Singapore instantly reminded me of Florida: the humid hug as you exit the airport, the trees, the houses and the vibe. And nobody wanted to take photos of me anymore. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little sorry about this. Restaurants now didn’t welcome “outside food and drink” (a pleasant surprise of SE Asia where almost everywhere was happy for you to use their toilets and facilities).
But it was also distinctly Asian: not quite as clean, shops open to the street, street cafes and lots of Asians. Hong Kong was different to all other destinations on my trip so far in that it was truly multicultural – part of what made it feel like London. Whilst it’s clearly not just locals, we’re back to the majority being of Asian descent.
It was a bit sad to leave HK:
But some great views from the plane:
It was dark by the time we were walking to our hotel, located in a non-touristy area. And with the night came the nightlife: gambling, prostitution. No photos, obviously. Stalls on the street hawking medicines were a first for the trip (it looked like Viagra and the like – even though this is not my area of expertise, it didn’t take a lot of imagination to guess what they were selling).
Tomorrow we start exploring, but we’ll go to the city centre for that 😉
An amazing view… if it hadn’t been covered in thick cloud:
And the audio guide kept gushing about how good the view was, so here’s what I was missing (courtesy of someone who picked a better day for their visit):
Victoria Peak has long been a hill-top retreat of the great and good (and the not-so-great and good, I suspect); for centuries, visitors have come to admire the views. For us, this took about thirty seconds, but the rest of the audio guide made interesting listening:
Early tracks to the top turned into trails, with sedan chairs the main form of transport before Alexander Findlay Smith, who had purchased the hotel at the top, researched ways (it’s 27 degrees to vertical in places) to make it easier for people (and their money) to get there resulting in the Peak Tram
Nowadays the spirit of the place lives on with a large shopping mall at the top (surprise, surprise)
“Nine Dragons” are the peaks you can see as you look towards Kowloon. But there are only eight of them; an emperor totted them up and was told (by one of his minions who was clearly trying to score brownie points) that he, as an emperor, was also considered a mountain
Victoria Harbour is one of the world’s deepest natural harbours
The Mong Kok (“prosperous and crowded corner”) area of the city was (or maybe still is – I haven’t checked), the most densely populated place on earth (as certified by the Guinness Book of Records) with 7 million people occupying just 400sqkm.
International Financial Centre 2 (IFC2) is very auspicious. Remember that Asians, in general, believe in luck. In their language, eight is “baa”, which sounds very similar to their word for “prosper”. So a building with 88 floors was always going to do well. Only it doesn’t have 88 floors… Because some have been left out: you won’t find Floor 24 (in Chinese it sounds like “easily dies”) or Floor 14 (try renting out a floor that sounds like “definitely dies”). Good business, even if not numerical, sense. This also explains why many hotels we’ve stayed at in China number their rooms starting at 8100 (first floor is our ground floor, so they precede the usual numbering with an eight)
In contrast, there were problems with the Bank of China building because the straight lines and triangles favoured by the architect were at odds with the principles of feng shui; luckily, a strategically located fish pond, line of trees and the regularity of the adjacent building sorted things out nicely
Today, Repulse Bay’s beaches and shallow waters make it popular with families; in the past it was popular with pirates, driven away by Britain’s HMS Repulse; the area also houses a hotel with a hole in the middle of it. Any ideas why they’d build a hotel with a piece missing? Exactly – to let the energy from the mountains flow down to the river. Feng shui again.
In fact, HK itself is beautifully positioned by feng shui principles, protected by a river on one side and mountains on the other. Remind you of anything? Yep, the strategic locations of temples in Champa (now Cambodia and southern Laos).
It also had more interesting nuggets about the city itself:
Brief history: Belonging to China in the third century BC, Hong Kong was ceded to the British as a crown colony during the opium wars; it was popular so Great Britain asked for a bit more land to accommodate the growing population and was given Kowloon in 1898 for a period of 99 years; when it came time to give Kowloon back (1997), Hong Kong was handed back as well
When it was handed back, the Chief Executive (interesting title, supporting the description of HK as a company subsidiary with its own management) agreed to “maintain the socioeconomic system” for fifty years
Seventy percent of HK is green, and one third of that is protected which makes it less surprising that…
HK has one of the highest life expectancies in the world (but no mention of what it was)
Then back to Hong Kong courtesy of the Peak Tram. It’s steep. Really steep. No, no, even steeper than that. This photo was taken with my camera held horizontally:
Back in the city we came across this:
Hundreds and hundreds of women camping out for the day. Plazas, underpasses, in the lee of buildings. A quick chat with some confirmed it was purely social: they talk, eat, massage, and take care of each other. All day. None of the women in the group we spoke to even knew where their boyfriends/husbands were, let alone what they were doing. Childcare surely must feature – a sizeable proportion of the women were of childbearing age, but there was a conspicuous absence of little ‘uns.
Other random stuff from today:
When Rudy went to the Post Office to send a package back home, there was definitely some trading going on:
And the tuk-tuk has made a return (I’ve kinda missed ’em):
And trams:
A snip at £15,500 – maybe I should have bought the similar one in Vietnam (£200):
And finally night fell after another wonderful day:
Built by the monks of Po Lin Monastery “for the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong, for the well-being of the nation and the people, for the perpetuation of the Buddha light, the ever turning of the Dharma-wheel and the peace of the world” the “Big Buddha” is the largest outdoor bronze seated Buddha statue in the world at 34m high:
That’s a few qualifiers, but it’s still quite good, although what part the monks actually played in its construction is unclear as a separate company was thanked during the opening speech for building it. However, the best bit was the views from the 20-minute cable car journey to get there (yep, still in China):
And from the Buddha:
And the climb up was welcome after a travelling day yesterday.
Po Lin Monastery itself consisted of the “Hall of Ten Thousand Buddhas” with an eye-catching interior of green, gold and red that sparkled against the marble floor and five big seated gold Buddhas (were they the prototypes?):
And the less impressive-looking but pleasingly realistic monks’ digs:
Then back to Hong Kong via the cable car:
And the ferry, where I rather liked this reversible bench – ingenious:
Back at the ferry terminal there was a shop with Chinese calligraphy – this is my name:
I asked why the short and long versions of my name were completely different, even though they share the same first syllable. I was astonished to be told that I had to pay to get an answer to my question. Apparently it’s good business. Except that we then didn’t buy anything despite both liking one of the t-shirts. It’s a principle thing.
An advert on the metro was a subtle indication that things are different here:
And finally back to Chungking Mansion, which deserves a little mention: apparently it’s an iconic building in HK (but I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure why – the building next to it looks much more interesting – it’s much less grand than the name suggests):
It’s bustling all day with traders, money exchangers and restaurants.
One of which did a rather nice Indian buffet for £5:
And that’s another thing about HK- after months of natives dominating the ethnic mix, I’m suddenly in a place with much more diversity. What does “eating local” mean here? Not sure, but nobody’s taking photos of me anymore. And I’m not sure how I feel about this.
Chinese people are far and away the best thing about China. With very few exceptions, they have been friendly, fun and kind. So, despite the language challenges, tourist circuses and lack of major tourist destinations in the south, I’ve enjoyed my time here. But it’s good to be moving on…
… to Hong Kong. Technically it’s part of China (a “special administrative region”), but has a border crossing, it’s own currency and they drive on the correct side of the road 😉 One person I spoke to described it well: it’s like China is the parent company and Hong Kong a subsidiary which is has its own management.
We’d taken the high-speed express train to Kowloon. Once again the train was fast, efficient and clean. And the toilet had the flush button in front of you so you didn’t have to turn round in the small cubicle. UX* people notice these little things, you know 😉
At the border, things were serious and official, but still fast and efficient. So why was it taking Rudy so long to get through? I peered over. He was laughing and chatting with immigration officer #facepalm. Eventually he emerged and we compared tickets (no stamps here anymore). I’d been given a six-month stay (UK), him only three (Belgium). “Yeah,” he explained, “she wants to see me again soon.” I couldn’t help but feel there may have been an element of truth in this 😉
It didn’t take long to start seeing the differences from mainland China, such as:
Throne toilets, with paper provided
No spitting on the street
No table bars to whack my knees on
People queue to get on the bus
Nearly everyone speaks English
Signs are in English and Chinese rather than Chinese and (maybe) English
But some things were the same:
Shops open out on to the street
Squat toilets were also available in public conveniences
And I felt oddly at home. Or maybe it’s not odd as Hong Kong was a British territory from the opium wars until 1997 and so much reminded me of London, little things like the escalators: stand on the right, walk on the left. And the high prices and tiny hotel rooms. And I mean tiny: two beds and a bathroom in 7sqm. But it was surprisingly functional – the shower was over the toilet, the beds butted up in an L-shape and plenty of under-bed storage.
Confectionery in the 7-11 also reminded me of home:
But then she short-changed me to remind me that I was, in fact, still a tourist 🙁
Spent a very pleasant hour touring the harbour (one of only three natural harbours in the world – can you name the other two?**):
With this guy spending the entire trip (really, the *entire* trip) making a video starring himself:
Hong Kong Convention Centre was designed to resemble a soaring bird, and hosted the Sino British handover in July 1997:
The Colosseum’s claim to fame stems from its construction method – the roof was built and the hoisted up before the non-load-bearing walls were added to create this striking inverted pyramid (image courtesy of Google as mine were rubbish):
This clock tower is the only thing left of the railway terminus of the line from Canton (as was, now Guangzhou), somewhat ironically the rest was demolished to make way for the cultural centre:
Also, a mini London Eye:
A beautiful sunset:
And a visit from some of the locals:
Rudy admitted the light show (“it’s amazing”) was a bit of a let down. But the general ambience and friendly vibe made it worthwhile.
Random stuff from today starts at breakfast when my noodle soup had a salted duck egg in it (remember those Laotian snacks from a few weeks ago?):
It was actually really good 🙂
David and Lucy: they were on our train and we got chatting at the border. They met online three years ago and struck up a friendship (he’s late fifties, she nineteen). I obviously didn’t pry (another western trait) but I got the impression he’d had a major life event (divorce?) and decided to teach in China. Came over in September, secured a position very, very quickly, had to return home and was now out a few weeks before the start of term to explore. Step in Lucy who came across as a shy, intelligent and kind lady. If you’re a native English speaker with reasonably good literacy, the world really is your oyster. I wish them both all the very best 🙂
Finally, a T-shirt slogan that makes sense:
Overall a very enjoyable introduction to Hong Kong 🙂
* UX = User eXperience = making things easy and satisfying to learn and use.
** San Francisco and Sydney (is this actually right? I mean they might not be big, but I’m sure there are more natural harbours than this..? Update: Wiki advises there are, in fact, lots of natural harbours in the world – I lost count)
