Friday, July 07, 2006
I arrived in Hong Kong on 10th June. I had booked a cheap hotel over the internet. It was in Kowloon, a district on the mainland just north of the island which contains the city cente. When I arrived in Kowloon, I scanned the street in the area where it should have been, and my eyes came to rest on the shittiest looking building in the street. It looked like a bomb had hit it. My hotel was in there. I caught the lift to the 15th floor and found the reception. This was merely a desk inside a door; the room stretched further back into the building - dingy and narrow with bunks on each side. I couldn't believe it when I was shown to one of these bunks. I had at least expected a room with a door I could lock, not this...area which anyone could walk into. I'd had a long journey and would have loved to relax, but didn't feel particularly relaxed in there. The alternative was to go out somewhere...but I hated the idea of leaving my bag unattended there. In summary, I wasn't happy.
I took my valuables with me and walked down to the waterfront to find the tourist information office. Indian men kept aprehending me and asking me if I wanted a tailor (did I really look that badly dressed? (yes.) ) If not that, they'd ask if I wanted a cheap watch. Looking back now that I'm used to India, I'm wondering what the problem was. But I remember at the time I really didn't like it. Arriving in Hong Kong had actually come as a huge culture shock. I'd been expecting it to be similar to Japan, but in many ways it was much less developed and more chaotic.
The tourist information people told me about some big screens in shopping centres which were showing the football. (Today was England's first match, v Paraguay). I set off to find them using the underground system. I like the underground trains there. They have a very clean and efficient feel to them, partly because the insides of the carriages aren't plastered with adverts. In the train is a map of the whole network with a light for each station; little arrows show you where the train is going, and whole lines flash when you can interchange to them. That pleased me. The shopping centres, however, were depressing and I decided I didn't want to watch the football there. I continued round the subway and ended up on Hong Kong island proper. I found an internet cafe, went to the website where I'd booked the hotel, and reread its review. It said "If you want somewhere a bit nicer, then we recommend you stay at x or y. Now, if you're still reading, you're clearly looking for the cheapest place in town...this is the place for you...etc." I guess I should have read between the lines. I looked at the comments customers had posted, and they all said security was good at the hotel. This made me feel a lot better about staying there.
I then went across to an area with lots of western-style bars, which had been invaded by the English. I watched England v Paraguay there, which was fun.
Do you remember the woman, Memie, who I met at a hotel in Quito back in February? She said I should give her a call when I got to Hong Kong. Well, I had done just that, so the next day we met up and she showed me around. First we visited the Chinese University of Hong Kong where she works. We had a delicious Cantonese-style meal at the staff restaurant, which Memie paid for. Then we went to do a 'heritage trail' in an outlying village. I was excited about getting out of the city and seeing what the 'countryside' part of Hong Kong was like. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite like this. Urban sprawl had enveloped everything, and the 'village' could just me made out as an area of smaller and older buildings. We walked around and saw some nice temples...but they looked very abandoned and run down. It's a shame the authorities have neglected this aspect of the city and its tourism potential, especially when you compare it to the other aspects of the city which are clearly swimming in wealth. It was a very enjoyable day and great having a local guide, and it was so good of Memie to give up all that time for someone she'd met for 5 minutes, so I was very grateful.
I'd heard about a laser show in the evening, so I walked down to the waters edge. Before then I hadn't even been able to see across the harbour to Hong Kong island, it was so misty. Now it had cleared up. I saw the skyline for the first time and was absolutely dazzled - it looked something like this:
It was so bright and colourful and...I guess...futuristic. I'd never seen anything like it before. I just caught the end of the laser show. Music was playing and lasers were flashing from along the waterfront, and also from all the way across the harbour from the top of some of the skyscrapers. Because of the huge distance between the lasers, it seemed magic that they were perectly synchronised, and it made an impressive spectacle. I stood in awe for a moment, then realised it wouldn't be that difficult to set up. At the end a recorded voice announced triamphantly 'Thank you for watching "A Symphony of Light" ' which made me snigger because of the cheesyness. There's actually quite a lot of cheese evident in Hong Kong: the area from where I was watching is was called "The Avenue of Stars" and they've done that thing where they get film stars to put their hand prints in slabs on the ground.
I had one more full day in Hong Kong and I crammed quite a lot in.First I took the ferry across to Hong Kong island and looked around. The area immediately by the dock looks like a world class financial centre. All the big companies have their own flashy skyscraper, and at ground level it's all perfectly manacured parks and arial walkways connecting the buildings. I then hopped on a tram. Literally two blocks along, the contrast is incredible. Suddenly you're in a bustling, chaotic Asian city. Every inch of space above the street is filled with those huge, colourful signs with confusing Chinese letters. The pavements are packed with market stalls and a mass of people.
I then decided to go up the mid-levels escalators. The city spreads backwards up the mountain. It's a bit of a slog up there...so why put people to all that effort when you can just install some escalators! I found the concept very exciting. Half way up I stopped at an Indian restaurant and had the most amazing all you can eat buffet lunch. I felt quite sorry for them: they had all this beautifully presented food spread out and it was all totally untouched, because I was their only customer. I'm glad I helped them get through a bit of it. I then continued to the top of the escalators which was something of an anticlimax - it just ends at a normal street. I then got caught in the biggest rain storm and got saturated. I took shelter in the zoo and pondered how good that it's freely open for people to walk through. I think most of the animals were sheltering, though. I then got distracted by a walk-through aviary before finally reaching my destination: the Museum of Tea Ware. That place was amazing. I'd faffed so much that I only had 45 minutes before it closed - I really wish I could have had longer. I had no idea that tea goes back so far in history, nor that there were so many types of tea. When I came out, I really wanted a cup of tea, so I visited the frightfully expensive and posh tea rooms next door. I tried one of the weird varieties I'd learned about in the museum. The teapot was about the size of a fist, and the cup the size of a thimble. The waitress went through this elaborate routine which included pouring water into the pot then pouring it all out - this was repeated about 6 times before I got to drink it. The tea wasn't that great, but it was a fun experience.
In the evening, I took the tram up the mountain in the centre of the island. This was spectacular: there was the same dazzling array of colourful skyscrapers as the night before, but now I was looking at them from above.
I must mention the obsession with shopping centres. There are no shops on the streets - they're exclusively defined to generic, sterile, enclosed, air-conditioned shopping centres. You'll never find a simple subway to cross a road - instead you'll use a subteranian shopping centre. If you try to cross a road over a bridge, the walkway will continue into the first floor of the building, and you'll find yourself in a shopping centre. There was even one at the top of the mountian. I picked up a tourist map and it had some suggested itineries you could follow during your stay in Hong Kong: a 'sightseeing itinerary', an 'eating itinerary' and a 'shoping itinerary'. I just think that attitude defies belief - why would you come to a city halfway across the world with a vibrant culture and some incredible sights, then spend all your time in a shopping centre identical to one in any westen city?
During the night, the air-conditioning was on in the room. Stepping out of the door in the morning was just incredible - it was like stepping into a sauna. It must have been the most humid conditions I've ever experienced. My glassed steamed up immediately. I would have loved to take a photo of the hotel building to show how bad it looked, but this was impossible. Within a second my camera lens was totally fogged up. I had one more sight, a giant seated Buddha, that I wanted to visit before my flight. But it was hot, sticky, misty and I was carrying my backpack, so it clearly wasn't the ideal conditions for sightseeing. I took the train, then a bus - getting there took nearly 2 hours. Then I slogged up a huge flight of stairs, to greeted by this view:
It was so misty that, despite standing right next to it, I couldn't even see the Buddha. So it had been a total waste of time...but quite funny. I caught a bus and after another hour travelling, I was at the airport.
