it up all the steep stairs to Buddha, I trailed behind and checked out all the souvenirs and little stores on the way. I bought a kimono dress and a million things to take back to home to my loved ones. After we had all marveled hard at the monastery and the incredibly large Buddha, we talked about how old all of this must have been. Everyone was so excited to visit a new place and see a part of their history rather than just the backstage of one of their venues. Later, no thanks to Google, we found out that Big Buddha was built in 1990 so… yeah… so much for ancient history. Then again, Taylor and I weren’t even 3-years-old yet so what do we know about these things? Really.
As if all of these things weren’t the greatest, our first show in Hong Kong was amazing! It felt good to be so far from home and feel that welcome. The crowd was so loud! If I know our fans even a little bit, I know someone from the show is reading this right now. So, I want to say, thanks to you from all of us. It was such a successful first trip to China and we can’t wait to come back.
Oh look, I wrote another long one.
–Hayley
